The Army We Wish We Had

As we prepare to reduce our ground war capabilities, the administration defends the decisions being made by assuring us that we won't need the Army (and Marine Corps, to a lesser extent) we built over the last decade. This new Army will be, Secretary Panetta assures us, "the force for the future."

We won't need "the force of the present" because hope has become our strategic guidance:

The current strategic guidance reflects the hope that we get the war that we “want.” Unfortunately, we are more likely to get the wars that we get.

Remember that statement because we are building our future Army this way on purpose. That way you won't wonder why a future Secretary of Defense, when we get the war that we get rather than the war that we want, might have to explain in a press conference that we "go to war with the Army we have and not the Army we wish we had."

The Army we have always flows from past decisions about the Army we wish to have.