'Competition Between the Services'

I loved hearing this in the dialogue.

The services in the United States do compete vigorously for the defense "pie." I think that an admiral insisting that "the first dead man on Omaha Beach must be a sailor," is over-the-top. I cannot imagine any senior officer in any branch in the service being so indiscreet as to make such a statement. But, I do think some think that way.

In peace time, or quasi-peace time, far too many of our flag and general officers compete for promotion on how big of a portion of the defense pie that they can garner for their service. They start to think in terms of that competition instead of how best to achieve mission goals.

Today we continue to be face by a complex situation. The biggest threat to the American people is from an idea, that people can be influence by fear. That fear is the fear of terrorism. Not only from radical, fundamentalist Muslims, but also from radical, fundamentalist vegans, radical, fundamentalist Christians, and many other radical, fundamentalists. It is the idea of some people that their cause is so important that they have a right to kill other people to change their opinions.

At the same time, we continue to face an ever changing balance of power and pursuit of perceived needs by nation states. The nation states are more careful and open to diplomacy, but the potential for differences to develop into violence remains.

We need to conserve our resources, invest wisely, and plan for the future. So, study and stay open to learning. There are threats in the world that we must defend against. But, paying guards to protect us encourages them to exaggerate the threat so that we will pay them more.


In other words, the United States military must defend us from two very different kinds of threat. And they must do this while the people are ever more sure of the peace that is prevalent throughout the world. Our memories are short and we have already forgotten that the use of terrorism has breen brought into America again - yes, again, we have completely forgotten the days of Haymarket and anarchism. War is all cruelty, but many of those we pay to defend us from war think in terms of how they can individually profit from it.