I don’t often find myself in agreement with Slate, but I agree with almost everything in this article by Phil Carter and Fred Kaplan on how to fix the U.S. armed forces. They propose, in essence, an overhaul shifting the focus away from conventional conflict and toward the kind of wars we are now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan-and are likely to fight more of in the future.

As they note, this type of re-jiggering will be adamantly resisted by the services and their supporters in Washington. But that’s no reason not to do it. Strengthening the case for reform is this Washington Post article on $295 billion in cost overruns in the Pentagon’s biggest procurement programs.