Mitt Romney - No Apology: The Case for American Greatness

No Apology: The Case For American Greatness No ApologyByMitt RomneyALSO BY MITT ROMNEYTurnaround:Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic GamesNoApologyTHE CASE FORAMERICAN GREATNESSMitt RomneyST. MARTINS PRESSNEW YORKThe extract on pages 17778 were originally published in The New Yorker. The chartsthat appear on pages 140, 141, 207, 209, and 238 are reprinted with permission.NO APOLOGY. Copyright 2010 by Mitt Romney. All rights reserved. Printed in theUnited States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press,175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.www.stmartins.comDesign by Kathryn PariseISBN 978-0-312-60980-1First Edition: March 201010 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1To Allie, Joe, Thomas, Chloe, Nick, Mia,Nate, Grace, Wyatt, Owen, Nash, Soleil, Parker, Miles,and all of Anns and my grandchildren yet unbornWe must be ready to dare all for our country.For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.DWIGHT D. EISENHOWERContentsIntroduction1. The Pursuit of the Difficult2. Why Nations Decline3. The Pursuit of Power4. Pathways of American Power5. A Free and Productive Economy6. The Worst Generation?7. Healing Health Care8. An American Education9. Running Low10. The Culture of Citizenship11. America the BeautifulEpilogueAcknowledgmentsIndexNo ApologyIntroductionRunning for president of the United States is an extraordinary experience. New, profound friendships are unquestionably the greatest reward; they will last a lifetime. And there were moments of laughter, such as when Ann got up from a collapsed stage in Dubuque, Iowa, dusted herself off, and later ad-libbed, Well, I fell on de butt in Dubuque. There were times of exhilaration: winning the Michigan primary, the state where I was raised and where my dad had served three terms as governor, was one of them. And then there were the inevitable lessons learned. My dad, George Romney, used to say of his 1968 presidential campaign that it was like a miniskirt... short and revealing. Mine was a little longer, but just as revealing.Ive run for office three times, losing twice, winning once. Each time, when the campaign was over, I felt that I hadnt done an adequate job communicating all that I had intended to say. Some of that is because debate answers are limited to sixty seconds, ads are thirty seconds, and lengthy position papers are rarely read at all. This book gives me a chance to say more than I did during my campaign.That established, my interest in writing the book goes back well before my political life. My career in the private sector exposed me to developments abroad and conditions at home that were deeply troubling. At the same time, I saw that most of us were not aware of the consequences of blithely continuing along our current course: We have become so accustomed to the benefits of Americas greatness that we cannot imagine any significant disruption of what we have known.I was reminded of a book I had read when I was in France during the late 1960s. Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber was a journalist and a businessperson, and he became convinced that France and Europe were in danger of falling far and irretrievably behind the United States. His book, The American Challenge, stirred his countrymen to action and helped galvanize pan-European economic and political collaboration. While I am sufficiently realistic to recognize that this volume is highly unlikely to have as great an impact as did his, it is my hope that it will affect the thinking and perspectives of those who read it.Thus, this is not a collection of my positions on all the important issues of the day; in fact, a number of issues I care about are not included. This is not a policy book that explores issues in greater depth than do scholars and think tanksI treat topics in a single chapter that others have made the subject of entire volumes. Nor is this an attack piece on all the policies of the Obama administration, although criticism is unavoidable with policies that I believe are the most harmful to the future generations of America.This is a book about what I believe should be our primary national objective: to keep America strong and to preserve its place as the worlds leading nation. And it describes the course I believe we must take to strengthen the nation in order to remain prosperous, secure, and free.There are some who may question the national objective I propose. I make no apology for my conviction that Americas economic and military leadership is not only good for America but also critical for freedom and peace across the world. Accordingly, as I consider the various issues before the nation, I evaluate our options largely by whether they would make America stronger or weaker.In my first chapters, I consider geopolitical threats and lessons from the history of great nations of the past. In subsequent chapters, I describe domestic challenges to our national strength and propose actions to overcome them. My final chapter is intended to provide a means for future Americans to gauge whether we have been successful in setting a course that will preserve Americas greatness throughout the twenty-first century. It describes as well the source of my optimism for Americas future.These are difficult times: homes have lost value, nest eggs have been eroded, retirees have become anxious about their future, and millions upon millions of Americans are out of work. Inexcusable mistakes and failures precipitated the descent that has hurt so many people. But even as we endure the current shocks, we know that this will not go on forever; we know that because America is a strong and prosperous nation, the economic cycle will eventually right itself and the future will be brighter than the present.While I will touch upon todays difficulties, my focus is on the growing challenges to the foundations of our national strength. How we confront these challenges will determine what kind of America and world we will bequeath to our children and grandchildren.This is a book about securing that future of freedom, peace, and prosperity in the only way possible: by strengthening America. A strong America is our only assurance that prosperity will follow hardship and that our lives and liberty will always be secure. The strength of the nation has been challenged beforeat its birth, during the Civil War, in the peril of world wars. It is challenged again today. In our past, Americans have risen to the occasion by confronting the challenge honestly and laying their sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. We must do so again.

No Apology: The Case For American Greatness The Pursuit of the DifficultI hate to weed. Ive hated it ever since my father put me to work weeding the garden at our home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. It was planted with zinnias, snapdragons, and petunias, none of which seemed to grow as heartily as the weeds. After what seemed like hours of work, I never could see much progress, and Id complain to my dad. Mitt, he would reply, the pursuit of the difficult makes men strong. It seems now like an awfully grandiose response for such a pedestrian task. I complained about the weeding often enough that I heard his homily regularly. Im sure thats why it sticks with me to this day.My father knew what it meant to pursue the difficult. He was born in Mexico, where his Mormon grandparents had moved to escape religious persecution. At five years old, Dad and his family were finally living pretty well. They had a nice home and a small farm, and Dad even had his own pony, called Monty. But in 1911, Mexican revolutionaries threatened the expatriate community, so Dads parents bundled up their five kids, got on a train, and headed back to the United States. Their furniture, their china, his mothers sewing machineeverything they had worked hard to accumulatehad to be left behind. Once back in the States, they struggled. They moved time and again, and work was always hard to find. My grandfather established a construction business, but he went bankrupt more than once. Dad used to regale us kids with claims that one year in Idaho his family lived on nothing but potatoesfor breakfast, lunch, and dinner.Dad began to contribute to the familys income early on. During his high-school years he worked long hours as a lath-and-plaster man, finishing the interior walls of new houses. He never was able to put together enough time and money to graduate from college.Three decades later, by the time I was weeding that Bloomfield Hills garden, my father had become a successful businessman. I know he worried that because my brother, sisters, and I had grown up in a prosperous family, we wouldnt understand the lessons of hard work. Thats why he put us to work shoveling snow, raking leaves, mowing the lawn, planting the garden, and of course, weedingalways reminding us that work would make us strong.About this time, Dad faced a difficult pursuit of his own. In 1955, only five months after he became vice president of the newly created American Motors Corporation (AMC), the companys president, George Mason, died and the board of directors selected my father to succeed him. With news of Masons death and mounting losses, the companys stock collapsed from 14.50 a share to 5.25. The banks didnt have much more confidence in the company at that moment than its stockholders did. I remember hearing my parents discussing with certainty that if the banks pulled out, the company wouldnt survive.My parents had sold our home; we were living in a rented house while they prepared to build a new one. With my mothers blessing, Dad took the money they had put aside from the sale of their house and used it to buy AMC stock. He even used the savings he had given me for Christmases and birthdays to buy stock. He believed in himself, and he believed in hard work and what it could achieve.Dad spent long days at the office, and when he was home, the work continued. He met with the companys bankers, shareholders, and employees, explaining his vision for the companys future: dropping the venerable Nash and Hudson brands and focusing instead on the Rambler compact car. He would eventually close the companys Michigan plant to consolidate production in Wisconsin. He agonized over that decision, but concluded in the end that to save a patient this sick, surgery is necessary.In 1959, AMCs stock was selling for more than 95 a share. Dad made the covers of Time and Newsweek. He and Mom built their dream home, and we kids, now even more prosperous, were given still more chores.What Dad accomplished at American Motors prepared him for the challenges that would follow. He served as leader of Michigans Constitutional Convention, as three-term governor of Michigan, as secretary of housing and urban development in the Nixon administration, and as founder of the National Center for Voluntary Action. And I have to admit that the weeding and chores probably didnt hurt me, eithersomething I understood well by the time I took the reins of the 2002 Winter Olympics.Over the years, Ive come to believe that the value of pursuing the difficult applies much more broadly than only to individuals. When I met Tom Stemberg in 1985, he had come up with an idea for a new business, one he believed would revolutionize the retail industry, and in particular the business of selling and distributing office supplies. Toms vision was to create the worlds first big-box office products chain, one with hundreds of stores, tens of thousands of employees, and billions in revenues. Most people I spoke with thought it would never work, believing that businesspeople wouldnt leave their workplace to shop for office supplies, no matter how great the savings. But they were wrong, and today Staples is what Tom dreamed it would be.Reaching Toms goal was difficult. At first the manufacturers of supplies didnt want to sell to him because his idea threatened their traditional distributors. Stores were hard to locate in real-estate-cramped New England where he began. A warehouse with multistore capacity had to be built and financed, even though at first there were only a handful of stores to serve. Copycat competitors sprung up everywhere; at one point, we counted more than a dozen. And money was tight. In the end, because Tom and his team achieved success in the face of so many challenges, Staples and its management team became very strong indeed, and now lead the industry.Today the United States faces daunting challenges, and I am similarly convinced that if we confront them and overcome them, we will remain a strong and leading nation. Just like individuals, companies, and human enterprises of every kind, nations that are undaunted by the challenges they face become stronger. Those that shrink from difficult tasks become weaker.Consider our nations history and the strength we developed as we faced our greatest threats. George Washingtons army was in no way comparable to the British forces he faced: his troops were untrained, unpaid, and out-manned. The British navy boasted 270 vessels, while the Continental navy had only twenty-seven. In April 1775, British warships laid siege on Boston Harbor and successfully took command of the city. But under General Washingtons direction, during the following winter, Colonel Henry Knox and his men hauled fifty-nine heavy cannons on ox-drawn sleds three hundred miles from Fort Ticonderoga, New York, where they recently had been captured. Finally positioned on Dorchester Heights, a hill overlooking the harbor, the cannons threatened the annihilation of the British armada. The British navy withdrew and Boston remained in American hands. The victory was emblematic of the entire conflict: American ingenuity, derring-do, and faith in providence helped win our improbable independence from the worlds superpower.I was born after the Second World War and can only imagine the confusion, incredulity, and fear that must have overwhelmed the nation when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Yet once again, the United States rose to the occasion. In Detroit, where my father was already working in the auto industry, factories that once made cars were quickly turned into assembly lines for military aircraft. Cars and planes arent very similar, but in only a year, Detroit was making bombers and fighters. We ultimately lost 418,000 men and women in World War II. The financial costs were great as well. But we also became far stronger. Women joined the workforcea trend that would wane, then wax again to our economic advantage. Our factories became the most productive in the world. Returning GIs went to college in what was the greatest expansion of higher education in history. And Americans recognized that while we constitute much of a continent, we are not an islandalone and isolated from the rest of the world.I was in grade school when Sputnik was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. Mr. Garlick, my high-school science teacher, hung a model of the small satellite from the ceiling of our classroom as a reminder, he said, that America had fallen behind the Russians in science and technology. The future was up to us, hed say, sounding a lot like my dad.Three months after the Soviets first successful satellite launch, we attempted to enter space. Our Vanguard rocket failed to develop enough power to lift off the launch pad. It toppled over on its side and exploded into flames. Over the next three years, NASA tried and failed to launch eleven more satellites. Despite our dismal record, President John F. Kennedy called for us to put a man on the moon. Young people all over the country grew enthusiastic about studying physics, engineering, and the space sciences. We became a more technically proficient people. And we became the first nation on earth to put a man on the moon.Facing Our Challenges Head-onI can remember only one time during my life when most Americans presumed that we didnt really have any great challenges. It was during the period that largely coincided with the Bill Clinton presidency. George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan had pushed the Soviet Union to the wall and won. The Berlin Wall had come down, the Soviet Union had dissolved, and here at home, there was talk of a new economy that sent the bulls running on Wall Street. Columnist Charles Krauthammer has called it our holiday from history. We believed that peace and prosperity were here to staywithout threat, without sacrifice.In some ways, we advanced as a nation during these years. The Internet boomed, and the pockets of millions of average Americans grew deeper. But did these years of ease make us a stronger, more free or secure nation? We shrunk our military by 400,000 troops during the 1990s, retired over one hundred ships from the navy, and decreased the size of our air force by more than a quarter. More ominously, we gutted our human intelligence capabilities, and never took any real steps to infiltrate the violent jihadist groups like al Qaeda that had declared war on America. At home, births to teenage mothers rose to their highest levels in decades, teenage drug use climbed, and pornography became the Internets biggest business. Our dependence on foreign oil rose from 42 percent of our total consumption in 1990 to 58 percent today.I dont wish challenges and hard times on this nation, even though I believe they have made us the country and people we are today. But neither do I fear them. My sole concern is that Americans will choose not to act, not to face our challenges head-on, not to overcome them.In the first decade of the twenty-first century, our economy has suffered its worst crisis since the Great Depression. We have amassed an unprecedented amount of debt and liabilities, and added to that, the Obama administration plans trillion-dollar deficits every year. Russian belligerence is on the rise. China holds over 750 billion of U.S. obligations. Iran and North Korea threaten the world with unbridled nuclear ambition. Violent jihadists like those who attacked us on 9/11 plot our destruction. The consequence of failure to act in response to these perils is unthinkable.America will remain the leading nation in the world only if we overcome our challenges. We will be strong, free, prosperous, and safe. But if we do not face them, I suspect the United States will become the France of the twenty-first centurystill a great country, but no longer the worlds leading nation. Whats chilling to consider is that if America is not the superpower, others will take our place. What nation or nations would rise, and what would be the consequences for our safety, freedom, and prosperity?The world is a safer place when America is strong. Ronald Reagan remarked that of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong. Americas strength destroyed Hitlers fascism. It stopped the North Koreans and Chinese at the 38th parallel and allowed South Koreans to claim their freedom and reach prosperity. American strength kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, and later pulled him out of his spider hole.There are a number of thoughtful people around the world who dont welcome Americas strength. In 2007, several reputable polls asked European citizens which nation they perceived as the greatest threat to international peace. Their answer was the United States. I was incredulous when I first read this, and presumed the respondents must have had the Iraq War on their minds when they answered. Surely they hadnt considered what Russia would do in Eastern Europe if America was weak; what China would do in Taiwan; what the Taliban would do in Afghanistan; what Fidel Castro, Hugo Chvez, Kim Jong-il, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would have in mind for their neighbors. The very existence of American power helps to hold tyrants in check and reduces the risk of precipitous war.Does America make mistakes? Absolutely. We never fully understood the enormously complex political, economic, and military issues we faced in Vietnam, and we were wrong in our assessment of Iraqs weapons of mass destruction programs. But in every case throughout modern history in which America has exercised military power, we have acted with good intentionnot to colonize, not to subjugate, never to oppress.During my tenure as governor of Massachusetts, I had the opportunity to join a small group of people in meeting Shimon Peres, Israels former prime minister and current president. In casual conversation, someone asked him what he thought about the ongoing conflict in Iraq. Given his American audience, I expected him to respond diplomatically but with a degree of criticism. But what he said caught me very much by surprise.First, I must put something in context, he began. America is unique in the history of the world. In the history of the world, whenever there has been war, the nation that is victorious has taken land from the nation that has been defeatedland has always been the basis of wealth on our planet. Only one nation in history, and this during the last century, was willing to lay down hundreds of thousands of lives and take no land in its victoryno land from Germany, no land from Japan. America. America is unique in the history of the world for its willingness to sacrifice so many lives of its precious sons and daughters for liberty, not solely for itself but also for its friends.Everyone in the room was silent for a moment, and no one pressed him further on his opinion about Iraq. I was deeply moved. And I was reminded of former secretary of state Colin Powells observation that the only land America took after World War II was what was needed to bury our dead.Some argue that the world would be safer if Americas strength were balanced by another superpower, or perhaps by two or three. And others believe that we should simply accept the notion that our power is limited. British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm in his book, On Empire, asserts, It is also troubling that there is no historical precedent for the global superiority that the American government has been trying to establish and it is quite clear to any good historian and to all rational observers of the world scene that this project will almost certainly fail.I take a different view. The United States is unique. American strength does not threaten world peace. American strength helps preserve world peace.It is true that the emergence of other great powers is not entirely up to usseveral other nations are building economic and military power and we will not stop them from doing so. But we can determine, entirely on our own, that we will not fall behind them. And the only way I know to stay even is to aim unabashedly at staying ahead.Four Strategies to Achieve World PowerA number of nations and groups are intent on replacing America as the worlds political, economic, and military leader. In fact, there are four major strategies that are currently being pursued to achieve world leadership. I use the word strategy advisedly. For nearly ten years, I worked as a management strategy consultant, first with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and then with Bain & Company. BCGs founder, Bruce Henderson, observed that in order to become a success, a business doesnt just have to do well, it also has to do better than its competitors. Being number one isnt just about bragging rights. Often it means the difference between prospering and merely hanging on. Accordingly, a few hundred of us were hired to help companies develop strategies that would allow them to outperform their competition.Most people can recognize strategy as it plays out in the world of business. Facing Microsofts PCs, Apples strategy was to appeal to a different segment of customers and win among those buyers. It focused on educational and creative users rather than typical business users. It targeted the young and the hip. From creating products like the iPod, the iPhone, and the Mac, to their design, advertising, and image, Apple tailored every dimension of its offering to its brand of customer. The strategy appears to be working: in 2008, it generated 9 billion in cash.Countries, like businesses, need strategies to survive and prosper. A nations strategy should be designed to propel it beyond its competitors and to increase the security and prosperity of its citizens. While there are as many national strategies as there are countries on the global map, there are four specific approaches to geopolitics that have been embraced by various major players on the world stage. We must recognize and understand these if we are to be fully aware of the challenges ahead.Each of the four approaches is being pursued to achieve world leadership statussuperpower statusand perhaps dominion of the global order. Their adherents are fully convinced that they have chosen the strategy that will propel them beyond their geopolitical rivals.The first of these strategies is represented by the United States. Ours is a strategy based on two fundamental principles: economic freedom and political freedom. The two are not only harmonious, they actually empower one another. Individual freedom stimulates a spirit of entrepreneurship that in turn leads to innovation and enterprise. And the freedom to walk away from a job and create ones own enterprise breeds a sense of independence in a culture that prizes individual freedoms. Its a strategy that has led America to become the most powerful nation in the history of the earth. It has also created powerhouses like Japan, Germany, and South Korea, nations that had been devastated by war. And it has helped the twenty-seven-member nations of the European Union create economies whose combined gross domestic product (GDP) is 30 percent of the worlds total, roughly the same as the combined GDP of the United States and Canada.While the nations that pursue this American strategy are collectively referred to as the West, not all of them do so in a uniform manner. Sweden and several other European nations, for example, place a far heavier governmental hand on free enterprise and on economic freedom than does the United States. Citizens are highly taxed to provide not only a very substantial social safety net but also a relatively comfortable lifestyle. Businesses and employment are highly regulated. Despite the differences among Western nations, economic freedom and political freedom are at the core.A second strategy is pursued by China. As with the West, theirs is based on free enterprise. Unlike the West, it is also based on authoritarian rule. On its face, the strategy is contradictory: the oppression of an authoritarian regime that severely limits individual freedoms must surely stifle entrepreneurship and enterprise. The conflict is so apparent that many Western observers have predicted that as Chinas economy and trade develop, the country will trend toward democracy and freedom.Chinas leaders see things quite differently. They believe that the economic vitality produced by free enterprise, combined with the stability and vision of wise leaders, unaffected by popular whim, creates the winning strategy. Autocracies of the twentieth century were often wedded to socialism; its abject economic failure doomed these governments. But China is banking that having embraced a form of free enterprise, their autocratic future will be very different than their past failures.I had expected to find the Chinese people frustrated with Communist rule and to encounter many who were agitating for the basic freedoms enjoyed in the West. But when I met with Chinese students at Tsinghua University in Beijing in 2006, they seemed much more interested in pursuing the lessons of American-style free enterprise than they were in promoting American-style freedom. The Chinese I met during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games likewise had little apparent discontent with Communist rule. Perhaps they were on their best behavior when I spoke with them, out of fear of government reprisal. But there was another, more open expression of support for the government during the Games. The Opening Ceremonies were attended by over 90,000 people, the vast majority of whom were Chinese. When President Hu Jintao was introduced over the National Stadiums loudspeakers, the audience erupted in cheers. I did not hear a single boo. From months on the presidential campaign trail, Ive learned that boos stand out, even in the midst of a much larger number of people who are clapping and cheering. I remember popular Massachusetts politicians being drowned out at Bostons Fenway Park by a small minority of Bronx cheers. But there were no boos for Hu Jintao; instead, there were loud and exuberant cheers.What has happened in China to the spirit of Tiananmen Square? It may simply be hidden for now, at least from public view. Or it may be that brutal repression and incarceration of dissidents has pushed the democracy movement far below the surface. Every year, there are literally thousands of protests in China, although these are typically directed at the corruption of local bureaucrats and politicians. Perhaps the combination of nationalistic pride and the elixir of newfound economic opportunity have, at least for a time, quieted the clamor for political freedom. In the long term, however, I am convinced that as the Chinese study abroad, trade with free nations, build enterprises, and become increasingly exposed to people and cultures from around the world, they will demand freedom and genuine democratic reforms. But what is uncertain is when that pursuit will reach a critical level, and whether the Communist Party will accede to popular demand. For now, and perhaps for a very long time to come, Chinas strategy is deeply grounded in authoritarian rule.Its surprising to some that Chinas strategy is also based on free enterprise. Communism is, in fact, the opposite of free enterpriseat its core is state-owned industry and public land. But Chinese leaders watched carefully as the economies of the Soviet Union and its fellow travelers like North Korea and Cuba collapsed. In a head-to-head economic contest, carried out over half a century, Communism was the undisputed loser. Free enterprise won, hands down, and so the Chinese Communist Party adopted free enterprise. The Chinese are an enormously practical and intelligent people; their leaders saw that Communism could not feed China, much less make it prosperous. Free enterprise could do both, and the modern tools of repression have allowed the Chinese leadership elites to reap its benefits... for the time being.Chinese free enterprise is not like that of the West, as least not yet. Major industries continue to be state-owned and -operated. And absent from the Chinese system is the rule of law and regulation that shapes free enterprise elsewhere. It has failed to prevent widespread practices that have tainted products from dog food to infant formula, and it quite clearly welcomes the rampant theft of intellectual property from Western businesses. It is free enterprise on steroidsanything goes. China brazenly sells sensitive technologies to Iran and buys oil from genocidal Sudan, and it vigorously defends these nations against international sanction.And there is another way in which Chinese enterprise is distinguished from other economic systems around the world: it is winning. China is fast becoming the worlds factory, successfully capturing the lions share of world manufacturing for a growing list of products. The country is no longer content to make only toys and trinkets. It is manufacturing cars, aircraft, televisions, and computers. Foreign companies that have invested in China have certainly smiled as their sales and profits have grown, but their smiles arent as wide as they once were, now that their Chinese partners are opening facilities of their own and appropriating foreign know-how and technology. All this has led to breathtaking growth for Chinas economy, now predicted to be larger than ours within the next twenty years.The numerous Chinese leaders with whom I have met have always been very gracious. Typically, these formal meetings are held with a large number of observers. The two principals are seated next to each other, separated by flowers and interpreters, rather than sitting face-to-face and eye-to-eye. As a result, what is said tends to feel more like a speech for the gathered assembly than like a direct and personal exchange of views. It can be difficult to discern just what the Chinese are thinking and planning within the boundaries of their relatively closed society. Uniformly, I have been assured by the leaders with whom Ive met that China has no global ambition. They remind me that China is still a very poor country in comparison with nations like ours. That may well be true, but I am certain that China intends to become a very powerful nation, and ultimately to become even stronger than the United States. If and when that happens, who knows what intentions China will harbor?Russia is pursuing a third global strategy. Like China, it favors authoritarian rule, but Russias economic strategy is primarily based on energy. By controlling people and energy, Russia aims to reassert itself as a global superpower.To many of us, it is inconceivable that Russia could ever again compete for world leadership. Didnt the Soviet Union completely collapse? Wasnt its economy a basket case? Russian products were the laughingstock of free economies around the world. Even its military was in shambles because its feeble economy didnt permit it to maintain its armaments, its bases, or even a large part of its personnel. Hadnt Russia thrown in the towel?Yes and no. There was indeed a time when Russia sought aid from the West, and when democracy was energetically, even heroically, pursued. Free enterprise was unleashed, despite concerns. Russia appeared poised to join the family of responsible nations, free nations. But that has changed under Russias former president and current prime minister, Vladimir Putin.Russias rediscovered ambition for superpower status is fueled by its massive energy reserves. Russia has the worlds largest reserves of natural gas and the second largest reserves of coal. It is second in the production of oil, following only Saudi Arabia. In all forms of energy, Russia already is the largest exporter in the world, actually outpacing Saudi Arabia. In 2008, Russia reached 300 billion in energy sales, a figure about two-thirds the size of the entire United States defense budget that year. Had Russia enjoyed comparable energy revenues during the Cold War, we might not have been able to so dominate the arms race that drove them to capitulate. We won the Cold War at the right time.Russias energy strategy has not crowded out the rest of its economy. Despite rampant corruption, a frightening level of organized crime, and the loss of investment predictability due to Putins confiscations of private property, Russia has enjoyed the most rapid recent growth of any of the G-8 nations. Under Putin, the countrys GDP has nearly doubled, averaging growth of approximately 7 percent per year. Adjusted for purchasing power parity, the Russian economy is now the worlds seventh largest.Beyond energy and commodities, Russia also relies on the strength of its science and technology sectors. I remember a conversation I had with Jim Sims, founder and CEO of a company called GEN3 Partners. His business concept was to provide research for American companies that had closed down their own research efforts. In effect, his company would become their various laboratories, enjoying the benefits of scale and the cross-fertilization of ideas. But as he went about hiring American scientists, he found they were in short supply. Ultimately, he found the research scientists he needed in Russia. There, he explained, the scientists were well educated, hardworking, and abundant. Russian enterprises take advantage of the same talent pool to achieve success in such fields as information technology, software, space technology, nuclear engineering, and military weaponry. Combined with its massive energy resources, Russias technology sectors bolster its prospects to someday regain superpower status.Russias energy strategy explains a good part of what Vladimir Putin is doing internationally. Georgia has several thousand ethnic Russians, which provided a pretext for Russian aggression in the summer of 2008. But it was really Georgian geography with its energy pipelines that motivated Putin. The Ukrainians cant help but look at Russia the way Little Red Riding Hood looked at the wolfRussia is hungry for a direct energy route to the Black Sea. It is not just energy reserves that Russia is counting on to propel its return to power; it is also monopoly power over the gas pipelines that provide energy to Europe and the West. When Putin shut gas off to Ukraine and Europe during the winter of 2009, The New York Times reported that it sent an unmistakable message about the Continents reliance on Russian suppliesand Mr. Putins willingness to wield energy as a political weapon.On the surface, Russias support for Iran doesnt seem to make sense; after all, if Iran goes nuclear, its missiles will be a lot closer to Russia than they will be to the United States. But a nuclear Iran would become a Middle East superpower, and if Russia could influence Iran, it could have even more power over world energy supplies. The same holds true with Russias burgeoning relationship with Venezuela.Of course, Putins moves have purpose beyond energy: anything that diminishes America pleases him, both because it weakens a competing power and because it gratifies his personal animus for the United States. Russian presence in Venezuela and Russias resistance to severe sanctioning of North Korea and Iran as they have pursued their nuclear programs are a stick in the eye for the United States. So, too, is Russias insistence that the world replace the dollar as the reserve currency. Putin also bitterly opposes any development that would strengthen the United States such as missile defense, particularly in Eastern Europe, and admission of the former Soviet satellites into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). President Barack Obamas decision to walk away from our missile defense program in Poland and in the Czech Republic was a huge concession to Putin, as is the stalling on admission of Georgia and the Ukraine into NATO. Russia welcomes concessions and these, like their predecessors, were not repaid in kind. Russia takes, President Obama gives, and Russia demands more.There is a fourth global strategy. It, too, is calculated to overcome the West and ultimately lead the world. Though this strategy is formally embraced by only one countryIranit animates many foreign leaders and some of the most infamous names on the planet, among them Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Mullah Omar. It is violent jihadism: the fanatical, terrorist, and always threatening branch of extreme fundamentalist Islam. Despite the theological differences between radical Sunni Wahhabism and radical Shia extremism, both endeavor to cause the collapse of all competing economies and systems of government, and thereby, in a last-man-standing approach, become the worlds leading powerin fact, its sole power. In the minds of the jihadists, there is only one legitimate government and it is waiting to be unleashed: a caliphate with global reach and power.Violent jihadist groups come in many stripes across a spectrum, from Hamas to Hezbollah, from the Muslim Brotherhood to al Qaeda, and from Lashkar-e-Taiba to Jaish-e-Mohammed. Each espouses causes that are unique to its own branch of Islamism and to its own geographic regionindependence for Chechnya, political dominance in the Sudan, hegemony over Kashmir, and so on. But without question, the jihadists also share a common overarching goal: violent holy war on America and the West, the destruction of Israel and the Jews, the recapture of all lands once held by Muslims, the elimination of infidel leaders in Muslim nations like Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and ultimately, the defeat of all non-Muslim nations.Theirs is a strategy based on conquest and compulsion. Because it has no singular or coordinated leadershipand because its objectives are both grandiose and fragmentedattempts to execute this strategy are pursued by a number of tactical means. Some, like the Wahhabis, focus on the virtual brainwashing of young people to help spread radicalism throughout the world of Islam. Others, like Hamas, recruit and train suicide bombers. Some endeavor to mollify and pacify the West, lulling these nations into complacency and inaction. Lebanese American scholar and NBC commentator Dr. Walid Phares argues in his book, Future Jihad, that the massive Saudi investment in Islamic study centers in Western universities is designed to do precisely that. Al Qaeda itself continues to plan devastating attacks like those it carried out on September 11, 2001, and also targets unstable nations like Somalia and Yemen for takeover, with the hope of converting them into training and launching sites for an ongoing series of massive attacks.Regardless of the choice of tactics, the overarching objectives of the various radical groups are linked by adherence to common fundamental goals. One of these was spoken by jihadist Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil: Due to the blessings of jihad, Americas countdown has begun. It will declare defeat soon.These are the four strategies for world leadership that are in competition today. Only one is founded on freedom. Only one. Think of what that means. Only if America and the West succeedif our economic and military strength endurecan we be confident that our children and grandchildren will be free. A strong America is good for peace, and it is essential for the spread of freedom. Our superpower status and our leadership in the world, however, are not inevitable. Three other global strategies, each pursued by at least one state or major actor, are aggressively being pursued to surpass us and, in some cases, to suppress us. The proponents of each are convinced they will succeed. And world history offers us no encouragement: Every superpower in history has eventually weakened and fallen behindmany have ultimately collapsed. Given what is at risk, I have come to believe that our primary objective as a nation must be to keep America strong. I am convinced that every policy, every political initiative, every new law or regulation should be evaluated in large measure by whether it makes us stronger or weaker. Our freedom, security, and prosperity are at stake.Some of us take our many personal freedoms for granted. Others in the world who have never experienced them, and who have instead only heard their autocrats malign freedom, may not yet fully understand what it means. But for most Americans, the pulse of freedom beats in our very DNA. The New Hampshire license plate reads LIVE FREE OR DIE, reminiscent of patriot Patrick Henrys famous entreaty. There are those who insist that New Hampshires motto isnt politically correct. But most Americans envy the Granite Staters their motto and believe, as I do, that this is the American resolve.I have been inspired by the passion of those who have recently won freedom. In 2002, I sat near Afghanistans President Hamid Karzai at a State of the Union address in our nations capital. As we were filing out of the House chamber, he encountered a serviceman who had lost his arm in the fight to free Afghanistan. He said to the soldier, I and my people want to thank you for your sacrifice for our freedom. Thank you, thank you so very much. And the young man responded, It is an honor to serve the cause of freedom.Afghanistan under the Taliban had assailed freedom. For jihadists, the very ideas of democracy and freedom are blasphemous; they believe law is given by God, not chosen by man, and that freedom and democracy substitute the rights of the individual and the collective will of the people for the demands of Allah. The result of their belief has been unimaginable oppression administered by religious mullahs.The oppression inherent in a society without personal freedoms is not always as obvious as it was in Afghanistan. By almost all appearances, China is a very impressive nation, as the Beijing Olympics were designed to demonstrate. The Chinese government spent an estimated 40 billion to showcase their Games. In comparison, Atlantas Games were produced for less than one tenth that amount, even adjusting for inflation. Modern, cosmopolitan Beijing now resembles a typical Western citybustling commerce in stores and malls, daunting traffic, even plenty of McDonalds restaurants.During the Games, the people seemed the same as those youd encounter in any modern citylarge crowds on the sidewalks, people laughing and talking and engaging in the work and play of the day. But a closer look revealed what it is like to live in a society without a Bill of Rights.There is no First Amendment freedom of the press in China. The media is prohibited from criticizing certain Communist Party officialsthose who do may lose their jobs or be imprisoned. My wife Ann and I wondered whether the censorship actually had the desired effect. We got our answer during the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. The audience warmly welcomed every national team as it was introduced into the stadium, but the Chinese gave some of their loudest cheers to the teams from North Korea and Cuba. We wondered how it was possible that nations ruled by tyrants who deprive their citizens not only of freedom but also of economic subsistence could be celebrated. The explanation, of course, is that the Chinese people dont see media reports of North Koreas population being starved to feed the maniacal military ambition of Kim Jong-il or of Castro jailing dissidents who advocate freedom and democracy. The Chinese people receive only glowing accounts of these tyrants; their information is shaped by a monolithic government rather than by the varied perspectives of a free press.Nor do the Chinese citizens enjoy the equivalent of the First Amendment protection of religious freedom. According to the international organization Freedom House, While officially sanctioned groups are tolerated, members of unauthorized religious groups are harassed and imprisoned. Americans celebrate our almost impossibly varied spectrum of religious beliefs and practices. Most of us would fight to defend this freedom for our fellow citizens, no matter how deep the theological disagreements. In China, the average citizen must carefully consider whether to voice even the faintest of religious opinions.The First Amendment right to peaceable assembly is also absent. Christine Brennan of USA Today reported during the Games that she had observed a gathering of about one thousand Chinese in a train station, watching an Olympic event on a big-screen television. The Chinese authorities turned off the television and told the people to leave. Any group assembly, even a small, peaceful, and celebratory one, may be viewed as a potential threat.The international media reported that in order to construct the Olympic venues, the government had ejected many thousands of Chinese from their homes. Protests followed, during which the displaced complained that they had received wholly inadequate compensation. Absent a free press, there was no effective media effort to investigate the fairness of the payments or to ensure that those who protested were not subsequently punished. And without the equivalent of our Fifth Amendment guarantee of just compensation, a fair redress through an independent judiciary was far from certain.We are well aware of Chinas abuse of dissidents, but the absence of basic freedoms impacts not only the prominent and the outspoken, but also the ordinary Chinese citizen. As the bleak oppression of Mao Zedongs Cultural Revolution has been largely eliminated, the Chinese have become increasingly prosperous. But personal freedom as we know it is still fiercely resisted by the Communist Party. Given the attitude toward political liberty of the other aspirants for world leadership as well, freedom for our grandchildren and for people everywhere can be guaranteed only by Americaa strong America.A Change in Foreign PolicyThroughout the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly portrayed himself as the embodiment of change. As has been noted by Robert Kagan, the prominent military and foreign policy scholar, President Obama is in fact a departure from the past, and it is much more than a departure from his predecessor, George W. Bush: it is a rupture with some of the key assumptions that have undergirded more than six decades of American foreign policy. Given the challenge for global leadership that confronts us, it is a break that is unnecessary and unwise.At the end of World War II, the United States executed a dramatic and profoundly meaningful shift in our relationship with the rest of the world. After a long tradition of guarding our own hemisphere while deliberately attempting to stay isolated from the affairs of Europe and Asia, the United States found itself the greatest single power amidst a world in chaos and disrepair. Secretary of State Dean Acheson appropriately titled his memoirs from this time, Present at the Creation. President Harry Truman, his secretary of defense George C. Marshall, Acheson, and a few other visionary leaders set out to help create nothing less than a new international order with the United States in the permanent lead, not as a neutral actor in world affairs but as the protector and defender of a particular world order. The enormity of the task... after the wars in Europe and Asia ended in 1945, only slowly revealed itself, Acheson wrote. The wonder of it, he said, is just how much was done. And Truman and his team believed, as Winston Churchill did, that the hope of the world depended on the strength and will of the United States.This was not an expression of American jingoism. The United States has never wanted to impose itself on the world. As General Powell noted, we do not seek conquest or colonies. We seek our own safety and, insofar as possible, the chance for other people to live in freedom. President Truman vividly understood the mutual dependence of these two goals. The world had just suffered through two of the most destructive wars in history. America had tried to stand apart from those conflicts; we did not want to become involved, but in both cases we found that our vital interests could not be secure in the face of threats to the cause of freedom elsewhere. At the dawn of the nuclear age, a third world war was unthinkable; it would mean the destruction of humankind. So the president and the leaders of both parties shifted Americas foreign policy. America took on the task of anticipating, containing, and eventually defeating threats to the progress of freedom in the belief that actively protecting others was the best way to protect ourselves.Broadly construed, the new order had three pillars: active involvement and participation in world affairs; active promotion of American and Western values including democracy, free enterprise, and human rights; and a collective security umbrella for America and her allies. Along with these pillars came new institutions to fortify them and give them expression: the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the GATT (later WTO), and NATO, among others. And specific actions and initiatives gave them expression as well: the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, the Truman Doctrine (aid to Greece and Turkey to defeat communist insurgencies), and the intervention in Korea, among others. President Trumans administration played a vital role in setting the main lines of American foreign policy for many years to come. What Acheson did not know what he could not know is how long and deep those main lines would go. Every one of Trumans successorsRepublican and Democratfrom Dwight Eisenhower through George W. Bush continued in these broad traditions. There were modifications, adjustments, and occasional deviations to be sure. But these three pillars essentially defined the American posture in the world for the duration of and in the aftermath of the Cold War.The Cold War began with Soviet aggression deep into Western Europe and Asia and with Harry Trumans declaration in response that the nations of the world were obliged to choose between alternative visions of how life was to supposed to be ledas free peoples or as subjects of communist statesand that it was the duty of the United States to support free peoples who were then resisting subjugation and to assist them in the working out their own destinies in their own way.Dwight Eisenhower consolidated and reinforced the institutions founded by Truman and the principles he championed. The most stirring description of these principles was offered by John F. Kennedy in proclaiming Americas determination to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, and oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. At the end of the Cold War there was Ronald Reagan citing the words of John Winthrop and Thomas Paine and promising to begin the world anew in vanquishing an evil empire and leading the world to a new era of freedom.Americas next three post Cold War presidentsGeorge H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bushcontinued in that tradition by championing free trade and freedom by using the American military to thwart the ambitions of evil regimes, to expand NATO, and to make Europe whole and free. Each of our postWorld War II presidentswith Jimmy Carter being the closest to the exceptionbelieved the United States should lead the free world, stand with our allies, confront our adversaries, and speak out for democracy.The course has not been easy. But the policy followed by presidents of both parties from 1945 until 2008 had an unparalleled impact for good. Under the shield of American power and leadership, hope and freedom expanded as never before. The United States has enjoyed three generations of prosperity and liberty while preventing a general war. Japan and Germany, which had been dictatorships, are now secure democracies. So are Taiwan, South Korea, the nations of Eastern Europe, and many other countries across the world. Billions of people today live in freedom, or have the hope of freedom, who otherwise would have lived in despair if not for the greatness of the United States. And thanks to Americas promotion of free enterprise, capitalism, and economic freedom, billions of people have been lifted from poverty.President Obama is well on his way toward engineering a dramatic shift in this American foreign policy, based on his own underlying attitudes.The first of these envisions America as a nation whose purpose is to arbitrate disputes rather than to advocate ideals, a country consciously seeking equidistance between allies and adversaries. We have never seen anything quite like it, really. And in positioning the United States in the way he has, President Obama has positioned himself as a figure transcending America instead of defending America.This sentiment manifests itself in several different ways, including President Obamas American Apology Tour. Never before in American history has its president gone before so many foreign audiences to apologize for so many American misdeeds, both real and imagined. It is his ways of signaling to foreign countries and foreign leaders that their dislike for America is something he understands and that is, at least in part, understandable. There are anti-American fires burning all across the globe; President Obamas words are like kindling to them.President Obama, always the skillful politician, will throw in compliments about America here and there. But what makes his speeches jump out at his audience are the steady stream of criticisms, put-downs, and jabs directed at the nation he was elected to represent and defend.In his first nine months in office, President Obama has issued apologies and criticisms of America in speeches in France, England, Turkey, and Cairo; at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and the United Nations in New York City. He has apologized for what he deems to be American arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision; for dictating solutions, for acting unilaterally, and for acting without regard for others; for treating other countries as mere proxies, for unjustly interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, and for feeding anti-Muslim sentiments; for committing torture, for dragging our feet on global warming, and for selectively promoting democracy. So critical was President Obama at his speech before the United Nations that dictator Fidel Castro complimented him for his brave gesture and courage in criticizing the United States. Hugo Chvez, the president of Venezuela, said that the smell of sulfur (meaning the presidency of George W. Bush) had been replaced by the smell of hope (meaning the presidency of Barack Obama). And Muammar Qaddafi, the dictator of Libya, declared that wed be content and happy if Obama can stay president forever.Such lavish praise for Obamaby Messrs. Castro, Chvez, and Qaddafitells you much of what his approach to foreign policy is and the audience to which he is playing.If President Obama has won the praise of Americas enemies, he has too often turned his back on Americas allies. This has happened in Eastern Europe, where he shelved President Bushs plan to build a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic in order to reset our relations with Russia, without even advance warning to our allies, and without receiving any concession in return. This was understandably seen as a betrayal by our allies in Eastern Europe. The result was, in the words of the syndicated columnist and commentator Charles Krauthammer:an earthquake in our relations with Eastern Europe and the beginning of their detachment from the American umbrella.... We have now declared that Eastern Europewhich had assumed that after the Cold War [it] had joined the West indissolubly and would enjoy its protectionis now in many ways on its own, subject to Russian hegemony and pressure.Poles need to review our view of America, said Lech Walesa, the hero of Solidarity who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. We must first of all take care of our business.Something similar is happening with Israel, where President Obama has exerted substantial pressure on Israel to stop its settlements while putting almost no pressure on the Palestinians. He has done this despite the fact that Israel is among Americas greatest allies, a true and faithful friend, one that has made real sacrifices for peace. To take just one example: In 2005, Israel evacuated its settlers and handed over the Gaza strip and part of the West Bank to the Palestinians. This unilateral concession on the part of Israel was met in return by thousands of rockets fired into the cities of Israel. The Palestinians, fully aware that President Obama is pressuring Israel to make even more unilateral concessions, are content to sit back and make no concessions of any kind.In our own hemisphere, President Obama has insisted that Manuel Zelaya, the corrupt autocrat who has allied himself with Hugo Chvez and Fidel Castro and who was lawfully removed from office by the Honduran Supreme Court, must be returned to power. It is stunning to think that the president of the United States would force Honduras to act contrary to its own laws in order to restore a repressive, anti-American leader to power. Yet that is precisely what the Obama administration has demanded.When it comes to Colombiaone of our best allies in the Western Hemisphere, a nation that has assisted us in fighting against both terrorists and the drug cartel, and an important counterweight to the ambitions of Hugo Chvez in VenezuelaPresident Obama has done nothing to promote a free trade agreement that is vital to Bogot.This is the very opposite of the multilateralism candidate Obama promised throughout 2008and the effects of his actions on our allies will be to create incentives for them to cut deals with our adversaries.If President Obama has too often undermined American allies, he has too often sought to placate Americas adversaries, including Iran and North Korea. In doing so, the president has shown weakness and irresolution when he needs to demonstrate strength of will. President Obama sends a signal that he is eager to negotiate at any time, any place, without conditions; the effect of this is to cede all of the power and leverage to our enemies. Time and again, President Obamas open hand has been met with a clenched fist.Compounding all this is the presidents reluctance to speak out with confidence for American ideals abroadto carry on the tradition begun by Harry Truman with a rhetorical lineage extending all the way back to our Founding era: While he will occasionally say a good word on behalf of democracy and human rights, there is no passion in his wordsand he has not made them a priority anywhere in the world. The presidents support for liberty appears to be pro forma and mechanical, as if it is an afterthought. And President Obamas refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama, along with Secretary of State Hillary Clintons admission that human rights are a secondary issue in our dealings with China, have simply reinforced this impression. The impassioned appeals for democracy that were heard from Democrats like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy have been replaced by rote words or by silence. It is an extraordinary moment we are in, when an American president is eager to note all of Americas failings, real and perceived, and reluctant to speak out in defense of American values and Americas contributions to the freedoms enjoyed around the globe.Another of President Obamas presuppositions is that America is in a state of inevitable decline. He seems to believe that we have entered the post-American world predicted by Fareed Zakarias best-selling book of that name. The perspective is shared by many in the foreign policy cognoscenti, and apparently by the president himself. He therefore sees his task as somehow managing that decline, making the transition to post-superpower status as smooth as possible, helping Americans understand and adjust to their new circumstances.Among the dangers is that if a president believes this, it is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A commander in chief s defense budget and security commitments will be based on a set of assumptions that will eventually become reality. If the president accepts that America is in an irreversible state of decline relative to the rest of the world, it may well come to pass under his stewardship.President Obama is far too gifted a politician to say in plain words that America is merely one nation among many. But his rhetoric offers clues into his thinking. For example, while in Europe, he dismissed FDR and Churchills dominant role at Bretton Woods, saying, If theres just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy, thats an easier negotiation. But thats not the world we live in, and it shouldnt be the world that we live in [emphasis added].It has expressed itself in President Obamas insistence that there is no senior partner and no junior partner in our relations with Europemeaning Luxembourg and Andorra carry the same weight and influence in world affairs as the United States and Great Britain (a claim even Andorrans and citizen of Luxembourg would probably reject).And it has expressed itself when, in response to a question about whether he believed in American exceptionalisma phrase that indicates America has a special place and role in the worldhe replied, I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. Which is another way of saying he doesnt believe it at all.Nowhere has the presidents radical reworking of American and Western leadership been more obviously on display than in his address to the United Nations in September 2009. The heart of his remarks came in this passage:In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold. The traditional division between nations of the south and north makes no sense in an interconnected world. Nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long gone Cold War.If no nation that is elevated above another can succeed, that by necessity means America does not have the ability to maintain a dominant position in the worldsomething which President Obama seems to believe is a bad idea even if it were possible.Indeed, a recurring theme in President Obamas rhetoric is that more than at any point in human history, the interest of nations and peoples are shared and that the common interests of human beingsending global warming, stopping nuclear proliferation, achieving peace and prosperityis stronger than the differences among nations. His job is to remind nations of the importance of mutual respect because of our mutual interests. And only by breaking old patterns can we become more interconnected. President Obama envisions himself as the worlds great bridge builder and synthesizer.Beyond that, if a president engages the worldtyrannies and autocracies like Iran and North Korea, Syria and Russia, Darfur and Zimbabwe, and a dozen other nationsbased on the conviction that we are always dealing with common interests more than we are dealing with competing interests and ideologies, it could lead to serious miscalculation, decline, and even disaster. Here again we can turn to Dean Acheson for wisdom. Released from the acceptance of a dogma that builders and wreckers of a new world order could and should work happily and successfully together, he wrote, [Truman] was free to combine our power and coordinate our action with those who did have a common purpose.Between Harry Truman and Barack Obama, give me Truman every time.In the face of Obamas approach and foreign policy agenda, we need to do several things.The first is fairly elementary: We should treat our allies like the allies they are. That means, for starters, not being harder on them, or demanding more from them, than we do from our adversaries. It means treating them with respect rather than with offense. It means striving to make their lives easier rather than harder. It means consulting them on key decisions before they are made, and especially communicating with them if we must take a route they find troubling. And it means not stabbing them in the back.We should honor the basic rules that govern state-to-state affairs. Foreign policy commitments are not to be made and unmade at will, Margaret Thatcher has said. We are bound by past commitments. We have a respect for past contracts, both as governments and as ordinary citizens. We cannot expect others to keep their word to us unless we keep our word to them.Keeping our word to our allies is a matter of honor, then, but it is also a matter of self-interest. The United States needs allies for economic, political, and national security reasons. Good allies and strong alliances allow us to share the burdens we carry, complement and supplement our efforts, and present a united front against those who wish us harm.When we treat allies in a desultory mannerand especially if we act in a way that causes them to question our reliability and resolve, our commitment and staying powerthey will, out of their own self-interest, turn to others, including those wishing America ill. If Poland and the Czech Republic cant count on America to support them, they will have to bend to the will and wishes of Russia. If our friends in Latin America become convinced that we are turning our back on them, they will feel compelled to reach out to Hugo Chvez, who is seeking to lead a revolution on the continent that takes its inspiration from Castros Cuba. If the Arab nations believe that America will allow Iran to dominate the Middle East and will acquiesce in its acquisition of nuclear weapons, they will inevitably move into Irans sphere of influence, even though Iran is a Shia nation and the Arab Sunni states have hitherto resisted Iranian power projection. If Japan believes the United States is weakening its commitment on the Asian continent, it will distance itself from America and be forced to seek an alliance with China. By seeking to appease its enemies, the United States will only alienate its allies, and eventually America will have no friends at all.We must also act to strengthen the American economy, which has been the cornerstone upon which Americas international leadership has rested in part during the last half-century. As I will discuss at length in later chapters, our economy has been the wonder of the modern world. We can outwork and outproduce any nation on the planet. When we unlock the full talent and energy of individual Americans, it results not only in prosperity but in innovation, in the capacity to adapt to a rapidly changing world, and in stunning breakthroughs in technology and science. What I am describing is not Pollyannaish speculation; it is the record and achievement of modern free-market capitalism.These things are now at risk because of the economic policies of President Obama. His effort to expand the size, reach, and role of government is without precedent in our history. His plans would leave us with a crushing deficit and debt, far beyond anything we have ever experienced. Confiscatory taxes will have to be imposed on future generations to make up for the shortfall. This in turn will undermine growth and the spirit of entrepreneurship that have characterized our nation at its best.It is an often-remarked-upon irony that at a time when Europe is moving away from socialism and its many failures, President Obama is moving us toward that direction.To ensure that America remains safe and maintains its role as a defender of freedom, we also need to increase our defense spending to at least 4 percent of our GDP per year, including substantial and increasing support for missile defense. Under President Obama, our defense spending will decline as a share of our economy and of the federal budget. And it will fall far below what is required to meet our global commitments. We are engaged in two hot wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and facing growing threats in almost every region of the world. Weakness invites challenges, acts of intimidation, acts of aggression, and sometimes war. Right now America is, based on its defense spending, well on the road to weakness.We also need to remind ourselves that the most attractive thing about America is our ideals: our commitment to democracy and free elections; to limited government and the consent of the governed; to unalienable rights and political equality; to freedom of the press and speech, assembly, and religion. We believe in championing democracy and human rights because they lead to human flourishing and to a more peaceful and prosperous world, one that more closely aligns with the values and interests of the United States. To again invoke the words of Margaret Thatcher:Democracies... have never been engaged against each other in warfare in any major way. To reduce the risk of war, therefore, we must work for steady progress towards more democracies. With the advancing tide of democracy, the risk of war recedes. If the tide of democracy recedes, the risk of war advances.So we should encourage democracy where we can, give aid and comfort to those who want it, and not undermine those who already have it.Undergirding all of these things must be the certain conception of the goodness and greatness of America. The United States is the birthplace of modern politics, the first nation to be founded on a transcendent set of political principles. America was not only founded on these principles, it has fought and died for them in wars across the globe. These were conflicts we participated in, not in order to claim new territory but to uphold certain human ideals; to free people from death camps, gulags, and killing fields; and to defeat malevolent ideologies, whether Nazism, fascism, communism, or violent jihadism.That doesnt mean, of course, that America is a perfect country. We have made mistakes and committed grave offenses over the centuries. Too often we have failed to live up to our ideals. But to say that is to say that we live in this fallen world rather than a perfect one, a world composed not of angels but of flawed and imperfect beings. And, crucially, our past faults and errors have long been acknowledged and do not deserve the repetition that suggests either that we have been reluctant to remedy them or that we are inclined to repeat them. What we should say and repeat is this: No nation has shed more blood for more noble causes than the United States. Its beneficence and benevolence are unmatched by any nation on earth, and by any nation in history.Abraham Lincoln understood that the destiny of the world was twined to the destiny of America. It is why he called the United States the last, best hope of earth. It is still so. As citizens of America, we should be filled with love and gratitude for what this country has been, for what it is, and for what it can still be.And of all people, we should expect our president to understand these things, to expect that his bonds of affection for our country would be obvious and unbreakable. In a world composed of nations that are filled with rage and hate for the United States, our president should proudly defend her rather than continually apologize for her.America deserves that, and it deserves much more than that.I reject the view that America must decline. I believe in American exceptionalism. I am convinced that we can act together to strengthen the nation, to preserve our global leadership, and to protect freedom where it exists and promote it where it does not. What is ahead of us now will not be easy. It will be difficult to overcome the challenges we face, to maintain our national strength and purpose even as China, Russia, and the jihadists pursue their own ambitions. It will be difficult to repair the damage from the economic panic of 2008 and the intemperate actions that have been justified as steps to remedy it. I dont worry about our ability to overcome any problem or threat. But I do wonder whether we will take action that is timely, and that we will act before the necessary correction is massively disruptive, or thrust upon us in the midst of agony and surprise even greater than 9/11 or Pearl Harbor.We have been accustomed to being the worlds leading nation for so long, enjoying the freedom, security, and prosperity that comes with that leadership, that we have tended to avoid the hard work that overcoming challenges requires. When I was about ten, I asked my dad how he thought his companys Rambler automobile could ever successfully compete with General Motors; they were so far ahead that catching up appeared impossible. He said something that has since been widely attributed to him: There is nothing as vulnerable as entrenched success. I believe that our many years of success may, in fact, be the greatest obstacle we face. In election after election, candidates have told us that simple measures will solve our challenges, and that their election alone will guarantee a bright future. We have joined in the cheering for this heady prospect. But much more than cheering is going to be required in the years ahead.It is time for America to pursue the difficult course ahead, to confront the looming problems, to strengthen the foundations of our prosperity, and to secure the sources of our liberty and safety. The sacrifice and hard work will not sap our national energy; they will restore it. Im one of those who believe America is destined to remain as it been since the birth of the Republicthe brightest hope of the world. And for that belief, I do not apologize.