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Lord how I hate the Washington Times' insistence on being click-bait. Their pages are nearly impossible to read because you're having to continually click the "X" button on ads that pop up everywhere, obscuring the text you're trying to read.

Now, that weight off my chest.......

I am unaware of attempts mentioned in the article to get the Army to adopt a "German designed" rifle as a primary small arms weapon, but the military already has extensive experience with both the 5.56 and 7.62 versions of the FN SCAR platform, which has several advantages over the AR platform (not to mention crazy-good accuracy for a semi auto battle rifle). I like ARs, own more than one, and have built several. But I also have a .308 SCAR, which I love enough that I could afford to buy another one in 5.56, I'd probably do it.

But that said, the AR is a fine platform, and the M4 version of it in particular is a great weapon for nearly any conflict that is not a large scale, WW2-style, gigantic land battle fought in open country. One can argue about the combat efficacy of the 5.56 cartridge, and maybe there are other choices that are "better", but that cartridge has killed a LOT of enemy combatants in the years since its adoption and distribution to the services. To me, it's a lot like the 9mm vs .45 ACP debate. The larger one might be a better killer (or not, depends on POV), but it is hard to argue with the sheer number of people who have been dispatched with a 9mm in the 115 years of its existence.

I think that, up to a point, combat proficiency is more important than combat arms. If the SCAR 16 (for example) is a superior weapon to the M16/M4, a better trained fighter armed with an M4 will succeed more often than not against a poorly trained fighter armed with a SCAR, or some other more advanced weapon design than the AR platform.

I don't know the exact number of AR15/M16/M4 weapons that are in the aggregate military inventory, but it has GOT to be at least several millions of them. The cost of replacing them all would be absurd, particularly for a nation that is not on a WW2-style industrial footing. Weapons like the SCAR are nice, and they had the right idea to try to retain AR ergonomics and manual of arms, while still adding features to upgrade the platform and increase accuracy, but at a price nearly double that of a AR based platform, it would be difficult to justify the cost.

Basically, and for better or for worse, I think the military is stuck with the AR platform until something new comes along that SO completely revolutionizes small arms design as to render both the AR platform and all previous attempts to redesign/upgrade/replace it completely irrelevant and not worth pursuing.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with the irredeemably stupid idea of wasting military budget on unattainable civilian safety goals.