Irony through the Fog

Secretary of Defense Gates had this to say:

“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it....”
...

“As the prospects for another head-on clash of large mechanized land armies seem less likely, the Army will be increasingly challenged to justify the number, size, and cost of its heavy formations....”

Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may have unintentionally hamstrung the U.S. What if, for instance, war breaks out in the Arab world? What if this war threatened Israel, but we didn't have the funding or motivation to intervene? Yet another way that a supposed showing of strength has made us weaker.

Gate's retirement is a great loss to our nation. He has been a calming presence in an institution programmed to see storms on every horizon. I'm worried about who his successor will be.