Gates Schools the Military

A new and leaner fighting force—one capable of handling asymmetrical conflict—is the next and necessary phase in America’s military progress, says Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Reform should discourage us from fighting land wars: “The Pentagon has to learn the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, and incorporate those lessons into its culture. Gates has spent much of these past two years force-feeding these lessons to the Pentagon bureaucracy, and his big worry is that—once he’s gone and, especially, once the current wars wind down and thus the urgency dissipates—things will revert to form.”