Nations such as China and India are emerging as major powers that will increasingly compete with the United States and with one another for influence, and are likely to have a growing impact on international affairs in the years ahead. In addition to this general trend, it is increasingly apparent that the United States will be confronted with three primary and enduring strategic challenges over the next two decades: defeating (or at the very least weakening and containing) violent Islamist extremist groups, in particular al Qaeda and its various affiliates; hedging against the rise of a more powerful and more assertive China; and preparing for a world in which nuclear weapons have been acquired by a number of additional nations (and perhaps even terrorist groups), at least some of which may be hostile toward the United States. Because the United States is now facing or may soon face these three very different challenges, its already wide-ranging global commitments are increasingly under stress, while its limited diplomatic, military, and intelligence capabilities are progressively more dispersed and strained. Moreover, this is occurring just as the United States’ relative economic and military power is beginning to wane. For these reasons, and because this situation is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, the United States must give renewed attention to the status and nature of its alliances.
America’s current alliances are by and large an artifact of the Cold War, however, and it is not evident that they are adequate or appropriate for helping the United States meet its security challenges. Nor is it clear what role America’s current allies should be asked to play. The purpose of this report is to evaluate these issues and offer suggestions on how the current US alliance portfolio should be revised to address the three overarching challenges the United States is likely to confront in the years ahead.