Its the only war we have, lets figure out how to win it

Washington Post:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today implored the U.S. military to focus more on wars against insurgents and militias such as the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than focusing time and money on potential conflicts.

He said the armed services and their corporate counterparts should steer technology and resources toward battling today's insurgencies because they are likely to be the foes of the future.

In strong language, Gates told a Heritage Foundation audience here that he has seen in the Pentagon a tendency to fall back on Cold War mentalities and fears that the lessons of the insurgency in Iraq could fade unless military commanders focus on possible similar conflicts in the future.

Gates, speaking in the shadow of the North American Aerospace Defense Command's (NORAD) Cheyenne Mountain compound, said there must be a balance between today's demands and tomorrow's contingencies, but said he is concerned about the propensity of the defense establishment to concentrate on what might be needed in a future conflict--instead of applying the lessons of current wars.

"Overall, the kinds of capabilities we will most likely need in the years ahead will often resemble the kinds of capabilities we need today," Gates said. "What we must guard against is the kind of backsliding that has occurred in the past, where if nature takes its course, these kinds of capabilities -- that is, counterinsurgency -- tend to wither on the vine."

Gates also criticized the desire within the armed services to fund technologies that could deal with future threats while there are current needs that go unmet. He pointed to the lapses at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where the reluctance to spend money on a facility slated to close led to substandard conditions for service members returning from war.

He also mentioned the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected truck, a vehicle designed to protect U.S. troops from improvised bombs but that met resistance because some do not see it as useful after the war in Iraq. He said it was an example of something that troops need now but is "competing with the funding for future weapons systems with strong constituencies inside and outside the Pentagon."

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"I believe that any major weapons program, in order to remain viable, will have to show some utility and relevance to the kind of irregular campaigns that, as I mentioned, are most likely to engage America's military in coming decades," Gates said. "Without a fundamental change to this dynamic, it will be difficult to sustain support for these kinds of weapons programs in the future."

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Gates is right. too many in the Pentagon think their primary mission is training instead of winning the war we are currently fighting.

More importantly, if we don't figure out how to win counterinsurgency wars, we will be seeing a lot more insurgencies in the future.

What are needed or more advanced UAVs that can give the troops a real time view of the enemy and strike the enemy when least expected. Other robotic weapons systems should also be developed. They are force multipliers that we need because of the disastrous Clinton cuts in the size of the military.