Alternate strategies are just as viable as military strategies

Where would America be now, if instead of invading Iraq in 2003 for a second time they had invested $1 trillion in solar panels and wind farms? 

Here is my conjecture:

Oil would be $40 a barrel and the treasure and more importantly the lives of both soldiers and civilians would remain.  The Middle East would be full of poor dictators unable to buy weapons to keep their people down. The rotted governments would have collapsed from the inside. Real change might have taken root and without the rallying cry of America the Crusader perhaps the moderates would have won.

There are many ways to win. Not all of them are obvious.

When an Army becomes a bureaucracy, the results are predictable:

This is a thoughtful and frank discussion of what is wrong with the US military.


An Officer Corps That Can’t Score

Any Army officer worth his salt should accept reality.  If an officer becomes political - all about themselves - rather than tactical then the system is doomed.



The greatest indictment is that the "Up or out" professional progression breeds the wrong kind of behavior from leaders.  Military operations are a costly and difficult skill to master, why would you want the successful ones to leave what they know best?

What has happened is the reliance on technology to make up for shortfalls in personal training. When your weapons are getting better then how can you see your officer corps is not as dedicated to the profession?

The root cause is the same for all the ills: it should not be shocking to anyone, that when politicians meddle with the military and the military doesn't stand up for itself.  It becomes a bureaucracy.