Is the U.S. Ready for War?
null By Andy KesslerNov. 19, 2023 1:52 pm ETWonder Land: For Hamas in Israel and Putin in Ukraine, killing the innocent is now part of the plan. Images: AP/Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyUkraine’s troops are using both old-fashioned heavy artillery and commercial products such as drones with grenades attached to them, directed via Starlink’s satellite internet service. Hamas terrorists used motorcycles and paragliders. Israeli soldiers use sophisticated Iron Dome antimissile systems and, to close off tunnels, “sponge bombs” that work like spray foam sealant from Home Depot.Is the U.S. ready for that kind of war? To find out, I met with Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton—a former platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq who now sits on the Armed Services Committee. “I still don’t think the Defense Department is doing enough to adapt quickly,” he said. Current wars have exposed the Pentagon’s “brittleness and lack of resiliency, and that’s in part going back to the drawdown durin
Ukraine’s troops are using both old-fashioned heavy artillery and commercial products such as drones with grenades attached to them, directed via Starlink’s satellite internet service. Hamas terrorists used motorcycles and paragliders. Israeli soldiers use sophisticated Iron Dome antimissile systems and, to close off tunnels, “sponge bombs” that work like spray foam sealant from Home Depot.
Is the U.S. ready for that kind of war? To find out, I met with Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton—a former platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq who now sits on the Armed Services Committee. “I still don’t think the Defense Department is doing enough to adapt quickly,” he said. Current wars have exposed the Pentagon’s “brittleness and lack of resiliency, and that’s in part going back to the drawdown during the Clinton era.”
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About this article
Andy Kessler is the author of Inside View, a column he writes for The Wall Street Journal on technology and markets and where they intersect with culture. He won the 2019 Gerald Loeb Award for commentary. He is the author of several books including Wall Street Meat and Eat People. He used to design chips at Bell Labs before working on Wall Street for PaineWebber and Morgan Stanley and then as a founder of the hedge fund Velocity Capital.
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