In U.S. planning for OOTW, it is a virtual given that risk will be minimized and there will be a discrete and proportional use of force with minimal collateral damage. This means that there must be a belief that a mission can be accomplished and is worth the resources necessary to do so. Before initiating action in these often confusing situations, objectives must be clearly established and, once engaged, there should be a willingness to persevere through the inevitable rough patches. Whether in an MRC or in OOTW, we first will need to know what we want to achieve with Rapid Dominance. This is a task for political leadership which is informed with military advice concerning what is feasible, what is not, and what is uncertain. The extent of the mission must be clearly defined. Is it to defeat an enemy so it will no longer pose a threat? Do we only need to stop an adversary from carrying out a particular act? Must we control a situation entirely or only sufficiently to be able to carry out a specific mission? Can we really affect the adversary's will? Recent events give us examples of outcomes likely to be relevant in the future. MRCs call for the full spectrum of outcomes-from reversing military action (e.g., the invasion of Kuwait); to establishing a government more acceptable to the U.S. and the world, probably using military coercion (Haiti, Panama); to eliminating a threat to the U.S. or its allies. We may want to persuade an adversary to cease an aggression or act of interference or otherwise change behavior we cannot accept or tolerate. Political expectations in MRCs are for the effective use of force and for rapid success or at least steady progress. Casualties should be moderate or at least acceptable, with the threshold of American pain dependent on the directness of the threat to U.S. interests and with the degree of compellance appropriate to the political rationale. OOTW present a different set of challenges. These challenges are likely to require discrete dominance of specific circumstances rather than total dominance. The general tasks may include a wide variety of requirements. For example, it may be necessary to try to prevent or stop genocide (e.g., Rwanda) and ethnic cleansing (e.g., Bosnia). The task may be to cooperate with a humanitarian relief effort (e.g., prevention of starvation in Somalia or Bosnia). The goal of employing force may be free and fair elections (e.g., Cambodia, Bosnia). The requirement could be to destroy a limited objective (e.g., an above-ground or underground chemical weapons plant or documented nuclear weapons facilities developed by hostile or unfriendly states).