Time to pause before the next step

Many scientists, who have staunchly supported ITER for years, are coming to realize it is time to further rethink fusion energy`s development strategy. Specifically, as was suggested by Grant Logan and Dale Meade, and in keeping with the restructuring of 1996, a theme of better, cheaper, faster fusion would serve the program more effectively than ``demonstrating controlled ignition...and integrated testing of the high-heat-flux and nuclear components required to utilize fusion energy...`` which are the important ingredients of ITER`s objectives. The author has personally shifted his view for a mixture of technical and political reasons. On the technical side, he senses that through advanced tokamak research, spherical tokamak research, and advanced stellarator work, scientists are coming to a new understanding that might make a burning-plasma device significantly smaller and less expensive. Thus waiting for a few years, even ten years, seems prudent. Scientifically, there is fascinating physics to be learned through studies of burning plasma on a tokamak. And clearly if one wishes to study burning plasma physics in a sustained plasma, there is no other configuration with an adequate database on which to proceed. But what is the urgency of moving towards an ITER-like step focused on burning plasma? Some of the arguments put forward and the counter arguments are discussed here.