The prospects of any "great achievement" in Iraq are being further diminished by the direction to the Pentagon to shift personnel and equipment from Iraq to Afghanistan.
As the U.S.-China economic relationship has deepened over the years, the bilateral flows of capital, equipment and intellectual property, originally quite one-sided, have begun the long shift back to balance.
Although relocation costs for crews and equipment are expected to eat into the margin in North America in Q1 2012, the shift will help companies boost revenues in the long term by riding on the oil boom in the Bakken shale.
Officials, however, are sceptical as to whether Delhi and Moscow can really shift their relationship from the prevailing unequal one of a buyer and seller of military hardware to jointly developing defence equipment and marketing it globally.