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May 17, 2002, 8:45 a.m. On the Defense A reply to Mackubin Thomas Owens. By Mark Helprin

itter experience leads me to reply to Mackubin Owens's gentle and constructive criticism. To wit, I have been through this before. I have served in an army (and air force) that was enchanted by its new and rapidly increasing technological wizardry, which had given it almost bloodless victories against much bloodied opponents on a number of occasions. This military was so far ahead of its archaic rivals that it neglected to be watchful, to provide redundancies, and to attend to staple items such as platforms, transport, and munitions. Worst of all, its estimates of a future battle discounted or ignored the enemy's imagination, resourcefulness, and perseverance. The result was a disastrous war, a staggering amount of combat deaths, and almost the death of a nation. This was Israel in 1973, when Egyptian low tech could have prevailed were it not for the Israeli nuclear deterrent, frantic American resupply, rapid readjustment of tactics and strategy to what had been presumed were models forever left behind, and the incredible valor of a boy named Zwicker who, left alive and alone in a single tank, turned back the Syrian Army at its crest.

I remember that the only thing that (eventually) saved the "world's best tank force" from complete annihilation was a desperate call for the artillery that had been written out of then current war plans as hopelessly old fashioned, and then I think, for example, what if a future enemy decided to treat all our wonderful electronics to a few blasts of electro-magnetic pulse? Where would we be then? I want precisions means of attack as much as anyone, and am willing to pay for them in vast numbers, but massed infantry and armor on the scale that we must take account of in China and North Korea at least as a contingency may not be so polite as to proceed at a rate at which it can be picked off. There are a thousand possibilities like this, all of which argue very strongly for belt and suspenders.

As for naval power and allies, I am well aware of the need for basing and allies, which comprised and important part of my argument. I do know, however, that the best way to line up allies is to impress them with the scale of one's independent power, which was also an important part of my argument. And with the military we would have if I ran the zoo, we could take down Iraq purely from the sea, just as we took down Japan. Yes, I want 40 carriers.

Meanwhile, my best to Mr. Owens. Let us go forward together toward a stronger defense. We many have different numbers in mind, but we are both pointing in the same direction.

— Mr. Helprin, author of Winter's Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, served in the Israeli infantry and Air Force. He is a contributing editor of the Wall Street Journal and a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.