Chuck Hagel, the US Defense Secretary, is pondering how to cut the size of the US Army from 528,000 to 380,000. Even given the fact that all the armed forces are probably bloated, this is a big reduction. The normal thing is to reduce the number of junior officers and other ranks. But what really needs to be done is to remove a swathe of the current generals, colonels and lieutenant colonels and promote young, promising officers, reforming the whole system, which has become too big and sclerotic to perform well. Evidence? Two wars which both Republicans and Democrats reluctantly admit have been expensive failures. Not to mention the drip-drip-drip of top officers spending their time seducing subordinates and reading porn instead to conducting military operations (o.k -a small minority!)

I confess to a prejudice born of experience at 19 years of age. I saw for myself how regular officers become hidebound by accepted military rules and norms, and cannot react swiftly and cleverly to a determined enemy. In my case they stayed in the officers mess and drank gin while bombs went off outside the compound. It was that bad.

Epicureans don’t like war on principle and are suspicious of huge standing armies. If you have to have them, change the management regularly and ruthlessly. Make them think. Maybe even let them join some dissident guerillas to see how they do it and get some fresh perspectives. There are worse ideas – like carrying on as usual under the influence of the military-industrial complex.