A Balanced Strategy-Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age
- Secretary Gates, Jan/Feb 09 Foreign Affairs

Yet even with a better-funded State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, future military commanders will not be able to rid themselves of the tasks of maintaining security and stability. To truly achieve victory as Clausewitz defined it -- to attain a political objective -- the United States needs a military whose ability to kick down the door is matched by its ability to clean up the mess and even rebuild the house afterward.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/200901...-pentagon.html

IMO, Secretary Gates listened to the collective debate/voices of Gentile, Nagl, Bacevich, and others and begun setting forth to define a National Security Strategy with the necessary Ways, Ends, Means to provide a pragmatic, realistic approach to cope with future national security threats and define American foreign policy.

Personally, it is very uplifting reading his words. I look foward to hearing others opinions as the debate continues.

v/r

Mike