Defending the QDR

Finally came across a mostly pro-QDR review, from the Washington Times:

The most frequent complaints are that the review fails to make tough decisions on canceling weapons or increasing U.S. ground forces facing the most severe strain since the all-volunteer military was created in the 1970s...

On insufficient ground forces, several points need to be made. I believe we have badly overstrained the Army and Marine Corps, and should have increased their ranks substantially. But this decision was needed in 2003 or 2004 at the latest. It is getting very late to introduce such a policy, at least on a major scale, for two reasons:

(1) There is good reason to hope the Iraq deployment will begin to wind down soon.

(2) Even if we started a crash effort now to expand the size of the ground forces, little could be accomplished before 2008, when the U.S. presence in Iraq will almost certainly have been dramatically scaled back.

And on weapon systems:

(1) There is a serious military argument, even in today's world, for every weapon listed above. For example, while the F22 is often described as a fighter designed to combat Soviet combat aircraft and air defenses that no longer exist, it is insurance against a rapidly improving Chinese military that may someday wind up in conflict with Taiwan (and thus, quite likely, America). And the F35 provides stealthy attack options for carrier-based operations, as well as operability from land-based runways that may be damaged by accurate enemy missiles in future war. In my view, the latter program could still have been cut in half -- but then something else, costing at least half as much (like new F16s) would have had to be bought to replace aging fighter inventory, reducing theoretical savings more than half.

(2) While it is no excuse, Mr. Rumsfeld's unwillingness to cancel more procurement programs fits within a long, proud tradition of U.S. defense planners. This QDR was the fifth major defense review since the Soviet Union collapsed (the first four were Dick Cheney's base force concept of 1992, Les Aspin's bottom-up review of 1993, William Cohen's QDR of 1997, and Mr. Rumsfeld's QDR of 2001). None of these canceled any of the above weapons either, with the exception of Mr. Cheney's cancellation of the V22, which was later restored.

Change never happens overnight, or as quickly as we wish. The transformation of our armed forces might not be complete for several decades.