Hack is back, with Thin skins bleed easily.
As I said the other day, the focus on military spending needs to be on personnel and personal equipment, not big-ticket items. That is Hack’s point, as well. I don’t agree that we need more armored Humvees, but some kind of light armored vehicle–you, know, what the Stryker was supposed to be. Instead, our troops move about in Bradleys (tracked) or Humvees (unarmored).
A tracked vehicle just isn’t as nimble as one with wheels, and that’s what’s needed in street fights. Putting armor on the Humvee adds weight it wasn’t designed to handle. But there is no better choice than that–right now.
Unfortunately, our folks in the Pentagon are wedded to wars and possible wars past.
The entire military needs to be restructured, and the decisions need to be made by junior officers and NCOs–the ones doing the fighting. They need to be empowered to bring their own experiences into the process, not through “lessons learned” reports, but in defining the structure. “Lessons learned” are read through the lens of other experiences when generals try to analyze them. Don’t bother.
Get the young people involved, and give them ownership. A lack of years of experience oftens yields benefits far beyond those expected in any profession. And it doesn’t come with the intellectual baggage of habits from schools and commanders and wars of long ago.