QUADRENNIAL REVIEW….The Pentagon is nearly finished with its latest quadrennial review, and I’m not sure if this is good news or bad:
While some new lessons will be incorporated into the Pentagon review, the spending blueprint for the next four years will largely stick to the script Pentagon officials wrote before the Iraq war, according to those familiar with the nearly final document that will be presented to Congress in early February.
Iraq “is clearly a one-off,” said a Pentagon official who is working on the top-to-bottom study, known as the Quadrennial Defense Review. “There is certainly no intention to do it again.”
In one sense, I’m glad to hear that the military doesn’t really want to occupy another country anytime in the near future. On the other hand, given the realities of what’s going on in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, it hardly seems wise to pretend that it’s never going to happen again, does it? It sounds like 9/11 changed everything except the United States military.
