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It's much worse than an over-reliance or mis-application of technology, or having the means justify the end, it's mistaking a means for an end.

Jeff Huber just put up an excellent essay on this which can be summed up by the two quotes by Clausewitz:
"Policy is the guiding intelligence and war only the instrument, not vice versa."
and
"If we do not learn to regard a war, and the separate campaigns of which it is composed, as a chain of linked engagements each leading to the next, but instead succumb to the idea that the capture of certain geographical points or the seizure of undefended provinces are of value in themselves, we are liable to regard them as windfall profits."

The most efficient "kill-chain" won't do squat unless there is a clear and achievable objective. The other problem is that the "kill-chain" that is being used is purpose built for set piece battles between great powers basically 2nd generation warfare (web 1.0) versus 4th generation asymmetric warfare.

You don't even need Clausewitz, Powell will suffice. To use a shortened version of the Powell doctrine:
- Do we have a clear attainable objective?
- Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
- Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
- Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
- Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?

Some might even say that at some point, they're getting their wars fought for them.

The worst of it is the reaction of the Navy's higher-ups. According to a story in the April 7 Washington Times, the Royal Navy's top commander, Admiral Jonathon Band, leapt to the boarding party's defense with virtually Jerry Springeresque words:

He told the British Broadcasting Corp. he believed the crew behaved with "considerable dignity and a lot of courage" during their 13 days in Iranian captivity.

He also said the so-called confessions made by some of them and their broadcast on Iranian state television appear to have been made under "a certain amount of psychological pressure."...

"I would not agree at all that it was not our finest hour. I think our people have reacted extremely well in some very difficult circumstances," he said.

Had the captives been 10-year old girls from Miss Marples' Finishing School, Admiral Band's words might make some sense. But these were supposed to be fighting men from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines! Yes, I meant men. What Politically Correct imbecile detailed a woman to a boarding party?

As to the modern American military... pray to God that we never have to fight a real war against a competant enemy, as apparently we can barely hold our own against third world savages.

On foot, American soldiers are loaded down with everything except the kitchen sink, and they will probably be required to carry that too as soon as it is digitized. To use tactics of encirclement, you need to be at least as mobile as your enemy and preferably more so. The kind of light infantry fighters we find ourselves up against in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan are just that, light. They can move much faster on their feet than can our overburdened infantry. The result is that they ambush us, then escape to do it again, over and over. Flip-flops in the alley beat boots on the ground. -- A Tactics Primer, by William S. Lind

"IED-like device" supposedly found near Cincinnati

I know fools like you typically fail at math and logic and also rarely have a firm grasp on reality. Analyzing the actual dollars spent is worthless. What's important is $ per capita and as a percentage of a countries total GDP.

Measured as $ per capita the US is #3 (behind Israel and Singapore):
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_exp_dol_fi g_percap

Measured as a percentage of GDP the US is #36:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2034rank.html

Random countries that spend more (as a % of the GDP): Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Singapore, China, Greece, Chile, Egypt

US Defense spending as percent of GDP from 1940-2000.

But I'm sure whatever you've learned in school (in whatever country you're from) doesn't cover these sort of things. Your ignorant leftist teachers just point out the the US is evil because it spends more money than other countries, as if that has a thread of logic to it.

Actually, statistically (http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/comments/c502.htm) suicide bombers cut across all social economic groups, and are even MORE likely to be well off.

So, yes, that DO actually step out of their 4 bedroom houses with their perfectly mowed lawns and think, lets commit suicide in the name of my beliefs.

Talk about self-defeating logic. You say it's not then lead into this next sentence:

"The mostly Arab fighters who inhabit the Iraqi battlefields use whatever Islamic mythology suits them at the moment, be it Mongol, Moorish, or Arab."

So which is it? They are culturally influenced or are they not? Secondly, what has this to do with combative methods and strategic thought? You have failed to elaborate about this mythology makes the bound from myth to combative action.

"Of the 50% of them who can read, I doubt they know who Sun Tzu is other than an infidel."

How does this refute my point? I said they were culturally influenced and they are. Look at the history. Much of the chinese classicists writings on warfare spread throughout the silk road from as far south as Indonesia and as far west as Turkey. Take a look at this map of the silk road. The methods of Middle Eastern fighting stem from Eastern fighting methods that had its roots in a mix of the Steepes people and ancient chinese strategists. For proof of this read up on Thomas X. Hammes, Van Creveld, Keegan , and most importantly Poole.

Oh, if you don't believe that middle eastern groups are not reading current strategy you are entirely mislead. Here is an up-to-date news article from a Kurdish website that analyzes Turkey's war against extremist groups and quotes the American strategist John Boyd Boyd. His material is based on a lot of Sun Tzu. It states that what Turkey is doing is what Boyd has suggested all along, which suggests that the cultural influence of Chinese military thought holds true.

"Furthermore, if what you say is true, then the 'insurgents's support base would be much larger. They would be winning after all."

How did you come to that conclusion? Do you know how large the insurgents support base is? There is suggestions that is up to 184,800. And that is just the Sunni insurgency and support base. That doesn't count the influence from the Iranians .

Rocket-propelled grenades and artillery shells converted into roadside bombs (source1, source2, source3, source4.

Mere assault rifles are only minimally effective against the modern US army. That's not to say civilian gun ownership may not have other benefits, but the days of civilians with handguns and rifles holding off the troops of a tyrannical government are long gone.

The more high-tech the US/NATO becomes the more primitive it's opponents. The Chinese are becoming more like their merchantile past, not the Giant Red Horde. What interest do they have in fighting the West when they're making so much money with them?

So that only leaves a handful of states (and the last one to try to do a Stand Up Fight against the US isn't in power anymore) and an odd dozen asymmetric foes (terrorist groups, drug cartels, etc).

Remember what the big lesson was after 9-11? Too much reliance on technology, lack of human elements. We are fighting a 4th Generational foe, the best counter being Maneuver Warfare: small fluid striking teams that disrupt the enemy's ability to wage a war. Right now there are three nations in space, a domain that it costs billions to be active in. Maybe in a 1000 years it'll be the primary battlefield. But that's like the Romans contemplating the threat of Nazi Germany.

Money.

Maybe because the Pentagon has too much money. The recently approved defense budget is $400 billion, not including the continuing cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and whoever we invade next.

Is this money for the "war on terror"? Nope, as the first figure on this page shows, most of the recent increases in the defense budget occured before 9/11/01.

Further down the page, you will see how the Pentagon can't even pass a minimal annual audit, how increases in the defense budget create pressure for more increases into the future, and how pre-production cost estimates are usually much lower than the actual cost. This is particularly relevant today as there are many projects in the pre-production stage now.

This information was put together by Chuck Spinney, who worked in the Pentagon's Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation for over 30 years.