Reaper MQ-9From UPI:
WASHINGTON, July 20 (UPI) -- If the Pentagon can't figure out a way to defend the United States on half a trillion dollars a year, then our problems are much bigger than anything that can be cured by buying a few more ships and planes. So spoke Defense Secretary Robert Gates, angry with the profligate ways of both the Congress and the Pentagon. But he misspoke. With add-ons, including the Afghan war against Pakistan-based Taliban, Pakistan's civil war against homegrown Taliban and a post-war surge of terrorist bombings in Iraq where 130,000 U.S. troops are still based outside the cities, the Pentagon's spending for 2010 is close to $670 billion, or more than two-thirds of a trillion dollars.
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the nation in his valedictory address about the military-industrial complex, he omitted the key word -- "congressional." Time and again, Congress' armchair warriors have imposed costly weapons systems that the war fighters didn't want or need.
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My Comment: The above author's comments on the importance of unmanned drones equals my own. I love the F-22 .... but it is the drones who are doing all the fighting.