It's a tough one, for sure. Lots of factors are involved. Knowing which skills are going to be needed in war requires a very good crystal ball. I have read much opinion that the MBT is a relic on a battlefield menaced by attack helicopters, superb guided munitions, and the ordinary land mine. I don't know if it is, but it would be a great irony to go to great lengths to preserve the capacity for building a new fleet of MBT only to discover that like the Maginot Line they are designed to fight a war that will never come.
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"We're not innovating. We're selectively imitating." June Bernstein, Acting President of the University of Arizona in Tucson, November 15, 1998.
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