The Bush administration entered office with a clear national security vision of transforming the military. There were a number of elements to this: redressing a decade of drift on weapons procurement and readiness; investing in generation-skipping technologies to extend America's military advantage into the out-years; reforming wasteful Pentagon practices; creating a more agile and lethal force; and downsizing the extremely expensive ground forces (expensive not only because of up-front operational costs but even more because of downstream personnel costs). This transformation agenda was premised on the notion that we were in a period of strategic pause -- we would not need to deploy the military in combat in the near future, certainly not for a lengthy ground combat operation, so we could afford to take some near-term risk to invest in long-term improvements. After 9/11, that premise was less plausible, though the Afghanistan operation arguably was sustainable under the old assumptions. Iraq clearly was not. The error was a strategy gap combining a decision to confront Iraq with a decision not to expand the size of the ground forces. By the time the administration had closed this gap in 2007, the strains to the All-Volunteer Force were acute. - Peter Feaver
This is why it is somewhat frustrating to hear Secretary Gates insist that the military has to be shaped to reflect the "lessons learned" from America's recent counter-insurgency missions. If the Bush administration had decided not to invade and occupy Iraq, many of the supposed deficiencies Gates has set about to address would not have materialized. There'd be plenty to argue about with respect to the size, purpose and distribution of the U.S. military, but the idea that it would have to be "reformed" into a better counter-insurgency force would not be the order of the day.
