Inevitability

Paul Krugman, in his latest column on the Downing Street Memo, also lets in this little nugget:

Next year, reports Jane's Defense Industry, the United States will spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. Yet the Pentagon now admits that our military is having severe trouble attracting recruits, and would have difficulty dealing with potential foes - those that, unlike Saddam's Iraq, might pose a real threat.

Well, it was bound to happen. At $450 billion just for the "on budget" expenditures - those figures exclude entirely the costs of the Iraq war - the US military budget was already larger than the vast majority of military powers.

Let's just realize for a moment the near-total impotence of military power in the 21st century. At the height of its power in the late 19th century, the British Empire ruled over 1/3 of the land surface of the planet, and 1/4 of the worlds people called Victoria Queen. Meanwhile, here's the world's most advanced military and largest economy - in absolute terms, far more powerful than the British ever were - and it cannot sustain the level of power it needs to simply control one small, poverty-stricken country in the Middle East.

That's probably the best lesson to learn from Vietnam - you can win every battle, kill far more of the enemy than they kill of you, but still fail to enforce your objectives. Meaning, in the end, the over 1,600 US soldiers who've died since the war began have died for nothing whatsoever. Their lives have been wasted, and if that upsets you, just remember it's not "the left" who sent them to die.