The Oil Drum

     I would say pretty seriously.  For background, see also http://www.energybulletin.net/newswire.php?id=7701 regarding the USAF.  
     I work for a major defense contractor, with both Army and Air Force contracts, and knew the writing was on the wall for me when this was posted.  Of course, to listen to the management and, sadly enough, most of the people I work with, "the future's so bright, we have to wear shades"...
     However, existing programs are just now starting to be "restructured" (can you say cut?) and a certain amount of uneasiness is becoming evident.  This causes me to feel both anger and sadness--  I have been followng Peak Oil for maybe 18 months or so, and only because I like to pay attention to what's going on in the world.  Why aren't more of the bright, well-educated people I work with ready for this?  Then I look at the most oblivious ones, and it seems like they're the nicest ones I know-- young engineers just starting families and previously savvy "old-timers" looking forward to a guaranteed retirement involving spoiling their grandkids.  However monstrous the organization is, the military-industrial complex employs a lot of bright, kind and good-hearted people that are going to suffer along with the rest of us.  

The military often issues reports that seem, well, rather daring.  They will research anything.  For example, the Navy investigated the possibility of using psychics to spy on our enemies.  The Pentagon issued that report last year about how global warming was going to starve and drown us all.  

But whether the mainstream in the military really act on it is something else.  Despite that global warming report, we aren't doing much about it.

I do not know why you are surprised to see an intelligent document from the U.S. Army. I have been fortunate to know large numbers of enlisted noncoms and also many officers of various ranks in all branches of the services for the past fifty years, and on the average I'd say they are somewhat smarter and far more in touch with the real world than are their civilian counterparts.

Note that it is not the generals who screwed up the Vietnam war, it was their civilian superiors. President Eisenhower was smart enough not to touch Vietnam with a ten-foot pole (and seriously pissed off the French by not coming to their rescue at Dien Bien Phu in 1954), but "smart Harvard lawyer" JFK and his McNamara/bean-counter Sec. of Defense and the Dean Rusk brain trust of lawyers got us into what was a disaster and quagmire ten times worse than Iraq.

Before invading Iraq, the highest-ranking Army guy
says, "Hey it is going to take 400,000 American troops to do the job," and so the politocoes force him out because that is not the Gospel accoding to the straight-shooting;-) Cheney and Co., guys who truly are ignorant of military history. I cannot figure out Rumsfeld, who actually served in the military, how he can have said and done the stupid things he has. It is a big puzzle to me. And how could he not have had the honor to resign after the revalations of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners? This is a BNG, Big National Disgrace. Also, why did not Bush have the guts to fire Rummy? Misplaced loyalty? The conventional wisdom is that Bush is dumber than spit and merely a puppet dancing on strings pulled by the Big Money Boys, but I do not think this is the whole story, and I think it will probably take historians fifty or a hundred years to figure out an accurate account of what is actually happening now.

The US military has a long history of tackling all sorts of issues, from technology to social issues. The US Army was integrating at a time when the rest of the US had separate bathrooms for blacks and whites. If you are surprised at such a report, I'd suggest you re-acquaint yourself with the US military itself instead of the bozos who've been elected to direct it.