Funding the U.S. Counterinsurgency Wars - Stephen Biddle, Council on Foreign Relations.

As Congress turns to the defense budget, battles over constituency politics and cost overruns will mask a deeper story. Defense budgets represent the nation's effort to meet the demands of warfare, and this one in particular reflects an underlying debate over the future of war.

A younger generation of officers and civilian analysts shaped by Iraq and Afghanistan sees the future of war in low-intensity conflicts with non-state actors. Conventional wars between states are a thing of the past, they argue, so high-tech major weapon programs and heavy military formations are dinosaurs in a world of guerilla warfare and terrorism. The military (and the defense budget) should get on with it and transform to emphasize the low-tech weapons, cultural skills, and boots on the ground needed for a future of counterinsurgency and nation-building...

Much more at the Council on Foreign Relations.