Two weeks ago the Pentagon, in a parallel move, issued a directive elevating "stability operations" to the level of a core military mission, comparable to full-scale combat.

His experiences in the war zone don't seem to have been deeply traumatic in themselves; although the engineers were sometimes fired upon, Gore has said he didn't see full-scale combat.

While those actions won some applause, Congress has voiced increasing concern that the NATO troops will be drawn into full-scale combat.

To be sure, today's attack was a far cry from full-scale combat.

The Indian military was not ready for full-scale combat.

Rosa mentions that he finds this story particularly funny because Scrooge and Magica engage in full-scale combat without either of them ever leaving their home.

That is very different from drilling them for full-scale combat, when the use of deadly force is the rule, not the exception.

USA Next, an organization that was instrumental in supporting Mr. Bush's Medicare plan, is planning full-scale combat with AARP.

This will trigger a rapid slide downward into full-scale combat involving both of us.

But full-scale combat, while successful in the Middle Eastern desert, might have been catastrophic in the jungle terrain of Vietnam, especially with China poised to send in massive numbers of troops.