The Lessons Of Afghanistan

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Or consider the politically protected Virginia-class submarine. The Navy wants more than $60 billion to build a fleet of 30 of these attack subs over the next 25 years. With warming U.S.-Russian relations--and the era of submarine battles 50 years in the past--the Navy is emphasizing the sub's intelligence-gathering potential and its ability, like surface ships and airplanes, to fire cruise missiles. Powerful lawmakers from the two sub-building states--Connecticut's Joseph Lieberman and Virginia's John Warner--are among the sub's champions, so there's a strong political push to produce it.

Rumsfeld's allies say he has not surrendered to the military and its congressional allies. They insist he is transforming the military, albeit slowly, and stress that the military must not view Afghanistan as a template for all future conflicts. "One size," warns Army General Tommy Franks, who is running the war, "will not fit all."

The post-Sept. 11 patriotic fervor has silenced skepticism on Capitol Hill. One of the few complaints heard last week was that the new budget buys too few warships. (It came mostly from lawmakers from shipbuilding districts.) "The Democrats are terrified to challenge the President on defense," says Lawrence Korb, a Reagan-era Pentagon appointee. Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the Armed Services Committee, expressed only mild concern, noting that the budget "comes without a comprehensive strategy or a detailed guide to that spending."

That sort of muted criticism was the exception; some members want to throw even more money at the Pentagon. Last year the Pentagon abandoned a decade-old benchmark, the ability to fight two major wars at once. The decision made sense, since the Soviets won't be coming through Germany's Fulda Gap any time soon. But on Capitol Hill, New York Representative John McHugh, a Republican member of the Armed Services Committee, says the Pentagon should consider bulking up to wage three wars at once in order to face down the "triangle of terror," a reference to Bush's declaration that Iran, Iraq and North Korea are an "axis of evil." With such talk coming from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, the defense budget seems sure to be going up, up and away, into the wild blue squander.