The U.S. military has long used various business models in managing its bureaucracy and budget and planning its force. During the 1960s, however, the Pentagon used a business model extensively in its conduct of the war in Vietnam, ultimately leading to disaster. Despite this, since the late 1990s, the U.S. military has increasingly embraced the notion that business models can and should be applied to the conduct of war.

The end of the Cold War and the massive changes in the conflict environment that ensued launched the United States on a transformational path in military force planning. In 1996, the first Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) set out a vision of the two regional contingencies model, with the Nation equipped and able to dominate in two major conventional wars at the same time. But the outlines of a different kind of conflict setting began to emerge as the United States attempted to protect its interests in several different regions. The first decade of the 21st century has shown clearly that the way the Nation thought about and prepared for war in most of the 20th century requires a major overhaul. But change comes slowly.

Alliances are difficult. They are an imperfect form of collective statecraft that often directly affects the security and well-being of the majority of the world's population. Although specific alliances often morph or fail, the practice of alliance persists. In fact, alliances have been alive and well at least since the Delian League in Greece in the 5th century BCE. There have always been a need and a reason to form one.