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The future will see fewer counter-insurgency battles in distant lands. It will focus much more on the capacity of America's air and naval forces to balance a competitor like China or face down an antagonist like Iran. And it will scale back America's much-heralded ability to fight two wars at once.

The president said the new strategy would end "long-term, nation-building with large military footprints". The Pentagon would instead pursue a national security strategy based on "smaller conventional ground forces".

Mr Panetta said on Thursday the review would make the US military "more agile, more flexible, ready to deploy quickly".

the Clinton administration entered office in 1993 and proceeded to adopt a strategy of "dual containment." Until that moment, the United States had acted as an "offshore balancer" in the Persian Gulf, and we had carefully refrained from deploying large air or ground force units there on a permanent basis. We had backed the Shah of Iran since the 1940s, and then switched sides and tilted toward Iraq during the 1980s. Our goal was to prevent any single power from dominating this oil-rich region, and we cleverly played competing powers off against each other for several decades. With dual containment, however, the United States had committed itself to containing two different countries -- Iran and Iraq -- who hated each other, which in turn forced us to keep lots of airplanes and troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We did this, as both Kenneth Pollack and Trita Parsi have documented, because Israel wanted us to do it, and U.S. officials foolishly believed that doing so would make Israel more compliant during the Oslo peace process. But in addition to costing a lot more money, keeping U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia for the long term also fueled the rise of al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden was deeply offended by the presence of "infidel" troops on Saudi territory, and so the foolish strategy of dual containment played no small role in causing our terrorism problem. It also helped derail several attempts to improve relations between the United States and Iran. Dual containment, in short, was a colossal blunder.

But no strategy is so bad that somebody else can't make it worse. And that is precisely what George W. Bush did after 9/11. Under the influence of neoconservatives who had opposed dual containment because they thought it didn't go far enough, Bush adopted a new strategy of "regional transformation." Instead of preserving a regional balance of power, or containing Iraq and Iran simultaneously, the United States was now going to use its military power to topple regimes across the Middle East and turn those countries into pro-American democracies. This was social engineering on a scale never seen before. The American public and the Congress were unenthusiastic, if not suspicious, about this grand enterprise, which forced the Bush administration to wage a massive deception campaign to get them on board for what was supposed to be the first step in this wildly ambitious scheme. The chicanery worked, and the United States launched its unnecessary war on Iraq in March 2003.

wrecking Iraq -- which is what we did -- destroyed the balance of power in the Gulf and improved Iran's geopolitical position. The invasion of Iraq also diverted resources away from the war in Afghanistan, which allowed the Taliban to re-emerge as a formidable fighting force. Thus, Bush's decision to topple Saddam in 2003 led directly to two losing wars, not just one. And these wars were enormously expensive to boot. Combined with Bush's tax cuts and other fiscal irresponsibilities, this strategic incompetence caused the federal deficit to balloon to dangerous levels and helped bring about the fiscal impasse that we will be dealing with for years to come.

President Barack Obama unveiled a defense strategy on Thursday that calls for greater U.S. military presence in Asia and envisions cutting troops in Europe as the Pentagon seeks to reduce spending by nearly half a trillion dollars after a decade of war

Obama, in a Pentagon news conference alongside Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, released a strategy document that calls for the United States to maintain a force that can win one war while still having the capability to deter the objectives of an adversary in a second conflict.That is a shift away from the military's often repeated goal of being able to fight and prevail in two wars in different theatres simultaneously.

The poll findings, showing Ukip on a record high in an ICM poll of 18%

The poll shows that support for the three main parties has drained away to Ukip, with each of them down four points on last month – Labour dropping to 34%, the Tories 28%, and the Liberal Democrats 11% – as Nigel Farage's party gained nine points.

For all three established parties to be falling back in the polls at the same time is unprecedented in the 29-year history of the Guardian/ICM series. The Tories are plumbing depths they have not experienced in over a decade.

The UK government statement stressed that, unlike the Scottish government, it had obtained formal advice from its law officers and that Scotland would have to negotiate the terms of its EU membership with the UK and all other 26 member states.It said: "This government has confirmed it does hold legal advice on this issue. Based on the overwhelming weight of international precedent, it is the government's view that the remainder of the UK would continue to exercise the UK's existing international rights and obligations and Scotland would form a new state."The most likely scenario is that the rest of the UK would be recognised as the continuing state and an independent Scotland would have to apply to join the EU as a new state, involving negotiation with the rest of the UK and other member states, the outcome of which cannot be predicted."Referring to statements by European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, and his deputy, Viviane Reding, that a newly independent country would be seen as a new applicant, it added: "Recent pronouncements from the commission support that view."

almond retaliated by quoting from an expert on the EU's borders, Graham Avery, a former strategy director at the commission who was made one of a number of honorary directors general of the European commission after he retired.In a submission to the Commons foreign affairs select committee, Avery supported Salmond's position that it was inconceivable that an independent Scotland would be expected to leave the EU and then reapply. Salmond said his opinion "rather puts the lie to the scaremongering campaign of Labour and their unionist colleagues in the Conservative party".

Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, said an independent Scotland would have to "join the queue" for EU membership.

Once the US election is over, Washington needs to change policy. One-sided support for the armed opposition condemns Syrians to months, perhaps years, of bloodshed. A Libya-style intervention would be a worse escalation. Far better to junk the failed strategy both candidates followed in last week's debate and work with Russia and Brahimi on a permanent ceasefire. Whatever disputes Obama has with Putin on other issues, he needs to work with the Kremlin on Syria rather than provoke it.

some say they simply do not have the desired result. Gregory Johnsen of Princeton University is an expert on Yemen and he told me that the rain of drone attacks has strengthened the hand of terrorists there. "Look at Yemen on Christmas Day 2009, the day the so-called underwear bomber attempted to bring down a flight over Detroit. "On that day al-Qaeda numbered about 200 to 300 individuals and they controlled no territory. Now today, two-and-a-half years later, despite all the drone strikes al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has tripled in size, it's now around 1,000 members and it controls significant territory. "The more the US bombs, the more they grow."

The president may think very carefully before he approves individual killings, but in the end, as a strategy, drone attacks have too many attractions compared to doing nothing or sending in the troops.

As president, potentially until 2024, Putin has one overriding objective: the creation of a third, post-tsarist, post-Soviet Russian empire.

Elements of Putin's strategy to make Russia great again are slowly coming into focus. Much of the plan is defined by Russia's opposition to the US, the traditional foe. Thus the Kremlin announced last week that it would renounce the strategic arms reduction treaty (known as New Start) agreed with Washington two years ago if the US did not abandon its European missile defence plans.

unveiling of a new Russian missile base in Kaliningrad on Nato's doorstep