U.S. military preparing to fight the last war.

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

As the U.S. military winds down operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, it should start preparing for unexpected future threats, and reduce its propensity to want to fight the last war, said Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

"We're prepared for a future that looks very much like today" he said.

The biggest lesson of 9/11 for the Defense Department was that it cannot choose what wars to fight. Before the attacks, "We were imagining the wars that we preferred. We were looking at repeats of Desert Storm," said CSBA Vice President Jim...