Valiant Shield was designed to demonstrate the ability to conduct joint command and control operations, and to rapidly deploying joint forces in response to any regional contingency.

A Senate staff member said General Powell had been making public statements indicating that the military did not see the need to plan for major and simultaneous regional contingencies.

Valiant Shield 2007 tested the military's ability to rapidly bring together joint forces in response to any regional contingency.

In many ways, the bill marks a transition from lingering cold-war-era programs to what are likely to be several years of steep declines in military spending and a focus on regional military contingencies.

"Our national strategy is to be able to fight and win two major regional contingencies" simultaneously, he said in 1998.

"I'm not sure it is workable today for one major regional contingency."

Instead, the report said, planning will focus on "regional contingencies, often unforeseeable."

President Bush and Gov. Bill Clinton agree that the United States military in the post-cold war era should be a smaller force prepared to respond quickly to regional contingencies with the most advanced weaponry.

The exercise focuses on crisis-action planning and contingency response, enhancing both nations' military capabilities to deal with regional contingencies and the War on Terrorism.

As shown by Desert Shield/Storm, U.S. military forces would increasingly be called upon to participate in smaller-scale regional contingencies and humanitarian operations.