When our present rulers took power in 2000, one of the leaders of the New Team, Mr Rumsfeld, declared his interest in a leaner, faster, more mobile Army. He served notice on the Army top Managers of his intentions. In the interest of clarity, I don’t refer to the Flag Officers as Leaders, but rather Managers, since they are all fully-vested members of the “I got mine, screw you” fraternity.

Mr Rumsfeld introduced a concept that caused alarm bells to go off all over the E-Ring, of course, since most procurement honchos retire to nice cushy positions in the armaments and defense technology industries. Imagine: if we stop buying expensive stuff, how am I gonna be able to afford that 7 acre farm out past Falls Church when I retire and take that top marketing job with Amalgamated Mega-Systems, selling to the guys I sat next to when I was in uniform?

So, Mr Rumsfeld decreed, in effect, “M1A1 Abrams are all very nice, but we don’t have a lot of C-5s and C-17s to fly those babies around all over the place. And that new Paladin mobile howitzer? Real pretty, I guess, but it’s too darned heavy. I need a lighter, smaller tank and howitzer because I got lots of C-130s and that’s what we need for all my future invasion plans.”

This was part of a much-heralded “Future Combat Systems” plan the Army came up with. Smaller, lighter, leaner, meaner. Among other things it was decreed that next generation weapon system would not contain that stainless steel multi-purpose can opener/garage door opener/TV remote control with lithium coated controls so it’s easy to find in the dark. No more than one, or at most, two, leap-ahead technology advances per program. And it’s got to be cheaper.

There was much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments when this decision was announced. Imagine the shock when Mr Rumsfeld announced the Russians weren’t coming and we didn’t need to fight the Battle of Kursk all over again.

Fortunately, reason prevailed. With only one of two technology jumps permitted per program, we can now have the trickle down theory of economics applied to weapon systems and we will buy an expensive series of stuff by hocking our grandkids’ futures, and then in 3 years buy the next round of stuff by hocking our great-grandkids’ futures.

Recently Army Secretary Harvey has announced that, sadly, we can’t build a better, lighter tank that will survive a hit from the sort of anti-armor weaponry to be expected in the future. Abrams tanks and Bradley AFVs are proving to be too vulnerable to IEDs and RPGs in Iraq. So, the Army’s FCS program will have to be bigger, fatter, and more expensive. Bartender! Champagne for everyone!

Meanwhile, our smaller, leaner, meaner Army, including the much-overworked Reserve component, is dying the death of 10,000 cuts in Iraq, day by day.