Boots on the Ground or Weapons in the Sky?

Boots on the Ground or Weapons in the Sky? – August Cole and Yochi Dreazen, Wall Street Journal

For years, the military has been roiled by a heated internal debate over what kind of wars it should prepare to fight.

One faction, led by a host of senior officers, favors buying state-of-the-art weapons systems that would be useful in a traditional conflict with a nation like Russia or China. The other side, which includes Defense Secretary Robert Gates, believes the military should prepare for grinding insurgencies that closely resemble the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The dispute has long been largely academic, since the soaring defense budgets in the years since the September 2001 terror attacks left plenty of money for each side’s main priorities.

That is beginning to change, a casualty of the widening global financial crisis. With the economy slowing and the tab for the government’s bailout of the private sector spiraling higher, Democratic lawmakers are signaling that Pentagon officials will soon have to choose which programs to keep and which to cut. In the long and unresolved debate about the military’s future, a clearer vision of how best to defend America will emerge — but not without one side ceding hard-fought ground.

More at The Wall Street Journal.