In a speech delivered at the John F. Kennedy School of Government on May 13, 1996, US Secretary of Defense Perry asserted that America's security policy in the post-Cold War era requires the country to take advantage of the opportunity to prevent the conditions for conflict and to help create the conditions for peace. He stressed that there is an imperative "to make preventive defense the first line of defense of America, with deterrence the second line of defense, and with military conflict the third and last resort." As articulated by Secretary Perry, preventive defense means enhancing "the conditions which support peace, making war less likely and deterrence unnecessary."