FutureWeapons

I'm a boy and I like things that go boom. So I have been enjoying watching the Discovery Channel's new show called FutureWeapons.

If there is anything in Hollywood that comes close to operating a propaganda machine which is clearly pro-American, it is the Discovery Channel. The way in which it describes our military capabilities with relish borders on the obscene. But I admit that there's no guilt in my pleasure.

I described to daughter number one the other night what our military hegemony means as we watched stories about the new F-18 Super Hornet and the USS Eisenhower. And I kept in mind what Barnett was saying about force projection as the big red circle with the 440 mile diameter described the aegis of the Ike's area of operations. That's so serious. Nobody challenges our carrier groups. Nobody even thinks about building a counterforce. Our brilliant strategy is working. We outspend the world so the world doesn't have to - and we get all these cool Japanese cars and Chinese investments for it (among other bennies).

But FW is concentrating on the second force, and they were precient in hiring 'Mack', a former Navy Seal, to be the host. A majority of the weaponry advances they cover are more oriented towards close combat.  A return to boots on the ground is going to be the legacy of American military action in the 21C, and if we learn our lessons well in Iraq, we'll be able to turn away catastrophes of the sort we've not grown accustomed to handling. I want you to think about Hotel Rwanda and what we might have done. It is a moral lesson I cannot forget, nor that of Tears of the Sun. While I expect there is broad agreement in America on such moral questions, we still are far from a political consensus. Still the Pentagon is moving forward in fielding weapons that are going to take us into the Gap and win. Special Forces operators like Mack are going to be more numerous in the future.