US Cannot Afford Another Afghanistan or Iraq, Warns Defence Secretary
THE TELEGRAPH: Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, has said military spending must be cut by up to $15 billion a year and that the US cannot afford to enter into another Afghanistan or Iraq.

Mr Gates said that America would be forced to take tight budgets into consideration before launching any military action against Iran.

His plans would see cuts in spending on its bureaucracy and on equipment designed for a repeat of the Second World War rather than the smaller wars of the 21st century.

However, he said he would protect the military's ability to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said that defence spending had doubled since the September 11, 2001 attacks, and that the severe recession guaranteed that "the gusher has been turned off and will stay off for a good period of time". >>> Alex Spillius in Washington | Sunday, May 09, 2010

Joseph Stiglitz*: America Counts Cost of Wars It Can’t Win
… most analysts agree that at least part of the rationale behind Russia's invasion of Georgia, reigniting fears of a new Cold War, was its confidence that, with America's armed forces preoccupied with two failing wars (and badly depleted because of a policy of not replacing military resources as fast as they are used up), there was little America could do in response. Russia's calculations proved correct. - Joseph Stiglitz

THE AGE / /Business Day: The war in Iraq has been an expensive lesson for the US Government.

THE Iraq war has been replaced by the declining economy as the most important issue in America's presidential election campaign, in part because Americans have come to believe that the tide has turned in Iraq: the troop "surge" has supposedly cowed the insurgents, bringing a decline in violence. The implications are clear: a show of power wins the day.

It is precisely this kind of macho reasoning that led America to war in Iraq in the first place. The war was meant to demonstrate the strategic power of military might. Instead, the war showed its limitations. Moreover, the war undermined America's real source of power — its moral authority. America Counts Cost of Wars It Can’t Win >>> By Joseph Stiglitz | September 10, 2008

* Joseph Stiglitz, professor of economics at Columbia University, and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, is co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.

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