Three U.S. Air Force officers have invaded the pages of the usually staid, straightforward Defense AT&L magazine (that's acquisition, technology and logistics) and bestowed upon the world a story, of a kind, meant to illustrate . . . something, we're sure. How the Pentagon must avoid spending money and time developing expensive weapons designed to defeat yesterday's threats, maybe.

The story (.pdf, naturally) stars "Krog" – that's him in middle – as a kind of futuristic, alien program manager who can't quite figure out what his "Peregrine starship" is supposed to do.

The parallels to today's Pentagon cannot be missed.

“Never mind,” continued Krog. “The operational shortfalls aren’t the main point. I’m still trying to understand what threat this thing is supposed to address. Obviously we’re not fighting the Torrapians anymore. Are we?” Krog paused ominously. “Well, the Minotaur-Squids of the Indigo Zone …” the Ensign began nervously. *“Are a technologically backwards group of jelly-fish-based terrorists with very limited spacefaring capabilities,” interrupted Krog. “They lack both the means and the inclination to conduct combat operations in space. Their most effective planetary defense weapon flings a cloud of debris in the general direction of a spacecraft and hopes to punch a hole or two in the hull. Please don’t tell me we’re building a sophisticated, agile starfighter to counter that! If they are the target, we should be working on armor, *intel, or psyops. “Trust me,” he continued with a fierce grin, showing all four rows of his razor sharp teeth, “I believe in using overwhelming strength as much as anyone, but even I don’t use a plasma nuke to kill a tiny, furry kucatani, no matter how sharp its claws might be. I just bite its fuzzy little head off. The truth is, the Peregrine is entirely unsuited for combat against the Minotaur-Squids, or anyone else in the Indigo Zone.” He sat back and took a deep breath, wishing he could bite something. Or someone. “Well, sir,” added an engineering officer from the jungles of Gontapen 5, “although there are no immediate threats that require Peregrine-class starships, we can’t rule them out for the future.” Krog raised his eyebrows. “I’m sure you are not insinuating that the Technocracy and the Torrapians will resume hostilities,” he growled, not unreasonably. *An uncomfortable silence descended on the room. * “Can anyone tell me why we’re building this thing? It’s designed for a threat that doesn’t exist, and it isn’t very good at what it’s supposed to do—finding and killing things in space without being found or killed itself. On top of that, we’re not planning to buy nearly enough of them.” The silence deepened.

At least two of the three authors, by the way, are bloggers. Unsurprisingly.