Taking 12 years to lose to goatherds with fertilizer

Mark Steyn writes about Obama's nominations of John Kerry for Secretary of State and Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. On Kerry:

Sen. Kerry having been reliably wrong on every foreign policy issue of the past 40 years, it would seem likely that at this stage in his life he will be content merely to be in office, jetting hither and yon boring the pants off whichever presidents and prime ministers are foolish enough to grant him an audience. Beyond the photo-ops, the world will drift on toward the post-American era: Beijing will carry on gobbling up resources around the planet, Tsar Putin will flex his moobs across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the Arab Spring "democracies" will see impressive growth in the critical clitoridectomy sector of the economy, Iran will go nuclear, and John Kerry will go to black-tie banquets in Europe.

On Hagel:

Unlike current Secretary Leon Panetta, who's strongly opposed to the mandated "sequestration" cuts to the defense budget, Hagel thinks they're merely a good start. That's why Obama's offered him the gig. You can have Euro-sized entitlements or a global military, but not both. What's easier to do if you're a democratic government that's made promises it can't afford – cut back on nanny-state lollipops, or shrug off thankless military commitments for which the electorate has minimal appetite? a military-industrial complex and a dependency-bureaucrat complex are incompatible. And that's before you factor in Washington-size borrowing, under which, within this decade, the interest payments on the debt will be covering the entire cost of the Chinese military. America can fund the Pentagon or the People's Liberation Army, but not both, not for long.

Still, Steyn believes there is reason to question the Pentagon's record:

He's not wrong to raise the question of Pentagon "bloat." The United States has the most lavishly funded military on the planet, and what does it buy you? In the Hindu Kush, we're taking 12 years to lose to goatherds with fertilizer.

Read more here: http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/obama-383164-hagel-defense.html