'..the United States will also have to maintain strategic discipline..'

'..American officials will need to work creatively to get more out of the country’s existing alliances (by encouraging allies to adopt more cost-effective defense postures, for instance) .. the United States will also have to maintain strategic discipline in how it uses its power, by steering clear of Iraq-like missteps that might sap its energies and undercut political support for a primacist posture.'

'The United States will need to make the medium- and long-term investments in defense necessary to shore up contested regional balances against Russian and Chinese challenges, and so it will have to address domestic spending and revenue issues in a more serious way. It will need to develop innovative capabilities and operational concepts that will allow U.S. forces to operate in more contested environments. More broadly, American officials will need to work creatively to get more out of the country’s existing alliances (by encouraging allies to adopt more cost-effective defense postures, for instance), while also diversifying those alliances and partnerships as a way of shoring up the foundation of the existing international order. And while doing all this, the United States will also have to maintain strategic discipline in how it uses its power, by steering clear of Iraq-like missteps that might sap its energies and undercut political support for a primacist posture.

This point touches on a final imperative, which is that American leaders will need to strengthen the political base of American primacy, by better articulating the case for why it is worth preserving. To do so, they will need to remind Americans that their country’s leadership and primacy has helped produce an international order that has actually been fairly exceptional in its stability and liberalism over the past seventy years, and that the costs of preserving that primacy may ultimately be minor compared to the costs of dealing with the more dangerous and unstable world that might ensue in its absence. For all the challenges it faces, the United States is still in a fundamentally favorable international position. How long it stays that way will depend as much on public sentiment at home as it will on events abroad.'

- The Era of American Primacy Is Far from Over, August 24, 2016



Context

Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate

'..a realistic concept of what is achievable and in what time frame.' (Global peace in the 24th century)