Cannon to right of him, cannon to left

摘要

Preparing to fight two medium-sized wars at the same time was always an awkward idea. As Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, sets out to abandon the double-conflict strategy as part of his radical change of America's defence policy, he has several reasons to reflect on the drawbacks of multi-fronted warfare. Having managed, for most of his five months in office, to dodge the political shells by keeping everybody guessing about his intentions, he is now under fire from Democrats and fellow Republicans alike.