You know, we live here in America and sometimes don't understand the realities of geography and demographics in Eastern Europe.

This is a major strategic challenge affecting not only our military, but ultimately, America's leadership in the global world order, we are at a point where our national aspirations are at risk of exceeding our available resources.

You might argue that we have become a little too forgiving because, if a perpetrator shows up at a court-martial with a rack of ribbons and has four deployments and a Purple Heart, there is certainly the risk that we might be a little too forgiving of that particular crime.

We became consumed with preparing to go on a deployment, going on the deployment, coming back, and getting ready to go again. We stopped sending young men and women to our professional military education when they should have gone. We stopped doing things like command climate surveys. We got sloppy with contracting oversight.

I think what happened is, we have gotten a little careless maybe and sloppy over the last 10 years with the mechanisms that used to provide oversight, checks and balances, a safety net, if you will, for professionalism.

We do have treaty obligations with our NATO allies.

We do have an obligation to deter conflict and to prepare for it should it occur.