Quote Originally Posted by J Wolfsberger View Post
I don't care if its called "strategy" or "policy," but these questions must be answered if we are going to make intelligent, rational decisions about our needs for manpower, training and equipment. And I'm not referring to discussions inside the Pentagon. Those take place in response to Congress and POTUS saying "here's what you get." I'm referring to the public discussion that needs to take place about what role we, as a nation, plan to play in the world at large.

Until we have that discussion, and answer the questions above, our entire defense structure, military, civil service and contractors, is going to be the random result political gamesmanship.
This discussion won't take place, for the reasons others in the thread have given, but also I think because the public discussion - such as actually happen in the US - is going to dedicated to more pressing matters very soon now, like "how do we cope with the collapse of the economy?" Our strategy discussion can probably be held off until we know what drastically reduced economic circumstances will have to try to maintain some military capability under.