Even then, technology can't do the impossible. Adding a totally new capability to a system—stealth in an everyday tactical fighter, survivability to a Humvee replacement—is going to cost money. Force size may have to be reduced to pay for it, and the U.S. has been far more unwilling than other allies to do so.

In the end, it is folly to try to make technological magic compensate for the lack of a real national strategy, defined as “aligning goals with resources.” That is what got the U.S. and others where they are now, and it is not a good place.

—Bill Sweetman