The neocons are leaving, but so are the subs?!?

■"At Pentagon, Less Ideology, More Balance: With Wolfowitz, Feith Gone, Analysts See New Defense Leaders as More Attuned to Congress," by Bradley Graham, Washington Post, 22 August 2005, p. A15.

■"If Bases Aren't Needed, Some Fear Fleet is Next," by William Yardley, New York Times, 22 August 2005, pulled from web.

■"Democrats Split Over Position on Iraq War: Activists More Vocal As Leaders Decline To Challenge Bush," by Peter Baker and Shailagh Murray, Washington Post, 22 August 2005, p. A1.

Great set of articles, full of the irony one constantly finds in DC.

The return of the neocons with the Bush Administration back in 2000 was widely welcomed within the military: these guys would make good on all the "procurement holidays" taken by those soft-on-defense Dems.

Only it doesn't turn out that way, thanks to 9/11. The whole let's-get-it-on-with-China plotline is torpedoed, much to the dismay of the underwater crowd. The neocons never delivered on China as originally hoped, because the GWOT redirected their fervor to the Middle East, giving China a breathing space that likely changes world history for the better.

So now the neocons are leaving, and so hope rises again, meaning the Cold Worriers wonder if there's any chance the "legacy forces" (meaning built for the Cold War and apparently not flexible enough to have proven themselves somewhere in the Global War on Terrorism to date and believe me, plenty of them have proven themselves-just not all) get well in their wake?

Sad to say, no. In fact, they seem to be faring even worse.

Iraq and Afghanistan are real, whereas the make-believe China threat is not, and no amount of casting Taiwan as the pointy-end-of-the-spear-of-freedom is going to make it so. In a generation's time, China will be more important to even America than Japan is today, and compared to all that connectivity, Taiwan will be worth close to nothing geostrategically. The smart money in Taiwan prepares for that, the rest live in self-denial.

As does the sub crowd, which will pine for near-peer competitor China til its dying day. They keep arguing that subs will matter in a coming war with China. Good argument, wrong "war." That competition went the way of the 20th century. China will compete and China will threaten, but having subs won't help us one bit. Our exposure is financial, not blue-water.

Don't get me wrong. Not all submariners are dinosaurs. Scratch a younger officer and most times you'll find someone not totally wedded to the notion that subs comes in only one size: huge and absurdly expensive. But there is an entire senior generation of leaders, not to mention the crabby old grey beard retired admirals, that need history's hook.

Meanwhile, the Dems all argue about whether or not to be against the "war" in Iraq (even that term is so passÈ-who is at war with whom in Iraq? It's an insurgency that's close to a civil war, but America isn't the "enemy" even as targeting Americans remains the most salient means to a desired end among the insurgency's many elements, all of whom can't wait to get the U.S. out so that the main course-killing each other-can begin).

Yes, yes, neocons come and go, "empires" rise and fall, and the Dems are no closer to a conclusion about anything than they were in the 04 campaign.

As a sidenote, the WP story on neocons is a classic, which in the Post means there is a quote from Michael O'Hanlon about one-third of the way through (which, as always, says something to the tune of, "It used to be like this, but now it's more like that, and clearly that's a big change!") and then a closing quote from Loren Thompson (which, as always, says something to the effect of, "That would be a huge mistake, one that would haunt the defense establishment from here on out!"). Honest to God, the WP could write a piece on MREs and there would be these same two experts saying roughly the same thing as always. I mean, it wouldn't be a Post piece without quotes from the only two defense experts in all of Washington!

They will have to bury these two in the same coffin when the first dies, and then the Post will never be able to publish another piece on national security ever again.