thanks to Red Rock Eater Digest

Red Rock Eater Digest just linked to the above graphic. I went to the domain that was hosting this graphic and found a *very* interesting site.

Defense and the National Interest

About the Site:

Welcome to Defense and the National Interest. Our aim is to foster debate on the roles of the U.S. armed forces in the post-Cold War era and on the resources devoted to them. The ultimate purpose is to help create a more effective national defense against the types of threats we will likely face during the first decades of the new millennium.

Contributors to this site are, with a few exceptions, active/reserve, former, or retired military. They often combine a knowledge of military theory with the practical experience that comes from trying their ideas in the field. As you browse our site, please pay particular attention to the e-mails from our deployed forces in such places as Kosovo, Bosnia, and the Middle East.

These articles are written by military people. They definitely have a different point of view than someone who is not military. Actually, what's very interesting about this site is that there are a lot of different points of view. Points of view that, while still *military*, are not the point of view that the Pentagon and Bush are promoting. These are the points of view from military on the ground.

The following article was writen October, 2000.

Bulging Muscles Won't Win The Next War

Replace the name "Tercios" with the U.S. armed forces and you'll have a clear snapshot of our military in year 2000. An obsolete, bloated, top-heavy force still structured to fight the Cold War. An outfit that won't cut it in the totally different kinds of wars we'll be waging this century.

A truism of war is either change with the times or get whipped. Remember Kasserine Pass? Remember Vietnam?

And look at our recent track record:

In the war with Iraq, it took the Pentagon five months to field a tank-heavy army that, once deployed, refought World War II—mass bombing, units on line and virtually every movement controlled by the top. In the end, Saddam Hussein and his army escaped. And nine years later that unfinished war may be back on Page One tomorrow.

In the recent dust-up with Serbia, it took the U.S. Army six weeks to move a 5,000-man force to Albania—a force which then proved incapable of fulfilling the hype the Pentagon had put out about what was going to happen to the Serbs when it got there. The air campaign was just as ineffective. Even with smart weapons—which missed 50 percent of their targets—and twice as much air power than was initially tasked for the job, air power blew it. After being struck by more bomb tonnage than Ike used against the Nazis at Normandy, the third-rate Serbian army was able to withdraw from the field in fighting shape. It still remains a threat to peace in the Balkans.
(...)

The Pentagon spends more than the rest of the world combined on our military—preparing for the wrong war and in the process taking care of the porkers and the generals' retirement jobs.

Reforming the Defense Department should have at least the same priority as cleaning up Social Security, education and the environment. If we're whipped on the battlefield, those programs won't mean zilch to the victors. Or to us.
[read more]

The above article led to a similar site...

Soldiers For The Truth

and...

Defense Watch