MAKING GUMBY LOOK STIFF:

Tank plant speeds armor: Tristate reacts to war (Associated Press, April 13, 2003)

Faced with a vulnerable spot on U.S. tanks, Army engineers sketched an idea on a napkin. Seven days later, 20 custom pieces of armor were to be shipped to Iraq on Saturday to protect Abrams M1A2 tanks.

Engineers, cutters and welders at the Lima Army Tank Plant worked around the clock to fix the weak spot - exhaust and air intake vents - that led to the loss of several tanks in the first weeks of the war, said Lt. Col. Damon Walsh, plant commander.

"It's incredible," he said. "Guys in the desert are going to be that much safer because of what they do here."

One of the (many) reasons that the possibility of someone like a China ever becoming a realistic military threat to us is because of this kind of flexibility, which is built into the systems by which we govern ourselves and run our economy. Contrary to the expectations of even the wisest observers, like de Tocqueville, it turns out that liberal democracy (coupled with free market capitalism) has inherent advantages, which predominate over the disadvantages, when it comes to waging war. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 16, 2003 6:57 PM