A couple of thoughts:

1. As I scanned the article there was a CvC reference about "the purpose of war is to defeat the enemy." I think I prefer more of a Sun Tzu approach, in that the purpose is to prevail, and if possible to do so without ever fighting your enemy at all. Kind of like the Old bull and young bull looking down at the pasture full of cows... (Just checking to see if Ken is still following this thread )

2. As to "containment" I remain of the opinion that much of our trouble today derives from continuing to keep in place a wide spectrum of very controlling policies and relationships derived over years of engagement for the purpose of "containing" the Soviets (whose demise I believe was brought on more by the same information age and empowerment of the populaces of Eastern Europe that is now empowering the populaces of the Middle East to challenge external controls as well). I also think there is tremendous insight in Eisenhower's perspective that containment worked in two directions: One to contain the Soviets; the other to contain ourselves. The irony is the purpose for the first direction ended, yet we kept those mechanisms in place; but the purpose for the second direction, if anything increased, and we lifted those self-constraints completely. So my argument for containment is to understand this two-part process and to fix the part we clung to, and to pick back up the part we dropped.

3. I have been thinking a lot about competition and interests lately. The "Friend/Foe" construct just isn't very conducive to clear thinking (As President Washington warned in his rightfully famous outgoing remarks so long ago). To consider one a Friend is to create an assumption that what they do won't harm you. To consider one an enemy is to see potential harm in everything they do. That is such playground BS. To see all as competitors though, all with interests of their own, and to look at each party in each situation through a lens of shared and competing interests makes for a much cleaner way to identify threats, risks, and opportunities. China is a competitor, but so is Canada. Certainly we have more shared interests with one than the other, but focus on that, not a knee-jerk friend or foe analysis.
Iran also is a competitor. We have shared interests in Afghanistan that we cannot address because we are so fixated on them as a foe and the interests we conflict over as to there right to employ nuclear deterrence as we do.

So, in short, containment of ourselves good, containment of others bad; seeing others as friends or foe bad, seeing all as competitors with whom we must compete, good.

GM didn't compete when it was number one, and laughed off rising challengers. Now they are bankrupt. One might want to consider that is highly unlikely that any of our current "friends" will bail the US out if we ignore that warning and follow a similar route.