Destroying Carthage removed Rome's nearby naval benchmark

Removing Carthage left Rome without a comparable naval rival nearby, although Persia and other armies could still challenge it on land. Britain's competition with France provides an analogy for the pressure exerted by a persistent rival. The criticism of the United States after the Cold War is that it allowed readiness for peer conflict to weaken while fighting counterinsurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those wars imposed different demands from a conflict with another major power. In this interpretation, the loss of a nearby rival creates a danger of neglecting preparation for future peers.