With 40 percent of the federal budget currently being borrowed and military planners searching for hundreds of billions of dollars in savings to help reinin spending, some shrinkage in the size of the joint force seems inevitable.
The China Banking Regulatory Commission, to its credit, issued regulations at the end of last month to force banks to reinin the shadowy products, but as a practical matter the rules only begin to address systemic problems.
The United Nations Commission and other experts may fear that acknowledging an armed conflict in Syria will give both sides free rein to use military force.