Even a limited alliance with Moscow on missile defense would almost certainly raise fears among Chinese leaders that they were being frozen out and that the system was being designed to contain their modest nuclear force.
Since Microsoft dropped its takeover attempt more than a year ago, the two companies have discussed a more limited alliance to take on Google but have been unable to reach an agreement.
An alliance with Iran -- even a temporary and limited alliance to achieve objectives only in Iraq -- would indeed be a strange thing to most Americans, though.
But funding crunches are forcing nations to forge more-limited alliances.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — With the United States facing the reality that its broad security partnership with Pakistan is over, American officials are seeking to salvage a more limited counterterrorism alliance that they acknowledge will complicate their ability to launch attacks against extremists and move supplies into Afghanistan.
Catherine gave permission for the next Sejm to be confederated, as she considered some form of limited military alliance with Poland against the Ottomans might be useful.
Some analysts have urged the administration to forge a limited, conditional alliance against Islamic State with the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a kind of lesser-of-two-evils approach.
He says it will only get harder for London Gateway to attract business, given that the world's major shipping lines are increasingly grouped in a limited number of alliances, which are already committed to existing ports and concentrating on rationalising their services, as their ships grow ever bigger.
There had to be a lot of deaths because in a world with resources this limited, detentes and alliances are always going to be temporary at best.
With backing from Deutsche Bank, the biggest shareholder in his market, he shocked other Europeans by negotiating a limited two-party alliance with the London market two years ago.
On March 30th he set up two working groups to look for a limited programme that both alliances could endorse.
