We Need More Troops

So says the Christian Science Monitor, and a lot other folks these days. Instead, we are funding more gadgets:

...the Pentagon is continuing to fund three ruinously expensive short-range fighters - the F/A-22 Raptor, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter - even though we already have total dominance in the air. The entire budget for language and cultural training - $181 million - comes to less than the cost of one F-35.

Also being funded is the Virginia-class nuclear attack submarine, with the QDR calling for an eventual increase in its procurement from one sub a year to two. These $2.4-billion subs are now being sold as great tools for gathering intelligence, firing Tomahawk missiles, and inserting Special Forces units into enemy waters, but they were designed to fight Soviet subs and surface ships, and that's still what they're best suited for.

Even more ill-suited for irregular warfare are two other ships whose development will eat up untold billions: the CVN-21 and the DD(X), a next-generation aircraft carrier and destroyer, respectively.

Have patience, change is coming. Even if the Pentagon doesn't see its mistake, the price itself will be the death of the high-tech dinosaurs, or regretably some future enemy will show us the folly of our ways.