From KCRW in Santa Monica and PRI, Public Radio International, this is To the Point.

What's next for the U.S. Army?

Hello again, I'm Armin Alney, and this is To the Point from Public Radio International.

A daily look at the issues Americans care about most.

Combat veterans are coming home to a nation exhausted by 13 years of war and plans call for reducing the size of the army. There may be agreement that the nature of warfare is changing, but there's heated debate over how to maintain security and keep U.S. troops prepared. Will arming and training the soldiers of other countries

make the world safer or backfire as it has in Iraq?

Will extended reliance on private contractors

make military action immune to accountability in a democracy?

Today's talking point, the law of the jungle works both ways

in Ecuador's Amazonian rainforest.

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Program Fund. Hello again, Mormon. I'll

back with To the Point. In a changing world, the goals of America's military are evolving. The

U.S. Army now sees its mission not as winning wars, but preventing them. Will new plans make

America safer or more vulnerable, not just to foreign enemies, but to errors and miscalculations?

Today's talking point, Ecuadorian courts awarded farmers in the Amazonian rainforest $19 billion

in a suit for massive environmental damages caused by American oil companies.

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