This essay explores the advantages and risks associated with leveraging interstate rivalry frameworks for strategy development and planning. Advantages include reducing strategic uncertainty and gaining efficiencies in some aspects of force planning. Risks include trusting the data and accepting the methodical pace of research. While US security documents typically describe adversaries as threats or competitors, they rarely acknowledge that the behavior patterns among America’s three current interstate rivals—China, Russia, and Iran—differ fundamentally from those of mere threats or competitors. This analysis will benefit defense professionals responsible for developing regional or global strategies and for directing war-gaming efforts.