The myriad of conflicts raging worldwide right now would pose a challenge to any defense strategy. From Russian aggression in Ukraine and China’s belligerence in contested waters to a particularly violent flaring of the Israel-Palestine conflict and Iraq’s internal chaos, these crises feature open violence each of which may require a military response. Yet, a military response to any of them would be unlike the response to any of the others. As the only global power, the United States must somehow adroitly orchestrate these disparate responses.

Compounding the difficulty, the military services are still scrambling to create coherent narratives for what they will do in the future now that the decade-long clear priority on Iraq and Afghanistan are ending even as they have less money to do so. This fragmented strategic situation obviously calls not for a single answer but an agility to offer many answers simultaneously.

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