31.  Congress seems certain to give the Pentagon the money it wants to update its conventional forces, at the very least.

32.  Defense Department officials say President Vladimir Putin cannot long afford to keep his conventional forces at current levels, nor his strategic forces.

33.  Current military doctrine calls for answering any military use of chemical weapons with overwhelming conventional force.

34.  For one thing, he says, conventional forces backed by a small nuclear force would have cost far less and might have been equally effective.

35.  He created an independent command for the land-based nuclear rockets, bought new long-range ballistic missiles and cut the conventional forces.

36.  He also said the countries should talk directly about nuclear weapons, missiles and conventional forces.

37.  He said putting conventional forces on the ground in Afghanistan remains an option.

38.  I would also accord NMD a lower priority than critical programs designed to upgrade American conventional forces.

39.  In recent years, the Marines were the first conventional forces in Kuwait and Somalia.