bureaucratic imperialists

Like most Americans, I have enormous admiration for our special operations forces, for their bravery and effectiveness. They deserve to grow in size (provided they don't suffer a loss of quality through expansion) and to receive strong budgets. But they need to be part of a balanced military and civilian national security capacity. The New York Times reports that the State Department and some in Congress are blocking a SOCOM proposal to create special foreign programs outside the normal foreign assistance laws, including a special contingency fund approved only last year. Good. We need more whole of government planning and coordination for national security, not less.