They are the ones who think and talk almost exclusively in terms of budgets, programs, and weapon systems; who speak in tongues about "resetting" and "rebalancing" to demonstrate how au courant they are; who ignore or assume away more fundamental questions about military purpose, function, and use. Strategically minded visionaries, in contrast, few in number to begin with, are a critically endangered species who have little or no voice.

It is well past time we gave voice to such visionaries, where they can be found, lest we squander what, arguably, is a unique historical opportunity to reengineer America's defense posture and transform its approach to national security affairs. Now, as never before in recent memory, we must give serious thought to reconceptualizing what the military is and what purposes it serves; redefining what the military properly does and how it properly ought to operate; reorienting the military from what it has been and done historically to what it ought to be and do in a future that needn't be an unimaginative, counterproductive repetition of the past; reacculturating those, in uniform and out, who either know little to nothing about the military or profess to be authorities possessed of unassailable truth; and reorganizing in ways that enable dealing with circumstances and conditions as they are, not as we want them to be for bureaucratic and political reasons.