It has refused to give the Americans much influence in joint strategic efforts or in fighting drug trafficking.

In any strategic effort to make the world a marginally safer or better place in the coming century, the United States has to take the lead.

Industry executives said, however, that it was a strategic effort to stop playing defense and begin focusing on limiting the access of banks into the business.

Bill Marx, 56, was named senior executive vice president in charge of consumer products, multimedia and strategic efforts.

Without a coordinated strategic effort, Zhuge's opponents played into his hands.

China's search for energy security also dovetails, however, with its long-term strategic effort to expand its regional influence and box in India.

"It's a strategic effort, knowing that they have no chance of winning."

She has, however, made a strategic effort to raise her profile by adding small bits of comic relief to more sober-minded films.

"Your continuing effort to have that defined is no longer looked on as a strategic effort, but obfuscation," the judge said.

"All of these programs are part of a much larger strategic effort by Philip Morris to change public perception," he says.