We think of wars in terms of 4 years, or 2 years. In the case of our enemies (Islamists and Communists), we should be thinking in terms of 100 years.

It is hard for a democracy to think in the long term, though, being controlled by election cycles (in our case, 2 or 4 years). Worse, our companies think in terms of quarterly reporting to Wall Street. This puts us at a significant disadvantage when the PRC governments and its companies think in terms of decades, and the Islamists think in terms of multiple generations or even eternal time frames.

After 9/11, the Pentagon started calling the war against Islamists "The Long War," as strategists figured it would be a multi-generational fight. That was quickly shut down, though, since democratically elected governments can't think like that and stay in power, especially when one of the two parties (i.e., the Democrats) sees international conflict primarily in terms of domestic political power importance.