General failure

In case you missed it, Army Lt Col Paul Yingling's indictment of America's generals is swarming the internet, showing up not just in military circles, but also in del.icio.us and Digg (maybe the younger service personnel have just infiltrated those networks that deeply).

I basically agree with Yingling. If I have any criticism, it's that he's a little too hard on the generals. It's pretty hard to stand against all of the inertia that ill-prepared us to fight this Long War. Industry, Congress, and the military's own history are enough in themselves to make it nearly impossible to change before failure.

Yingling alludes to what is needed to fight the Long War, nearly prescribing a draft and radical changes in procurement. I hate to be a cynic, but I don't think that's going to happen. I think you'll see the US pull back before those changes happen.

This is probably what the services need to hear from one of their own. I certainly hope it does some good.

It'll be interesting to see where Yingling goes from here, professionally. Politically, I'd say he's got Congressional testimony in his future...

ps: Tom's quoted Yingling before.