• Regional hegemons with asymmetric capabilities, such as weapons of mass destruction and missiles, designed to deny us access to vital areas and regional allies.

• Transnational threats that include terrorist groups, international criminal and drug organizations, warlords, environmental security issues, issues of health and disease, and illegal migrations.

• Problems of failed or incapable states that require peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, or national reconstruction.

• Overseas crises that threaten U.S. citizens and property.

• Domestic emergencies that exceed the capacity of other federal and local government agencies to handle.

• Threats to our key repositories of information and to our systems of moving information.

This demanding list of requirements does not include many of the clean, clear war-fighting missions our military would prefer. We have sworn to defend against “all enemies foreign and domestic.” But today the “enemies” that threaten our well-being may include some strange, nontraditional ones.

At this moment in Iraq, we are dealing with the Jihadis, who are coming in from outside to raise hell; crime on the streets is rampant; ex-Ba’athists and Fedayeen are still running around making trouble; American soldiers are getting blown up; suicide bombings have driven out the UN and many NGOs; and there is a potential now for the country to fragment—Shia on Shia, Shia on Sunni, Kurds on Turkomans; you name it. It is a powder keg. If there is a center that can hold this mess together, I don’t know what it is. Civil war could break out at any time. Resources are needed; a strategy is needed; and a plan is needed.

This is not the kind of conflict for which we have traditionally planned. War fighting is only one element of it. Some people on the battlefield don’t play according to our rules. They do not come in military formations and with standard-issue equipment. They come in many different forms; and all of their agendas are different.

The destabilizing environment in which we may commit forces to confront many of these threats may be further degraded by the effects of urbanization, economic depression, overpopulation, and the depletion of basic resources. The world has become reliant on natural resources and raw materials that come from increasingly unstable regions, with the compounding problems of a poor infrastructure and environment. Access to energy resources, water sources, timber, rare gems and metals, etc., is becoming a growing rationale for intervention and conflict in many parts of the world.

We will also require that our forces continue to meet the peacetime demands of engagement and shaping. The importance of maintaining stable regions by building viable, interoperable coalitions with the forces of regional allies will remain necessary to ensure our security in key areas of the world. Military engagement produces dividends in deterrence, confidence building, and burden sharing, and also demonstrates our commitment and resolve. Yet these tasks will continue to tax our already thinly stretched forces.