The rest of the world, somewhat in awe of how the United States just took charge of the Afghanistan operation and quickly did what had to be done, is rethinking it's dependence on American military power. More people are also looking back at what American troops did between World War I and World War II with a much smaller armed forces. There was plenty of peacekeeping and intervention duty and the marines handled it quite well (better than the army did in Vietnam, as least as far as the military-political warfare went.) Another item being scrutinized is that, while Americans will tolerate a lot of US casualties (for a few years, anyway), they are much less tolerant of a large standing armed forces in peacetime. The emerging solution is for America to let it's allies know that they had better get their act together when it comes to potential land wars in areas where they have an interest. Like the Persian Gulf. This requires no big sacrifice on their part. An American corps, a Euro Corps, a Turkish corps and the Gulf Cooperation Council Corps would settle any Iraqi or Iranian threat to everyone's oil supply. As for Korea, the South Koreans have realized for a long time that they would have to handle the North Koreans pretty much by themselves. China and Japan would not stand idly by while North Korea went rogue and tried to march south. As for a neo-Chinese empire going to war, that's far in the future. A major war would tear China apart. They know their history well and realize that a united China has always had a rough time with offensive warfare. The 20th century wars are finally over. Let's move on to the 21st century.