Gates: Terrorism top priority for decades

WASHINGTON, July 31 (UPI) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says terrorism should remain the top U.S. defense priority in the coming decades, a new National Defense Strategy said.

The document, approved but not released, calls for the military to shift its concentration on conventional warfare to a broader focus that includes economic development and recommends working with China and Russia to keep them from becoming adversaries, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The strategy climaxes Gates's work since he became defense secretary in 2006, detailing his view that military force is only one aspect of fighting the war on terror.

"Iraq and Afghanistan remain the central fronts in the struggle but we cannot lose sight of the implications of fighting a long-term, episodic, multi-front, and multi-dimensional conflict more complex and diverse than the Cold War confrontation with communism," said the document provided to the Post by InsideDefense.com, a defense industry news service. "Success in Iraq and Afghanistan is crucial to winning this conflict but it alone will not bring victory."

In the report, Gates said the Unites States should work with other countries to eradicate conditions cultivating extremism. Use of force has a role, he said, but promoting government participation and encouraging programs spurring economic development are among tools available to counter insurgencies.

"For these reasons, arguably the most important military component of the struggle against violent extremists is not the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we help prepare our partners to defend and govern themselves," Gates wrote.