General worries about U.S. losing technological edge.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Defense Insider

* The business of the Defense Department has for too long been consumed by day-to-day crisis management at the expense of thinking about "big problems," says Maj. Gen. Steven L. Kwast, the new director of the Air Force Quadrennial Defense Review.

Fighting insurgencies on the ground for a decade has drained resources from high-tech warfare, he suggests. "We are off balance in the entire joint interagency portfolio," says Kwast.

Although the U.S. military remains the world's most technologically advanced, the lead could soon evaporate unless the Defense Department shakes up its procurement system, he says. "We have been on a gravy train of military capability over the past 60 years. And we are seeing signs of its death."

Without mentioning any country by name, Kwast says he worries that the U.S. military will be vulnerable to increasingly sophisticated weapons that cost much less than U.S...