The first story makes the point I've argued many times in the past (even as some persist in the notion that wars make for good long-term business for defense contractors who build platforms):TECHNOLOGY: "Military Repair Work Booms: 'Reset' Contractors Reap a Bonanza Amid Effect of Iraqi Conflict," by Jonathan Karp, Wall Street Journal, 23 October 2006, p. B8.
NATION & WORLD: "The Third Battlefront: Money; Wars and modernization force a stressed Army to fight for $25 billion more (The question now becomes how much money the Army will get--and who pays)," by Anna Mulrine, U.S. News & World Report, 30 October 2006, p. 42.
More than three years of operations in Iraq have strained budgets and resources, leaving the Army scrounging for money to develop a new generation of high-tech weapons. But for now it is flush with funds to patch up existing equipment...To quote a SECDEF: you fix the Army you have in war, not buy the Army you want for the next one.
Rumsfeld looks very bad letting Schoomaker go to Congress to ask for the $25 billion he hasn't been able to free up because he refuses to stop overfeeding the Leviathan while starving the SysAdmin.
I mean, this is exactly what his job is all about. By sending Schoomaker to plead, Rummy's basically saying, "I'm not up to this task. I don't know what to do. You guys free me from the burden of matching strategy to tactics budgetarily. Help me. I've fallen down conceptually in this Long War and I can't get up!"
Schoomaker wants 50k new soldiers, but they cost $100k to find, train and equip. And that just gets them in the game.
Meanwhile, we're begging the same Chinese this administration still holds out as the near-peer competitor excuse for continued high spending on the Leviathan to help us out on North Korea, Iran, Sudan, and wherever else we can't go because of the Iraq tie-down.
Strategic bankruptcy meets budgetary bankruptcy. Is this not clear evidence that the Bush post-presidency has long been in full swing? When a SECDEF basically abdicates his job?
Frankly, no matter how bad the Dems will be back in power on the Hill, it would be better for the troops, the country, the GOP and the world if Bush's administration was thoroughly repudiated in this election. Two more years of this stuff will simply cost way too much--in blood, in treasure, but most of all in strategic opportunity.