I will go check out this book by Rupert Smith. To extend my previous point, we, the U.S. specifically, needs to develop weapons and armor and do so fast. We have the future force warrior program, and other pet projects that the pentagon is pouring millions and billions into, and we need to pursue these as the results are, thus far, fantastic. So it really scares me that some politicians want to cut back on all of this, especually when such progress is now being made. If all goes as well as it is now, when 2020 roles around, U.S. troops will be armed with exoskeletons, "smart armor", on-board computers, climate control, medical monitoring, a linked battlefield. As tricky as warfare as of late has been with insurgent tactics, I don't think terrorists can argue when a squad of marines kitted out like something right out of sci-fi role into town, taking bullets like they don't mean anything and seeing every ambush coming from a mile away with high-tech gear.
In fact, every western nations needs to step up it's game and update it's military and to hell with the "peace" stuff. Wars will always be fought, so it doesn't hurt to use some of those billions for something other than government programs.