Gates is setting a course to focus on counterinsurgency that will likely come at the expense of other military capabilities when budget trade-offs need to be made. The wars we are fighting do not refute transformation. Much of what Rumsfeld identified as the central advantages and central weaknesses of our military actually have been validated: our space infrastructure is too weak for the increasing demands we place on it; integrating battlefield information with long-distance precision strike allows U.S. forces to react with a dominating speed; and persistent surveillance is revolutionizing our operations.
Gates's emphasis on institutionalizing counterinsurgency sounds remarkably like fighting the last war, and too little effort has been directed toward redressing those vulnerabilities in U.S. military power most likely to produce losses in future wars. The United States is already reasonably good at counterinsurgency, as a result of the Iraq war, and the equipment has adapted relatively quickly despite a balky Pentagon bureaucracy. Gates is adopting a conservative approach that will make other, harder adaptations -- like handling cyber attacks -- more difficult in the future.
Gates Fights Last War
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