THE US: A Pentagon review of the US defence strategy and military capabilities warns that America has embarked on a "long war" that could last decades.
The Quadrennial Defence Review, which was published yesterday, calls for more use of special forces, more flexible and easily deployable units and more intelligence to combat "irregular, disruptive, and catastrophic threats".
The review describes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as "early battles" in America's campaign against armed Islamic extremists.
"The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war," it declares in its opening line.
The review shifts the strategic direction of US forces away from the cold war threat of military conflict with a large nation-state such as the Soviet Union and towards a confrontation with dispersed, highly mobile adversaries who use non-traditional military means.
It identifies four priorities: defeating violent extremists; defending the homeland; helping countries at strategic crossroads; and preventing terrorists and dangerous regimes from obtaining weapons of mass destruction.
Much of the emphasis is on defending the US against terrorism and against nuclear, chemical and biological attacks and on developing the capacity to strike at long range at nations regarded as hostile. But the review also sets out plans to deter the growing military strength of countries such as China.
Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said this week that the defence review drew on the experience of war in Afghanistan and Iraq to make changes to the way US forces operate.
"This is the first such assessment conducted during a time of war, a war that is perhaps unprecedented in its complexity.
"It builds on several years of momentous change and on the lessons learned during the past four years of the global war on terror, peacekeeping operations, and yes, also several important humanitarian-relief activities," he said.
Mr Rumsfeld told the Financial Times yesterday that some of Nato's European member states should consider carefully if their military capacity was adequate to deal with the threat of extremist violence around the world.
"A number of countries in Nato really ought to think carefully about the nature of the world we are living in and if they are comfortable with the very modest percentage of GDP they spend on defence," he said.
Mr Rumsfeld, who is attending the annual security conference in Munich this weekend, said the US remained uncertain if the emerging European Union defence identity was designed to compete with Nato or to complement it.
President George Bush is next week expected to seek a 5 per cent increase in the US defence budget, bringing it to $439.3 billion (€364 billion) - more than twice the entire gross domestic product of Ireland.