Cartwright: Expect war for 5-10 more years

For the next "five to 10 years," the military likely will remain engaged in the same kinds of conflicts it has been fighting since 2001, said Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright. The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs on Thursday told a conference in Washington that "no one I know thinks we'll be out of" these kinds of conflicts any time soon. "There is nothing out there that tells us we won't be wrapped up in these conflicts for as far as the eye can see," Cartwright said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies-sponsored forum. In coming years, however, the military might be tasked with fighting these kinds of wars "in different places and at different levels," Cartwright said. He did not point to specific nations into which U.S. forces or assets might be deployed over the next decade beyond Iraq and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.