The Pentagon's Outdated Budget Priorities

Why the military would rather fund stealth fighters than soldiers.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005, at 6:13 PM ET

Do the Pentagon chiefs pay any attention to the lessons they say they've learned? Judging from reports coming out of the Defense Department's current budget and policy reviews, the answer can only be: No.

One lesson of the Iraq war, accepted by nearly everyone now, is that the U.S. military, especially the Army, doesn't have enough troops to occupy a country for very long while fighting off insurgents and trying to establish order.