Francis Fukuyama argued in his book The End of History and the Last Man that the end of the Cold War seemed to usher in the end of new ideologies and the triumph of western liberal democracy. With the necessity of fighting the wars we are in, with flat budgets planned for much the next five years, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates focused on lower costs and more flexible acquisition, analysts are increasingly concerned that we may be facing the effective end of acquisition, a period when few or no new major weapon systems are planned and bought.

The commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, submitted today his long awaited strategic plan intended to turn around a war that is fast deteriorating. It is widely believed McChrystal will ask for substantially more troops, although the announcement does not give specific details of the new strategy.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made very few visits to defense plants what with two wars on, a tight budget and many soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines to visit. Suddenly, at the end of a very quiet August, Gates’ office sends out a notice today to reporters saying he’s going Monday to Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter factory in Fort Worth. It’s a big program and needs big defenders.

Big news out of Army Training and Doctrine Command: Brig. Gen. H.R. McMaster is rewriting the service’s Capstone Concept, a document laying out the service’s vision of how it intends to fight future wars. The capstone concept document is important because it guides future Army force development including modernization.

One of the debates bubbling beneath the surface over the last few months has been about just what effects Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ program cuts, combined with a flat defense budget projected for the next five years, would have on America’s ability to project power. Former Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne argues in a commentary that the administration is schizophrenic about its national security approach. On the one hand, the State Department is offering the broadest defense umbrella it can to friends and allies. On the other hand, Gates is cutting crucial systems that would help the US extend and maintain that umbrella.

“I expect to be underwhelmed.” That is the response one Capitol Hill aide who follows Son of FCS expects to have when the Army unveils its plans for combat vehicle modernization in the next week or so. Although the Army may have crafted a brilliant and innovative approach to filling its modernization stocking with new vehicles and technologies, this aide and others watching the Manned Ground Vehicle effort see little sign of it.

File this one under QDR rumors, although senior OSD officials thought about cutting a carrier from the very beginning of the QDR. Now, sources tell us that OSD may actually chop an additional carrier from the Navy’s battle fleet, a move that would take the force down to nine carriers from the current total of 11.

Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal has issued his “Counterinsurgency Guidance” to U.S. and NATO units. For those who thought McChrystal’s special ops background meant he would favor “kinetic” solutions, well, the guidance is largely a collection of exhortations for troops to curtail their soldiering instincts and behave themselves while in a foreign land.

Not one but two international bodies are currently deliberating laws and regulations intended to either ban outright or curtail the use of cluster weapons. Unexploded cluster bombs that litter old battlefields continue to inflict frightful civilian casualties. DOD is trying to implement a protocol that would allow production and use of only those cluster weapons with a dud rate of less than 1%.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress and the American public that the Quadrennial Defense Review would answer many tough unanswered policy and acquisition issues. Now Rep. Todd Akin, ranking member of the House Armed Services seapower and expeditionary warfare, accuses the senior Pentagon leadership of using the QDR “to evade any question they did not want to answer.” Akin calls for his colleagues to pass language ensuring that an independent National Defense Panel will offer “balance” to Gates’ review. Read his commentary.

Rumor alert — we’ve got few details yet but a source with access to Joint Strike Fighter officials says Marine Maj. Gen. David Heinz, PEO for the program, was recently called onto the carpet by Defense Secretary Gates. The message: stop talking about problems with the Pratt & Whitney engine and how second engine programs have proved themselves in the past. “They have hammered Heinz to say nothing more about this,” our source says.

The situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate even though U.S. and NATO troop levels are at all time highs, according to comments made over the weekend by Joint Chiefs chair Adm. Mike Mullen. Commanders there are operating with too few troops. It’s high time to accept a level of risk in Iraq so as to free up troops and resources that can be sent to Afghanistan.

The Army recently completed exercises testing its new surveillance and reconnaissance technologies as well as precision missiles due to equip infantry brigade combat teams, as part of its spin out of technologies from the former Future Combat Systems program. Soldiers from the Army’s Force Development Testing and Experimentation unit put the new aerial drone, sensors and missiles through a series of battlefield tests against a mixture of conventional and irregular opponents.

A new report by the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit (USCCU) finds that citizens quickly became cyber warriors when the Russians started attacking Georgia. Our friends at AvWeek have a neat piece that includes an interview with one of the report’s authors who says that the attacks “were carried out by civilians with little or no direct involvement by the Russian government or military.”

Defying Taliban threats, Afghans voted today in national elections that are seen as a vital test of U.S. and Afghan government progress. Now comes the more dangerous stage as questions of legitimacy will surround the winner, whoever that might be and the Taliban seek revenge on those who defied their calls to stay away from the polls.

5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Northrop Grumman employees will be holding their breath around Sept. 15 when the enormous billows of flame and smoke begin to spew forth from a rocket lifting a new generation of space sensors into orbit. That launch will carry two demonstration satellites of a $1.4 billion program known as the Space Tracking and Surveillance System that has been plagued by quality control and other technical problems.

American troops in Afghanistan face a very different enemy than the one they encountered in Iraq. The single biggest difference: insurgents in Afghanistan will stand and fight. The Taliban and other insurgent groups display good small unit tactics, with sophisticated synchronization of direct and indirect fire and fire and maneuver, all hallmarks of a seasoned and well trained enemy, says Center for Army Lessons Learned director Col. Robert Forrester.