to provide a baseline within any planning or strategic discussion because humanitarian considerations aside , American long-term security needs are best served by willing partnership and good relations with post-crisis populations and governments , which are in turn undermined by that same tipping point . Short-term security goals can be unavoidable or critical , but are all too often carried out without sufficient integration into strategic goals or communication focused on long-term actors , who could provide a different perspective and help avoid unintended disruptions .
Of the country contexts mentioned above , none appears to have an end in sight , or provide any clear lessons that future planners could make use of in the design of new strategy . Over the past five years , all of the Middle Eastern examples have become progressively more violent . How these crises will end and when that day will come are , quite obviously , unknowns . How they can be prevented from perpetuating the cycle of recurrent conflict such that peace is not simply a pause , is as yet a critical question without a clear answer .
The various component parts of what might otherwise seem to be a coordinated grand strategy , are in fact rarely coordinated at all , and can be argued that they do not constitute a strategy at all . Special Operations raids , drone strikes , development programming and State Department efforts may all be taking place in the same geographical location , b u t are very rarely coordinated or even communicated across Agency boundaries , and frequently trip over each other . It would be inaccurate to infer a unitary American approach , when what exists is closer
7