Americans who worry that the U.S. military has been stretched to the breaking point to wage the endless war in Iraq and fulfill a vast and growing number of commitments around the world can rest easy. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has found a vast new pool of military personnel–in Montenegro. Skeptics might point out that Montenegro has a population of 630,000, and may, therefore, not be much help on the manpower front. But such people are just the chronic defeatists we hear so much about.

Admittedly, it might seem a tad humiliating for the secretary of defense of the world’s sole remaining superpower to go, hat in hand, to a tiny country and ask for military assistance. But when said superpower insists on fighting unnecessary and counterproductive wars, it can’t let pride get in the way of seeking aid. With Iraq and Afghanistan both heating up, though, we need more realistic options than to court mini-states as strategic partners.