America's alliances are fraying and have been since the end of the Cold War. First, we don't have an existential threat. Our problems today are peanuts compared the threat posed by the Soviet Union and its allies. Second, we don't have the same perception of the threats that do exist. Third, as the magnitude of the threat has subsided, philosophical differences between the USA and its allies have grown more prominent. Europe and Japan both have strong pacifist tendencies. Both are more burdened with welfare spending than the United States. Both Europe and Japan have also had more sluggish economies over the past decade. High taxes and very high welfare spending are sapping them of foreign policy options. [Is there a lesson there, Mr. President?] Fourth, our allies are able to use the free rider chit whenever they want to. There are few penalties for telling the USA, "no thank you." Finally, getting close to the USA can have expensive consequences. The 7 year era of preemption (aka preventive war) was hard on our allies and drove a wedge between them and us. Those who went to Iraq and/or Afghanistan often feel more put upon than proud.

America's allies are important to us. They can add power, but most importantly, they can add legitimacy. To be an alliance leader in the 21st century will require patience and skill. More often than not, armies of diplomats will build coalitions of the willing on an issue-by-issue basis. NATO, outside of Europe, will be most useful as a recruiting location. It proves everyday in Afghanistan that "out of area" is a place where NATO as an organization is still out of its depth. We need to keep our expectations in check. Our best bet seems to be the Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, English-speaking, beer-drinking countries. That sounds like a joke, but it may be more true than we know.

Thanks particularly to the UK, Canada, and Australia, for your extra effort and sacrifice. Kudos also to the Netherlands, Denmark, and our "newest" Nato allies for laying it on the line.

The last of the Roman blockbusters of the 1960s was also the most interesting politically. The “Fall of the Roman Empire” was designed as an allegory of us, and released in the year Lyndon Johnson so passionately ramped up our stake in Vietnam.

This gorgeous (if tendentious) production was not simply about its cavalcade of stars — Alec Guinness, James Mason, Omar Sharif, Stephen Boyd, Christopher Plummer, and a Sophia Loren decked out in the most bodacious furs that ever graced the 2nd century. It was not simply about a complete recreation in marble of the Roman forum, or battle scenes with over 8000 soldiers on a Spanish plain.

This movie was a paean to US world leadership — to our modern Pax Americana. Even our then-Dean of History, Will Durant, helped with the screenplay.

The key scene comes early. The Stoic philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius (Alec Guinness) has been laboring for 12 years in the conifer-wilderness of Barbaricum, holding off the Marcomanni and Quadi (just as Richard Harris and Russell Crowe would fight them in 2000 in “Gladiator”) — selflessly prosecuting his own “Long War” against (German) terrorists and extremists.

But we are transported, on a crystalline winter’s day, to the emperor’s command center near present-day Prague. Here we witness a ceremonial and ritual occasion. It is the convocation of “friends and allies” and a celebration of Roman world authority.

One-by-one, each local leader from the civilized world pulls his chariot up before the emperor, where from his high platform the emperor salutes him personally:

“Welcome Castobicus, King of the Omnia” — “Welcome Pertinax, welcome Britannia”

There are so many allies, all of whom have made the pilgrimage to Prague-in-the-forest, that the emperor cannot recall them all by name. As he gestures, his Secretary of State (James Mason) whispers the correct name in his ear. Many are addressed as “Proconsul” yet clearly they are not Romans:

“Welcome Pericles, Proconsul of Athens” — “Welcome Severus, Proconsul of Judea”

The Greek is Greek and the Judean is clearly Judean. Finally Omar Sharif sidles up and the emperor declares: “Rome is honored that Armenia’s king is with us” — To which Sohaemus replies: “My lord Caesar, Armenia hopes only for even closer ties to Rome.”

This is the code. The civilized world seeks to be close to America. Only beneath the transcendent nimbus of the US can they too flourish. America after all is their framework, their backstop, their security blanket, and their guarantor of national identity.

Then Alec Guinness makes a short speech. Tell me if it tells you something about us, or at least about what we so wanted to be:

“You have come from the deserts of Egypt, from the mountains of Armenia, from the forests of Gaul, from the prairies of Spain. We do not resemble each other, nor do we wear the same clothes, nor sing the same songs, nor worship the same gods. Yet, like a mighty tree with green leaves and black roots, you are the unity which is Rome. Look about you, and look at yourselves, and see the greatness of Rome. Two hundred years ago the Gauls were our greatest enemy, and now we greet them as friends. In the whole world, only two small frontiers are still hostile to us: One here in the North, which separates us from those who are called barbarians, and the other in the East, Persia. Only on these two borders will you find walls, palisades, forts, and hatred. But these are not the frontiers Rome wants. Rome wants and needs human frontiers. We have had to fight long wars, and your burdens have been great. But we come now to the end of the road. Here, within our reach, golden centuries of peace. A true Pax Romana — Wherever you live, whatever the color of your skin.”

Indeed, in the reign of our GWOT Emperor George Bush, only two frontiers were still hostile to America: Barbaricum (not German, but Muslim), and yes, Persia. The former emperor sought in actual life, like Alec Guiness on celluloid, to bring us to the end of the road. He sought to break down all walls, palisades, forts and hatred, by bringing both hostile places into the sublimely beneficent embrace of the American Way.

So the end of history was actually declared in a 1964 Hollywood movie — A prefiguration of an American emperor’s hopes (and then dilemmas) after 9-11.

The Fall of the Roman Empire fit perfectly within the zeitgeist of America in the early 1960s. NATO, Japan and the ROK — and so many others — desperately looked to us, and to our imperial approbation, just as much as Alec Guinness’s client kings and native proconsuls did on film. That framework of world relationship would remain in place until the wayward excesses of the GWOT.

If we had been the Rome of our own imagining we would never have come up with “a coalition of the willing.” We could also never have leveraged NATO into Afghanistan. These nakedly disingenuous expedients have served us poorly. Or rather, they served our narcissism at the expense of good strategic sense — and our world relationships.

Simply, in the Iliad-GWOT we forfeited the very framework of relationship that we had so long declared we most treasured. Instead we squandered our treasure, and more important, continue to scatter it to the winds even now.

For 60 years we owned an “empire of alliance” — perhaps not so different in its actual relationships from the world of the real Marcus Aurelius. This world worked because our imperial offer was essential to Western identity, prosperity, and survival. After the Soviet fall our claim began to weaken. Even as NATO expanded, the urgency undergirding American leadership diminished.Allies still might muster modest support and rhetorical genuflection.

But not so much, it might be argued, so as to parade in allied chariots before our emperor in the shadow of the Hindu Kush, in pursuit of another endless Barbaricum.

We need to relearn the art of alliance-as-partnership, a skill we lost during our Roman “empire of alliance” era. NATO, Japan, and the ROK still want and need us. A flexing new Russian threatening to “go rogue,” or a stern China seeking regional genuflection, create new anxieties — which in turn create new opportunities. For example we could renew our relationship with Japan by ditching old paternalism and forging a joint naval enterprise in the Western Pacific to counterbalance China.

We talk “partnership” endlessly it seems. We should try putting it into practice. Failure in the Iliad-GWOT — aka The Long War — shows us not the end of alliances, just the end of an “empire of alliance.”

For America, the keys to sovereignty, independence of action, and wars fought only for genuine national interests are to avoid formal alliances whenever possible and establish non-intervention as the country's default response to international affairs. "Friends with all, allies with almost none" may well be a good synopsis of the conditions for which U.S. diplomats should aim.

As noted by other contributors, the Cold War put a premium on concluding alliances with as many countries as we could, with NATO as primus inter pares. But the reality is that Mutually Assured Destruction and skilled U.S. and British leaders, not NATO and the other alliances, prevented a war between the United States and the USSR. Nonetheless, we have since 1991 treated NATO and the others as somehow sacrosanct when they are really more burden than blessing. We are still in Afghanistan, for example, at least in part because we took the continental NATO countries with us and they proved for the most part militarily useless and eager to placate those in need of killing. Overall, America's alliances today range from a few worth keeping for the long run -- Britain, Canada, and Australia -- to a few that are vital to U.S. interests at the moment -- Pakistan and South Korea -- to a large number are that can only be attributed to the U.S. federal government's spendthrift ways, moral cowardice, corruption, and immunity to reality.

In the latter category, for example, we find our alliances with Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf tyrannies. They give us access to oil and loans as long as we turn a blind eye to their spreading of an imperialistic and martial form of Islam that slowly but surely is undermining stability and social cohesion in countries around the world. We are also committed to defend the borders of any number of Eastern European countries for reasons that are far from clear. And we have something often referred to as an alliance with gangster-run Mexico that allows us to purchase oil while its government pushes its unwanted poor illegally across the border into the United States to torment and bankrupt the citizens of the Southwest, and then organizes them to support the U.S. political party most willing to do Mexico's bidding.

The alliance with Israel, of course, is no such thing. The federal executive and legislative branches and much of the media are the owned by Israel and its U.S.-citizen supporters; note the shameful silence of Obama, his cabinet, and all 535 legislators as the Israel First crowd and its media shills lynched Helen Thomas for daring to use her 1st Amendment rights. As a result, America is consigned to follow a one-way path to endless war on Israel's behalf with all the Muslim world. And besides these alliances, the men and women we elect are out their hunting for more crippling alliances and relationships, such as laboring to get Georgia into NATO, supporting the theft of land from Serbia to create an independent Kosovo; and a slobbering, pathetic pandering to India that does little but turn Pakistan against us and push South Asia closer to a nuclear confrontation.

The question can be asked, of course, is the problem with the idea of alliances or is it with the kind of alliances we choose to pursue? As noted there are alliances worth having, most especially those the United States has with the world's major English-speaking countries. But the value of even those will erode as the politically correct governments of each cling ever more strongly to the poisons of multiculturalism and diversity. These crackpot theories do nothing but shatter social cohesion, negate the pursuit of excellence and achievement based on merit, reduce leadership to a constant subordination of political principles and national interests to the quest for votes from those who come to the America, Australia, Canada, and Britain without intent to assimilate, and instead inject their own long traditions of corruption, law-breaking, and sectarianism into once stable and productive economies and societies.

Generally speaking the American way of making alliances -- mostly bribery outside the English-speaking world and pandering to oil-rich tyrants -- is pointless. Those so-called partners are happy to take our protection and money but when push comes to shove -- as when there is a necessary war to fight -- they want to dig wells, build roads, and stay safely in their fortified compounds. But that is a lesson worth learning, and the reality is that the major reason we have lost in Iraq and Afghanistan is not because our allies would not fight, but rather because our governing elite and general officers -- all trained, as Colonel Lang says, in the best universities -- know nothing of history, religion, the imperfectability of human nature, and what happens to dilettantes who dabble at war with no intention of winning. We will reap the whirlwind for that and when the reaping begins our allies will be nowhere to be found.

The greater danger, I think, is when we inevitably find that the shoe is on the other foot and we are obligated to fight exhausting/disastrous wars for one of another of our so-called allies and friends. What if the Georgians finally goad the Russians into a repeat invasion? What if the Serbs decide to retake the land that is lawfully theirs? What if the Turks and the "new" Iraq go at it over Kurdistan? What happens when the Israelis unite the Muslim world against the United States and the Arab regimes that abet Israel by attacking Iran (or Syria or Lebanon or ...)? What happens when, in the ultimate nightmare scenario, China acts to reabsorb Taiwan? Do we really want our armed forces involved in wars that are none of our concern but on which our diplomats have ensured we will spend blood and treasure? Will the American people brook wars for Kosovo's independence or for Israel's territorial ambitions and self-imagined religious destiny? You can bet the day is coming when we will find out.

It always is wise, I think, to seek advice from men who knew what they were doing. These happen to be the same men our oh-so-smart political leaders ignore, when they are not denouncing them as dead white men. "My policy has been and will continue to be," President Washington said, "to be on friendly terms with, but independent of, all nations on earth. To share in the broils of none. To supply their wants, and be carriers for them all; being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so; and that nothing short of self-respect, and that justice which is essential to a national character, ought to involve us in war." Looking at today's world and the net result of U.S. alliance-making one must conclude that our leaders have scorned the Master of Mount Vernon, turning his advice on its head to ensure that we "share in the broils of all."

I believe America's alliances are fraying. We have asked too much of our allies, by twisting their arms to engage in unnecessary and illegal wars. We have asked our allies to contribute their soldiers and resources to wars of our choosing. We have shown poor leadership in the world by failing to seek effective solutions to longstanding and festering problems. We have continued to pour our own resources into the preparation for war and into wars. And we have demanded this of our allies, rather than seeking and finding cooperative solutions to global problems. We have become so accustomed to using the military as our solution of choice that we have lost track of what we are seeking to accomplish in the world. We have treated our allies more as vassals than partners. A good example of our rigidity was the manner in which we rebuffed Brazil and Turkey when they sought a solution to Iran's uranium enrichment.

Before our alliances further deteriorate and fall apart, it is time to rethink our goals and our means of achieving them. We can no longer lead by bullying and arm twisting. In the 21st century, leadership will require us to listen to both our friends and our enemies. Our aspiration should be to lead by example and to turn our enemies into friends without reversion to the heavy-handed tool of warfare.

Everybody talks about multilateralism but nobody does anything about it. That holds true for American presidents from John Kennedy to Barack Obama – with the exception of George Bush the Younger whose administration didn’t pretend it wanted the counsel of lesser states. Today the case for a cultivated set of diplomatic as well as military alliances is compelling. Cardinal features of the world environment point clearly in that direction: the nature of the problems (regional stability; global system maintenance); the growing self confidence and capacity of new actors (China, Brazil, India, Turkey); and the evident limits of America’s capacities for enlightened leadership in every respect – including intelligent strategy and skillful diplomacy.

Yet Washington shows no inclination to change its commanding ways. For understandable, if not persuasive, reasons. The United States was born with a sense of superiority as well as exceptionalism. Our belief in American virtue underpins a deeply ingrained conviction that we are destined to be trail guide to the global promised land. The nation’s manifest might over the past seventy years has confirmed it, as has the deference of allies. The Cold War success sealed it. A culture of domination and subordination suffuses our dealings with them. Modes of interaction conform to that culture. As a practical matter, American officials find it unnatural to address others as equals, even selectively on problems in their neighborhood that affect their interests more acutely than they affect ours. We instinctively take command and are unbending when we make up our mind, which usually is a strictly internal process (e.g. the Afghan ‘surge”.)

To date, the painful failures of unilateralism have not dented our insular mentality. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, international monetary reform, the Missile Shield – they share the same methods of American policy-making and execution. Cumulatively, these serial errors have cost us greatly.

How can this change? That would demand both an inescapably agonizing reappraisal of who we are and what we can accomplish, and pressure from allies, e.g. Turkey and Brazil on the Iranian nuclear issue. The latter will grow. The disposition to undertaken theformer is invisible. I refer not only to the arrogance of the Obama people. I refer as well to the discourse within the foreign affairs community more broadly. Frankly, it is replete with “they shoulds” and “they musts” – whether the “they” is France, Pakistan, Germany, Brazil, the Iraqis, Russia or whomever. A New York Times editorialused the former expression four times and the latter expression eight times in one editorial directed at Musharraf. That broke the informal record of three and seven used in an editorial directed at Vladimir Putin on Georgia. One assumes that the same language is used at the upper echelons of the Obama administration – with the addition of profane adjectives when Mr. Emanuel, Mr. Panetta or Mr. Geithner has the floor.

The language is unimportant; the mindset that it conveys is. Mr. Obama is well spoken and polite; but “they” remain “they.” All his rhetoric about alliance dialogue and multilateralism has had no tangible meaning. That will continue to be the case unless and until he wakes up to the concrete costs to American interests registering now, and the enormous opportunity costs from failure to see what future world stability requires.

Brazil has clearly set a course for greater global influence and sees a role for itself in a number of fora that have traditionally been dominated by others. Its efforts in the Middle East may be naive or misguided, depending on ones interpretation, but they stem from a desire to be taken seriously as a global power. Its difficult to make the case based on this, however, that this is fraying an alliance with the United States. While US policy-makers see partnership with Brazil to achieve common goals as the overriding aim, Brazilians have long seen the relationship with the United States, at least in the hemisphere, as zero sum and have often defined their policy in terms of what they are not (i.e. the United States) rather than what they are. This has put them into a pickle in the context of the recent UNSC vote on Iran, as it now appears that Brazil's opposition to the United States on this issue extends as far as to be willing to side with one of the world's most deplorable regimes against a global--not merely Western--consensus (even Lebanon abstained). Brazilians will go to the polls in October; one of the questions being asked widely in Brazil these days is what is the nature of Brazil's place in the world, and to what end. The elections won't resolve that question, but they will inform it and provide clues going forward as to how Brazil seeks to position itself globally.

Updated at 1:02 p.m. on June 15.

The United States does not want "allies." What it wants are subordinates. The Cold War taught us a lot of bad lessons. Among other things, it taught us to think of ourselves as the leaders and commanders of an armed camp, of an army made up of countries that had common purpose and which sought our protection and therefore accepted the need to do what we thought best. To that end we created command structures that brought the armed forces of these other states under our operational control. There was good reason for this. The Soviet Union was an immense menace.

That world is long gone, and with it the justification for the retention of the forms created to cope with the vanished threat. Does anyone really think that Islamic terrorism is an existential threat to the US or its NATO partners? I have seen Power Point slide shows that try to convince people that a few thousand fanatics are somehow the advanced guard of a mighty army marching toward us from the Muslim East. How absurd! To think or say that is to reveal an insecurity that is truly worrisome. Think about it! What is the worst that they could do? The very worst? If they did that would it be the end of our civilization or our countries? No. It would not.

NATO in Afghanistan! Absurd! The Europeans know that it is absurd and that is why they don't want to play a role in our fantasies any longer. The danger posed by Islamic zealotry is a danger best dealt with small, specialized forces, with skilled intelligence work and with stealth, not with the mobilization of vast armies and the expenditure of vast sums that can not be afforded by us or our "allies." We are bleeding ourselves out and we are trying to bleed those who have been our friends.

We have the habit of dominion now, of "leadership" as we like to call it. We have a class of people, schooled in the best universities, whose lives are centered on and dependent on the maintenance of world "leadership."

The "Jihadi Menace" is starting to diminish as a convincing rationale. What will be the next "threat?" China? India? North Korea?

It is hardly newsworthy when one of America's allies bucks Uncle Sam. It has become an almost daily occurence. The latest snub by Turkey and Brazil at the UNSC wasn't even a surprise. The two countries had signaled their discontent with Washington's approach toward Iran's nuclear program by sponsoring a compromise aimed at thwarting the drive for another round of sanctions. And Turkey's role in the Gaza-blockade-busting flotilla has elicited a chorus of criticism.

But just because the United States has had difficulty keeping its allies in line doesn't mean that it can't assemble a coalition to deal with common challenges. It all depends on whether the parties agree on the nature and severity of the threat, and on the best means for mitigating it. In this context, the multinational naval task force operating off the Horn of Africa has had great success beating back piracy in the region. The countries that choose to participate agree that piracy poses a threat to their commercial interests, and are willing to band together in a loose coalition -- and not as part of a formal, permanent alliance -- in order to deal with the challenge. Their contributions are generally consistent with their interests; the benefits seen as in line with the costs.

Alliances are no different, or, at least, they shouldn't be. Alliances are supposed to be sustained by interests. (British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston's observation that "nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests" has been repeated so many times that it has become cliched). And yet, the United States has maintained its commitment to NATO, South Korea and Japan in recent months, even as it is obvious that the parties do not share common interests. The alliances have become an end in and of themselves, instead of the means to an end.

Thus we have the spectacle of the Obama administration pressuring the Japanese government to relent on the permanent stationing of U.S. troops in Okinawa -- and forcing Prime Minister Hatoyama from office in the process (more on this here). Meanwhile, we see European countries cutting defense spending at a time when U.S. spending continues to rise. When she presented the Obama administration's national security strategy late last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that NATO was one of several global commitments that was "embedded in the DNA of American foreign policy."

Hardly. While a bipartisan consensus in Washington is enamored of Europe's dependence upon the United States, most Americans tire of defending our wealthy European allies who are eminently capable of defending themselves. The resentment has only grown as these same allies have shown precious little enthusiasm for supporting the United States in its hour of need in Afghanistan.

So while the alliances are fraying, they aren't going away. They should be. As Ben Friedman and I explained in a just-released report "The imbalance of power that brought our Cold War alliances long ago disappeared. The alliances should follow suit." If the United States were to adopt a more restrained grand strategy, one less concerned with defending other countries, and more focused on our core security interests, we would still retain the ability to assemble coalitions of the willing when circumstances called for such a multilateral approach. As it is today, we have created a class of wealthy and secure allies who lack the capability, but most importantly the will, to act on their own behalf, let alone in the service of the world's policeman.

President Obama's National Security Strategy, which was released only a few weeks ago, states, "...we will be steadfast in strengthening those old alliances that have served us so well, while modernizing them to meet the challenges of a new century. As influence extends to more countries and capitals, we will build new and deeper partnerships in every region..." This is a stark reminder that the United States has not come to grips with one of the most important realities of the 21st century: much of the world considers America threatening, intimidating, or, at least overbearing. This is an inevitable result of possessing great power.

Because the United States has interests in far flung parts of the world, American strategy has always been indirect, relying on partners, allies, or proxies. And because the United States in the most unconfident great power in history, it needed the approval and validation that partnerships offered.

During the Cold War, Americans accepted the myth that others saw our power as benign. In reality, they saw it as the lesser evil. Once the Cold War faded, this no longer held. But Americans have not yet accepted the idea that other states increasingly seek to block or exclude us. Instead, we blamed it on George Bush. Undoubtedly his personal style accelerated the mistrust or sense of intimidation others felt toward the United States, but President Bush did not cause it. By the same token, President Obama's softer style can slow down the trend, but not stop it.

Hence the coming years will seen mounting efforts to resolve regional problems without involving the United States in a major way, and often to exclude it all together. Some of these will succeed, some will fail.

President Obama's emphasis on cooperation and partnership is a good thing.

But we should not delude ourselves into thinking that it will resolve the world's desire to limit American power and influence. We must begin seriously discussing our role in a world where we are still the most powerful nation, but no longer the indispensible one.

As I watch my twenty-something staff run around the office some days, I muse on their vitality, certainty, universal connectivity and hope for the future complete with I-Pads, I-Pods and I-Phones. Their fifty something boss is less vital, knows not to be certain about anything, and is wary of the future especially where everyone is interconnected.

So, I try daily to chastise myself to remember it is to the young a Brave New World and change is a necessary and crucial part of life. And remember, for myself, the Dylan line that "the old road is rapidly changing." America too needs to think about that in its relations with the rest of the world. Frankly, we are beginning to get middle aged and rusty.

We all live by our myths. For America, the myth (and quite a good one) is that we are a shining city on the Hill. We are a beacon of freedom and an example of what the world should be as a democratic, secular and capitalist state. The evidence of the desire of people around the world wanting to come here or otherwise participate in this dream is still pretty strong. But, the old road is rapidly changing and we need to adapt to it.

The fall of the Soviet Union, some twenty years ago, left us with a false sense of permanent victory. Some foolishly referred to the end of history. We were the number one power astride the world economically, politically and militarily. Nothing like a fifty-year-old guy looking in the mirror making judgments about how good he looks. In the case of America, we had not recognized that many of the rules of the game we won were now changing. Other peoples had other ideas about what looked good and we were not their ideal. Other technologies would enable them to challenge us.

The biggest arena of conflict in the new world is religion. Iran knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. There is a food fight among the billion people of Islam. Is the modernity of the West appropriate or even desired for a Muslim? Many are discomforted by this question. Iran and Al Qaeda have taken advantage of a radical stance to push their agendas.

Our response has been weak. We have yet to come to grips with religious ideology in the world and its importance. While we are a relatively religious country, the base line document of our psyche, the Constitution, separates church and state. This has been reinterpreted a number of times. And Lord knows, our leadership calls upon the counsel of God in any number of public speeches. Still, this coalition of religion and politics makes us nervous. We down play the value of our Judeo-Christian roots. In fact, versus the Cold War against god-less communism, we don’t talk about them at all anymore. It is a shame.

The second big issue for us is the leveling of the playing field in politics, military and economic affairs. Tom Friedman was right in that the world is flattening. Everyone is getting a shot at the pie.

Economically, the world we publicly desired after World War II is taking place. Capitalism, both rampant and controlled, is the dominant economic system through out the world. China, India, Brazil and others are doing very well at this game. Our American lead is eroding and this means we have to engage the others as partners in ways unimaginable even ten years ago.

In politics, the world has always been dominated by narrative and deliverance. On the latter point, you cannot make too much about the importance of cyberspace. It is a game changer about which we have done little but watch. It is a stage where all have equal opportunity to present a message on a mass scale. Al Qaeda gets an equal input with any official US government statement. So does the kid with a website in Bangladesh or Brazil.

As for our military advantage, that remains quite real from a nation state standpoint. China is, however, building new weapons systems based on our technology and is not burdened with the problems of repairing or replacing old ones. As for asymmetric warfare, well there are a lot of people who can foul us up with that. America can be attacked by IED’s in Iraq and Afghanistan and by kids in Internet cafes anywhere in the world – little to be done by us to counter.

All of this points back to a single thing – the world is changing rapidly. We are a status quo power and the aging champion. We need to stop thinking old school about static political, military and economic power. We must be willing to express the courage of our social convictions and show that our approach of coexistence of politics and religion is the better way. And we certainly must be willing to act more aggressively in cyberspace and bring and adapt new tactics to old concepts like military and economic power that are shifting the ground underneath of us.

We have been smart enough in the past to adapt to new times. But like any middle-aged person, we have to overcome our prejudices and will ourselves to do so. The old road is rapidly changing. To influence the new one, we need to be part of it.