 Resilience (PREPARE) and in support of democratic renewal through the Partnerships for Democratic Development (PDD). We are also implementing this development approach to advance global health security and systems and to take principled humanitarian action while addressing the root causes of fragility, conflict, and crisis, including through the Global Fragility Act. We will use our humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding tools more cohesively. And we will invest in women and girls, be responsive to the voices and focus on the needs of the most marginalized, including the LGBTQI+ community; and advance inclusive development broadly. Across our development work, we will continue to employ best practices that distinguish the United States and our partners from our competitors: transparency and accountability; high environmental, social, labor, and inclusion standards; respect for human rights; and local partnerships supported by foreign assistance and sound, sustainable financing. The international financial institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, are also a force multiplier for our values and interests. Stronger, more stable growth abroad means a stronger economy here at home. As other economies prosper, demand for U.S. exports of goods and services increases, creating U.S. jobs. We will work to enhance the responsiveness of these institutions to U.S. priorities, including how to better support developing countries as they weather the pandemic and now the spillovers of the Russian war on Ukraine. Modernizing and Strengthening Our Military The American military is the strongest fighting force the world has ever known. America will not hesitate to use force when necessary to defend our national interests. But we will do so as the last resort and only when the objectives and mission are clear and achievable, consistent with our values and laws, alongside non-military tools, and the mission is undertaken with the informed consent of the American people. Our approach to national defense is described in detail in the 2022 National Defense Strategy. Our starting premise is that a powerful U.S. military helps advance and safeguard vital U.S. national interests by backstopping diplomacy, confronting aggression, deterring conflict, projecting strength, and protecting the American people and their economic interests. Amid intensifying competition, the military’s role is to maintain and gain warfighting advantages while limiting those of our competitors. The military will act urgently to sustain and strengthen deterrence, with the PRC as its pacing challenge. We will make disciplined choices regarding our national defense and focus our attention on the military’s primary responsibilities: to defend the homeland, and deter attacks and aggression against the United States, our allies and partners, while being prepared to fight and win the Nation’s wars should diplomacy and deterrence fail. To do so, we will combine our strengths to achieve maximum effect in deterring acts of aggression—an approach we refer to as integrated deterrence (see text box on page 22). We will operate our military using a campaigning mindset—sequencing logically linked military activities to advance strategy-aligned priorities. And, we will build a resilient force and defense ecosystem to ensure we can perform these functions for decades to come. We ended America’s longest war in Afghanistan, and with it an era of major military operations to remake other societies, even as we have maintained the capacity to address terrorist threats to the American people as they emerge. 20 NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY