Jason posted up this authoritative counterpoint to one general's "gloom-and-doom" prognosis of what "went wrong" in Iraq:

The General, I suspect, is caught in an outmoded "cold war" way of thinking. We should not be thinking of the Army in terms of the number of divisions available, but in terms of the number of seperately deployable, self-sustaining brigades. Divisions are just too cumbersome an instrument on the modern low-to-mid-intensity battlefield. Modularity is the watchword of the day. Which is precisely the point of the current transformation underway in the Army - the most radical organizational transformation since the Abrams doctrine. I'm not sure General Easton fully grasps what's going on, because this transformation is going to turn most of our divisions from three-brigade clodhoppers to five-brigade killing machines. The number of active duty brigades - and I'm generalizing somewhat because I don't read Army Times enough - will go from roughly 30 to 50. And thanks to the new Stryker vehicles, the light units will pack a much heavier punch, while replacing some Abrams/Bradley units with Strykers will gain back some of that strategic mobility lost by converting so much of our army from light to motorized, and from air-mobile light vehicles to armored Humvees.

From someone who was there just a few years ago, no less. Read the whole thing, then come back and call me a slavish neo-con. I enjoy it!