An Army in Transition Awaits West Point Cadets as Wars End, Military Budgets Shrink by Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post.
They were fourth- and fifth-graders when terror struck on Sept. 11, 2001, and they have only hazy recollections of the day that galvanized the young men and women who filled these halls in the decade that followed.
Now, the seniors at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point are poised to become the first in a generation to enter a force preparing not to fight insurgents in Iraq or Afghanistan but to confront shrinking budgets and a postwar identity crisis. In doing so, they will be taking the helm of Army units made up of combat-seasoned veterans…
Comments
Much as my father's and my generation had to come to terms with our multi-generational project; which was, via containment, etc, to:
a. Undermine and eliminate the alternative way of life and way of governance (communism) of our great power rivals (China and the former USSR) and to
b. Replace these with a ways of life and ways of governance which were more similar to our own. (Our group believing that we may have made some progress in these areas of responsibility.)
Likewise must our young folks of today and tomorrow come to terms with their multi-generational task; which is, via such things as engagement and enlargement, and diplomacy, development and defense, to:
a. Undermine and eliminate the alternative ways of life and alternative ways of governance of the lesser and remaining outlier states and societies and, as in the case of the former outlying great powers above, to
b. Replace these with ways of life and ways of governance which are more similar to our own.
This being, whether they know it yet or not, our young folks' multi-generational project, which has just begun.
(All the while keeping an eye on and being able to deter and defeat our old great power rivals [now Russia only in the case of the former USSR]; this, so as to preclude potential conflicts with their regional counterparts.)