The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
—Thomas Jefferson
The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
—George W. Bush
On the evening of November 9, 1989, I was sitting in my office in the Ministry of Taxation in Copenhagen. Appointed minister as a thirty-four-year-old in 1987, I was the youngest member of the cabinet, and very determined to demonstrate skills and efficiency that could compensate for my youth. I worked day and night, and very often I spent the evenings in my office, reading and managing files; I let my staff go off duty to make sure I was not disturbed. That Thursday evening, too, I had intended to spend some exciting time with my tax files. However, it was hard to concentrate. Historic events were unfolding not far from Copenhagen, in Berlin. I zapped around the television channels, and they were all broadcasting live from East Berlin, where people had started crossing the wall between East and West Berlin. There were incredible pictures of people standing on top of the Wall; jumping into West Berlin; opening the border gates and crossing the formerly heavily guarded checkpoints—for most easterners, the first time they visited West Berlin; images of happy people partying in the streets. In the end, I surrendered to television. I could not not watch that moment of history being made, and of freedom breaking free. The discrepancy between the historic events in Berlin and the loneliness of my ministerial office was simply too great for me to keep my attention on the technicalities of the Danish value-added tax (VAT) system.
During my upbringing in school and elsewhere, we had not learned much about the people, the countries, and the way of life behind the Iron Curtain. We simply did not know much about the East. It was a closed land, dark and gray, and most of us who grew up in the shadow of the Wall and the Iron Curtain could not imagine that change could happen, or at least that it could happen so fast. President Reagan had called on Gorbachev to tear down the Wall, but now Berliners took the matter into their own hands; and with the Wall, Communism also fell, and the moral, economic, and political bankruptcy of that inhuman ideology was declared.
People in the former Communist states threw off the yoke of dictatorship and started determinedly on the journey toward freedom and democracy. A new era began, in which the peoples of Europe turned their backs on the Cold War and opened a new chapter with the aim of creating a new Europe, whole, free, and at peace. People’s strong will to be free had prevailed over oppression. Optimism flourished, and everyone was convinced that the superiority of liberal democracy would triumph over autocracy all over the world.
I saw that will to freedom displayed twenty-two years later under quite different circumstances. My house in Copenhagen is full of mementos from my years in government and service, but I find my eye wandering to a scarf I was given by a young freedom fighter in Libya in 2011. For me, it is a reminder of the universal yearning for freedom. I was the secretary-general of NATO at the time. We were visiting Tripoli on October 31, the last day of our mission, Operation Unified Protector. As we drove down the streets of the capital, we could see graffiti sprayed on the walls: “Thank you NATO.”
At a reception for young freedom fighters, one young man stepped forward and gifted me the scarf, which was festooned with revolutionary colors. Over the course of the afternoon, the fighters spoke of a freedom that they had never known under Colonel Gadhafi: their desire for a society free of tribal and religious strife, the freedom to choose, the freedom to pursue dreams. They dreamed about peace, progress, and prosperity. I was moved by their dreams and inspired by their gift. It was given in gratitude for aiding their liberation, but I also thought of it as a down payment on the future of a free Libya.
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In 1993, I read Francis Fukuyama’s book The End of History and the Last Man with great interest, and as a classical European liberal I took great pleasure in his prediction of the inevitable triumph of liberal capitalist democracy. As he famously put it, “At the end of history, there are no serious ideological competitors left to liberal democracy,” and in the spirit of the optimism that dominated after the end of the Cold War, he elaborated further: “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: That is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution, and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
Encouraged by the fall of the Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the beginning opening of China, I concurred with Fukuyama’s analysis. I firmly believed that capitalism and liberal democracy would go from strength to strength over the world, simply because it was demonstrably the most successful model for the development of a society, and from that would also flow a new world order, as outlined by President George H. W. Bush in his address to a joint session of Congress, “Toward a New World Order,” on September 11, 1990. In that speech, he set out his vision of a new world, where “the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle” and where nations “recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice.” Liberal capitalism and democracy had won the battle of ideas.
It turned out to be a brief period of hope: In time, we learned the hard way that there was no universal agreement on the unparalleled strength of liberal capitalism and democracy. In my many meetings with the highly experienced and cunning Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, for example, he often spoke about the need for a multipolar world and the competition between different value systems and ideas, implicitly confirming that liberal democracy would find it hard to get past the watchdogs of the Kremlin. Indeed, President Putin spoke warmly about “sovereign democracy,” which, I understood, was a very particular Russian sort of “managed democracy” necessitated by the complexity of Russian society. “Managed democracy” is a contradiction in terms: It is, in fact, undemocratic, since it means that power is not actually vested in the people but their managers. In reality, Russia has moved from an admittedly somewhat chaotic democracy in the 1990s to an admittedly more orderly autocracy. Furthermore, a resurgent Russia has challenged the rules-based international order by taking land by force from Ukraine and by violating Ukraine’s sovereignty through active support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. Autocracy has made a comeback.
In the Middle East and North Africa, too, we have seen autocrats striking back. Against the backdrop of victory, joy, and optimism among the young freedom fighters in Tripoli, it has been depressing to see the democratic forces sidelined and Libya plunging into chaos and becoming a breeding ground for extremism and terrorism. It has been disappointing to witness the failure of democracy in Egypt and heartbreaking to witness the brutal crackdown on freedom activists by the Syrian regime. What started as an Arab Spring has turned into an icy winter.
And overall, we are seeing a global decline in political rights and civil liberties. In 2016, for the tenth consecutive year, Freedom in the World, Freedom House’s annual report on the condition of global political rights and civil liberties, showed an overall decline. The acceptance of democracy as the world’s dominant form of government is, according to the organization, under greater threat than at any point in the last twenty-five years. This pattern held true across geographical regions, with more declines than gains in the Middle East and North Africa, Eurasia, sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and the Americas, and an even split in Asia Pacific. A troubling number of large, economically powerful, or regionally influential countries moved backward: Russia, Venezuela, Egypt, Turkey, Thailand, Kenya, and Azerbaijan. The worst reversals affected freedom of expression, civil society, and the rule of law. We must realize that liberal capitalism and democracy are not unchallenged systems. They cannot be taken for granted: Autocrats will do all they can to remain autocrats, and together, they have a shared interest in challenging the liberal world order and the ideas of individual liberty, free-market economy, and the rule of law. As far back as 2008, Robert Kagan concluded that autocracy is coming back, and, as a polemic response to Fukuyama, he stated that we are witnessing “the return of history and the end of dreams.”
It may well be that we are witnessing the return of history, but I refuse to put an end to dreams. We can be proud of what our free societies have achieved, and I insist on keeping alive the dream that liberal democracy will prevail over autocracy and oppression, so I prefer to speak about “the return of the history and the continuation of dreams.”
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Perhaps the biggest threat to the dream of universal liberal democracy comes from deep within liberal democracy itself. The world’s liberal democracies are vastly superior to the world’s autocracies by almost every measure except one: the will to lead. Autocratic leaders do not second-guess themselves; democratic societies by nature tend to second-guess themselves. One could even take this argument one step further: The more successful and prosperous democratic societies become, the more time they spend ripping themselves apart politically, undermining their own will to lead on the international stage.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Alexis de Tocqueville observed a certain optimism in American society. The Americans “have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man. . . . They all consider society as a body in a state of improvement.” Political and social observers have echoed this sentiment and spirit of optimism for centuries as an essential feature of not just the American dream but also of the social and economic institutions of American civil society.
Today, when the United States has never been more powerful, prosperous, and protective of minority rights, the public mood is much gloomier. A Pew Research study from 2015 shows that Americans are not highly confident in the nation’s future. Fewer than half (45 percent) expressed quite a lot of confidence in the future of the United States. Just 19 percent of those under thirty say that the United States stands above other nations. Confidence in the future of the United States is lower today than it was in the mid-1970s: For example, a 1975 survey by Gallup found that 60 percent had quite a lot of confidence in the future of the United States. That has fallen to 45 percent now.
Another poll from 2015, commissioned for the Atlantic and the Aspen Institute, points out that a majority of Americans (75 percent) believe that the American dream is suffering, that obstacles to realizing the dream are “more severe today than ever” (69 percent), and that, overall, the nation is on the wrong track (64 percent).
Self-doubt is not a model for success. Americans need to recall that they have made stunning progress, creating the world’s first mass-prosperity society and the world’s most powerful magnet for ambitious immigrants. The United States alone has a universal appeal, and many people want to be American. US presidential elections are watched with passion in the world, not least because of the soft-power credentials of the United States. Americans need to rediscover their pride in being American.
Western societies are more democratic, more liberal, and more protective of minority rights than any societies seen in previous times—indeed, they are a strong model for success and individual happiness. There is a need for the next US president to inspire optimism and hope; we need to see a showdown with the self-doubt, sometimes even self-hatred, that characterizes much of the public debate in the United States and other free societies.
Many leftists like to blame the West and free liberal democracy and capitalism for all the problems in the world. Terrorism? Caused by Western oppression of minorities. African kleptocracy? Caused by the legacy of Western colonialism. Hunger and poverty? Caused by Western capitalism. Autocracy and tyranny? Caused by Western imperialism. We know the entire arsenal of accusations. Western culture and the Western way of life seem to be the mother of all of the world’s problems.
It is tempting to dismiss these arguments as the thoughts of a few die-hard, unreformed Communists, but Western self-doubt unfortunately extends far beyond the community of hard-core leftists. In academia in particular, it has become commonplace to focus on the shortfalls of Western history and culture rather than the greatness of Western civilization. American and European universities used to require deep immersion in the classics of Western philosophy. Today, this solid philosophical grounding has been replaced with a focus on pure technical training or, even worse, outright rejection of Western values and civilization. Allan Bloom described this development well in his 1987 classic, The Closing of the American Mind, and the situation has hardly improved in the three decades since then.
The lack of a solid appreciation for the Western roots of liberal democracy among academically educated elites in politics, business, and culture leads to an instinctive moral relativism that undermines the will to lead. Too often, political correctness blocks out moral clarity and gets in the way of sound decision making.
In my view, one of the key weaknesses of the Obama presidency has been the administration’s inclination toward moral and cultural relativism. President Obama’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in February 2015 was a prime example of this relativism. Speaking of religious violence around the world and in the context of the brutal rise of IS in Syria, the president was quick to point out Western shortcomings:
And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. . . . So this is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.
Another example was President Obama’s speech in Havana, Cuba, on March 22, 2016, comparing Communist movements to the American Revolution in 1776:
The ideals that are the starting point for every revolution—America’s revolution, Cuba’s revolution, the liberation movements around the world—those ideals find their truest expression, I believe, in democracy.
I agree with President Obama that all religions fall short, all revolutions have some elements of nobility, and all human beings have sinful tendencies. But it is equally true that some religions have more shortcomings than others, some revolutions are nobler than others, and some human beings are more sinful than others. It is only when we are willing to say openly that some actions and some ways of life are better than others that we can move the human race forward.
To a certain extent, self-flogging and self-laceration reflect one of the virtues of Western culture: The inbuilt pressure of criticism pushes us to question established truths and seek new knowledge and cognition, which in turn paves the way for renewal and progress. Yet very often, the criticism is not a way of refining and improving the real achievements of Western culture, not least of which is the freedom to criticize. Denunciation seems to be relished out of a cultural relativism that builds on the premise that all values and principles are of equal quality, and it does not acknowledge the exceptional strength of individual liberty, liberal democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law.
The time has come for a showdown with this tyranny of guilt. The fact is that Western culture has brought great progress to the world. The Enlightenment brought a new understanding of faith and science, which paved the way for knowledge, progress, and individual freedom. Liberal democracy gave people the opportunity to get rid of tyranny and despotism and guaranteed certain rights for the individual. Liberal capitalism and globalization have brought prosperity and moved hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and hunger.
We can be proud of these achievements. Instead of self-doubt, we need self-confidence. Instead of denunciation, we need recognition. Instead of Western masochism, we need Western uplift. As leader of the free world, the American president must emanate and enunciate a clear conviction in the supremacy of Western liberalism and capitalism, and stimulate self-confidence, instill trust in the future, and raise optimism and hope for all the people in the world who are yearning for liberty.
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Self-doubt and discord among the world’s democracies are major weaknesses that autocracies often seek to exacerbate and exploit for their own purposes. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union actively supported the Western European peace and environmental movements in an effort to divide the United States and Europe and to undermine NATO’s nuclear deterrent. Communist bloc propaganda actively nurtured the view that Western capitalism led to the oppression of the poor, the sick, and minorities. In more recent years, autocracies like Russia, China, and Iran have actively continued this combination of geopolitical positioning and political propaganda to undermine liberal democratic unity. Nowhere is this effort by the autocracies to undermine the will of the democracies more evident than at the United Nations.
The United Nations began as a noble expression of liberal democratic universalism. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states very clearly: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” and “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Sadly, the UN’s role and credibility as guardian of universal human rights has been dramatically undermined by the creation of a Human Rights Council whose members include several autocratic states that suppress human rights at home and refuse to recognize the universality of human rights abroad. This is all the more devastating because the original idea of the creation of the United Nations and the adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights was precisely to affirm the universality of man’s basic freedoms. For the UN itself to have been muzzled by the forces of oppression is a tragedy.
Furthermore, the aura of democratic legitimacy that still surrounds the United Nations has time and time again been used by autocracies to block democracies from taking action on the international stage to combat genocide and tyranny and to promote liberal democracy. In most liberal democracies, it is important politically to secure a UN mandate before engaging in military action. By assigning such importance to the UN, we effectively give autocracies like China and Russia the ability to paralyze the United States and its democratic allies through their veto power on the UN Security Council.
The United Nations started out as a noble effort and a useful geopolitical tool for exercising American global leadership. Unfortunately, the UN has now become the geopolitical expression of moral relativism, all too often refusing to distinguish between good and evil, preventing decisive action on the global stage when it is most needed. However, it is also important to recognize that the United States needs an institution like the United Nations that will allow the American president to mobilize the world’s democracies in a united front the same way that Harry Truman did in the Korean War and George H. W. Bush did in the First Gulf War.
The United States is indispensable in its ability to protect and promote freedom and to prevent conflicts, to resolve conflicts, and to help with post-conflict reconstruction. However, the United States should not be left to carry out that job alone: Smart American leadership should strive for alliance-building. While the United States, due to its strength, could carry out most of the tasks alone, it would gain more legitimacy, greater political strength, and additional resources by bringing in like-minded allies and partners to help do the job. Furthermore, there is a need to create an overwhelming, credible, and strong liberal democratic supremacy in order to counterbalance the rising and assertive autocracies. Today, the United States cooperates with other democracies in many different contexts: globally, for example, in the G7 (that is, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the United States); regionally, for example, in NATO; or bilaterally, for example, in the US-Japan defense pact. But there is no single forum for the world’s democracies to meet and discuss issues of common interest, and possibly coordinate policies in the United Nations and other international organizations.
To create a stronger global liberal democratic community, the next American president should use his or her power to convene the world’s liberal democracies in a strong “Alliance for Democracy.” Such an alliance would bring together nations from around the world whose common characteristic would be that they are democracies. And precisely that would be the alliance’s main strength: It would create a community of the world’s free societies; a community that is not based on size, regional location, producer interests, or stage of economic development. It would be a community of shared values, individual liberty, economic freedom, democracy, and the rule of law; a community that would bolster the identity and potency of democracy in a world where the forces of oppression are trying to regain ground.
The Alliance for Democracy would consist of a diverse group of countries from around the globe, small and large, rich and poor, strong and weak, and both old and new democracies. Overall, the objective of the alliance would be to create a forum where the world’s democracies could meet on a regular basis to discuss global issues, coordinate their policies, and possibly take joint action to reinforce liberal democratic values around the world. It would be a political alliance between governments, rather than a cumbersome bureaucracy: The heads of state and government should meet at least once a year, while more frequent meetings should be held at the ministerial level, as needed and as appropriate.
In more concrete terms, the Alliance for Democracy could conceivably have five tasks. First, it could help confront common security challenges, including terrorism. The democracies could enhance their intelligence cooperation to find out where the terrorists are, strengthen financial cooperation to locate the terrorists’ sources of financing, dry those sources up and block them, and improve law enforcement and judicial cooperation to apprehend them, try them, and jail them.
Second, it could work to make the liberal capitalist democracies more prosperous, competitive, and attractive by promoting commerce, economic growth, and job creation. The alliance could strive to be an attractive trading area. By reducing tariffs and other trade barriers, by promoting investments, and by granting members of the alliance a privileged status for the transfer of new technology, the Alliance for Democracy would bolster its position in relation to the world’s autocracies and would create strong incentives for the autocracies to become democracies.
Liberal capitalism is the most efficient model to further prosperity, meet people’s needs, and eradicate poverty. The liberalization of trade and investment opens up new opportunities for millions of people throughout the world, bringing us all closer together. The free market gives consumers the power to ensure that what they want is what is actually produced. Free trade ensures a global distribution of labor that provides us with a maximum variety of goods and services at the lowest possible price. Free mobility of labor and capital ensures the most efficient use of resources. And vitally, if we allow developing countries free access to the world market, they can combat poverty on their own terms.
I firmly believe that free trade helps to promote peace by strengthening the economic ties between peoples and countries. As the French economist Frédéric Bastiat once put it, “When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.” Without any doubt, the protectionism of the 1930s contributed to the rise of Nazism and the subsequent war. Free markets, free mobility, free trade: all prerequisites for growth, prosperity, and progress—and peace.
Third, the Alliance for Democracy could help promote democracy directly, through advice, support, and assistance. Based on members’ different experiences in developing democracy, the alliance and its individual members could help new and emerging democracies build the necessary strong and stable democratic institutions, strengthen civil society, and generally develop democratic culture and thinking.
In particular, the alliance could seek to advance free speech, which is the most precious civic right we have and which has come under threat in recent years from violent extremists as well as our own internal political correctness. Free speech is the safeguard for all other freedoms. Without the freedom to discuss all matters, there can be no true democracy. The freedom to speak against those in power is our bulwark against tyranny. The freedom to pose critical questions about established truth and dogmas is the only way to ensure progress, renewal, and development.
Fourth, the alliance could be a forum for the coordination of policies in other international organizations. The alliance would not replace or substitute for other international organizations such as the UN or the Group of Twenty (G20, comprising nineteen countries plus the European Union). There is a continued need for international forums where the countries of the world come together regardless of their form of government. In the UN, autocratic and democratic countries meet to discuss global challenges. Sometimes it proves impossible to reach an agreement; sometimes they manage to find a compromise. There is a need for such international forums, but it is equally important for the world’s democracies to have a forum where they can coordinate their policies in the UN and other international organizations—not least, so that they could push for reforms to make the UN more effective.
Fifth, the Alliance for Democracy could also be used for joint action, particularly humanitarian interventions. This is a very sensitive theme, but sometimes intervention is needed to uphold the basic principles of the UN Charter, including the protection of human rights. As a general rule, this should be based on an authorization from the UN Security Council, but too often it is difficult to reach agreement on such mandates. The Alliance for Democracy could use its muscle to push, persuade, and cajole members of the Security Council. In extreme cases, action may even be necessary without an explicit mandate from the UN Security Council. An example could be an unscrupulous dictator who uses chemical weapons against his own population. The use of chemical weapons is strictly prohibited under international law, and should be sanctioned immediately, possibly with a military strike. It increases the legitimacy of such an action if the world’s democracies work together.
Who would have the opportunity to join the Alliance for Democracy? A key condition for membership would, of course, be to hold regular free and fair elections, but this would only be the start. Democracy is more than just holding elections. A true democracy also guarantees the protection of individual rights. Citizens of an alliance member state should enjoy both fundamental political rights, including the right to vote, stand for election, and participate in government, and fundamental civic rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. These rights must be guaranteed by the rule of law. According to Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2016 Report, eighty-six countries can be assessed as “free.” This is the sort of assessment that could lead to consideration for membership. Countries that do not meet the membership criteria for the time being would, over time, have the chance to join the alliance when they fulfill the necessary criteria. Indeed, one of the aims of the alliance is precisely to increase the incentives for non-democracies to embrace democratic principles, values, and practices. In Europe, the EU and NATO served this function by defining the conditions and criteria for membership that candidates had to meet in order to become members of the organizations; a similar incentive given to countries from beyond Europe should have a similar effect.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the world’s democracies will agree on everything, but that objection can be used against any international organization. The UN is frequently in disagreement; so is the G20. The criterion for membership in the G20 is the size of a country’s economy, not a set of shared values. The Alliance for Democracy would be composed of countries that share common democratic values and have democratically elected governments with popular legitimacy. The probability of them bridging their differences and generating effective cooperation would be greater than in organizations that also include autocratic governments. But the purpose, content, and composition of the alliance would be so attractive that members would undoubtedly do their utmost to ensure a strong unity, and if the American president executes a strong and determined leadership, most democracies would readily rally around the world’s strongest democracy.
As the world’s largest market-oriented democracy, India will be one of the main pillars in an Alliance for Democracy. India is a fast-rising economy and has a vital interest in upholding a rules-based international order that provides an efficient and reliable framework for trade, investments, and economic cooperation. In that respect, India shares interests with other democracies in securing the “global commons,” such as free and open sea-lanes, safe trade routes, free information and communication lines, and an open, secure, and reliable cyberspace, through enhanced maritime security and cybersecurity. Strategically located at the heart of the Indo-Pacific region, India also has a key interest in working with like-minded countries to ensure that maritime and territorial disputes are settled amicably according to the rule of international law, and that China, in particular, does not bend international rules to suit itself. While India, the United States, and other democracies want to engage China economically and on issues such as climate change, terrorism, and nuclear proliferation, none are willing to see China dominate the critical sea-lanes of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea, through which a major share of the world’s energy and container traffic is shipped.
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The establishment of the Alliance for Democracy would not rule out cooperation with autocratic governments. Members of the Alliance for Democracy could continue to do business with and have political interaction with, for example, China and Russia. Obviously, autocratic governments can be expected to distance themselves from the formation of the Alliance for Democracy and to criticize it—it is, after all, created to counterbalance autocracy. But experience shows that, in the long run, it creates more respect and relaxation and stability if the free world negotiates from a position of unity and strength.
In the somewhat hyped discussion on China surpassing the United States as the world’s biggest economy, we should not forget that being the biggest is not necessarily equivalent to being the strongest. Harvard University professor Joseph S. Nye has made the case for continued American supremacy convincingly in his book Is the American Century Over? While China will become the world’s largest economy within a few years’ time, the United States will still remain the world’s strongest power, and that will not change anytime soon, if ever. The average income per capita in China is only 20 percent of the average per capita income in the United States; when you multiply 20 percent of the American income by 1.3 billion people, it adds up to an economy that is huge, but not necessarily deep. When it comes to the strength, competitiveness, dynamism, and attractiveness of economic systems, the United States is by far the strongest nation in the world, and it will take a wide span of years for China to catch up, if ever. And while China has increased its military spending enormously during recent years, the United States is by far the strongest military power in the world, representing 34 percent of global defense investment, compared to China’s 12 percent. And when it comes to the stock of accumulated modern military capabilities, the discrepancy is even more pronounced.
China’s leaders know these realities very well. That is why their preferred option appears at present to be to work within the rules-based international order in constructive cooperation with the United States. China and the United States will be competitors, yes, but as a rising state, China would rather work practically to reshape rules and institutions within the system than confront and undercut the system. Consequently, the United States and its allies should pursue a balanced approach toward China, with equal engagement, deterrence, and incentives. The mere existence of the Alliance for Democracy would be a kind of hedge, as it would signal that China should not play games with democracies in her neighborhood. And it would increase the chances for constructive cooperation with China as the Chinese leadership realizes the overwhelming supremacy of the world’s democracies and appreciates the benefits of productive collaboration.
The Alliance for Democracy could engage in frequent meetings with China to build confidence and trust. There might be room for cooperation in areas where interests are congruent with China’s, including the fight against terrorism, regional stabilization, regional security in and around Afghanistan, counter-piracy, climate change and pollution, stabilizing the global economy, and promoting global economic growth. It is also important to engage China in countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
And it would be essential to address cyber crime and the alleged Chinese involvement in hacking and spying against businesses and government institutions in other countries. The democracies of the world must make clear that this behavior cannot, and will not, be tolerated. In parallel, the United States should reinforce its defense cooperation with countries in the Asia Pacific region to deter China from further muscle-flexing in the South China and East China Seas. But that deterrence should be accompanied by strong incentives for China to work peacefully and positively within the multilateral rules-based international system. The emergence of a major Asia Pacific trade integration program, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), in which China does not participate, and a major multilateral financial institution, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, in which the United States does not participate, are strategic failures. While China must respect the fundamental principles of the international rule of law, her participation in multilateral efforts should be encouraged, not restrained. When the time is ripe, the participants in the TPP agreement should consider inviting China to participate, and within the global economic institutions, China and other emerging powers should be assigned voting weights that reflect their growing prominence in the world economy.
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We need fresh, new thinking on the theories and political practices of the global and regional balance of power. Traditionally, the discussion has been dominated by the question of whether the world is, or should be, unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar. In a unipolar world, there is one dominant power; in a bipolar world, there are two dominant powers that balance each other; and in a multipolar world, there are several centers of power that balance one another. Implicitly, the bi- and multipolar power balances build on a static world where the status quo is a prerequisite for stability. But in today’s and tomorrow’s world of cross-border information technology, this fixed status quo is not a realistic approach, and neither is it desirable if we want to protect and promote freedom and democracy. Consequently, our attitudes toward the concept of balance of power need to be revised.
I recognize that the balance of power has worked before in history. One oft-cited example is the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which brought an end to the Thirty Years’ War in Europe and established a balance of power that prevented major conflicts between the dominant European countries. Similarly, it is often stated that the 1815 Congress of Vienna, which ended the Napoleonic Wars, created a new balance of power that prevented major wars for the next hundred years, until the outbreak of the First World War. So it may well be that the theory of international balances between major powers worked in the age of Westphalia, in the seventeenth century, and the Congress of Vienna, in the nineteenth century. But not in today’s globalized world. Today, transnational forces play a much stronger role, challenging the power balance and weakening nation-states within the delicately calibrated system: Just think of IS, and how it is trying to redraw the borders of the Middle East.
But more important, the information revolution has created drastically changed conditions for international politics. Thanks to satellite TV, the Internet, and social media, people all over the world can follow developments and events in other parts of the world in real time. People in autocratic countries can see with their own eyes the freedom and better life opportunities in free Western societies. They want the same and demand to get rid of autocracy, repression, corruption, and kleptocracy. The autocrats can no longer sustain their oppressive regimes by keeping their people ignorant of conditions outside. In the long run, repression leads to rebellion: just think of the Arab Spring.
In parallel, people in free societies can watch and follow in real life and real time the horrors and cruelty of brutal regime clampdowns and despicable terrorist acts. This, in turn, may lead to popular demands for action against the perpetrators, even if no vital national security interests are at stake. Just think of Gadhafi’s threat to exterminate the population of Benghazi in the winter of 2011: In Europe, even traditionally pacifist leftist groups supported military action against the Gadhafi regime—with their own eyes they could see the evil building up, right on Europe’s doorstep.
The problem with the theory of power balance is that it builds on the belief that maintaining the status quo should be the main objective for foreign policy, but people will not accept the status quo. Ukraine and Georgia are a good example: They want to leave the Russian sphere of interest and join the democratic Euro-Atlantic institutions, and of course that will disturb the power balance in Europe. Writing in the magazine Foreign Policy on these countries’ aspirations and the tensions they have caused with Russia, Professor Stephen Walt argues: “The solution to this crisis is for the United States and its allies to abandon the dangerous and unnecessary goal of endless NATO expansion and do whatever it takes to convince Russia that we want Ukraine to be a neutral buffer state in perpetuity.”
That is just not how free societies should work. How can we deny the peoples of Ukraine and Georgia their inherent right to decide their future themselves? Ukrainians and Georgians are not second-class citizens: They deserve the same chances that so many other peoples have won over the years, and it is in contradiction to the fundamental liberal democratic principles to suggest otherwise. And the Ukrainians and Georgians will not sit down tamely and allow the great powers to draw a new dividing line across Europe, with them on the wrong side of the line. They will come out on the streets in their hundreds of thousands, as they have done so often in the past, and who among us will dare to tell them that they should shut up and go home?
In today’s world, the status quo and the static nature of the power balance will not create stability: They will merely repress the pressure for change until it explodes. So the theories of regional power balance and spheres of interest are outdated and won’t work in the globalized information society. Professor Walt is a prominent representative of the “realist” school of foreign policy. The theory of realism suggests that the United States should not intervene in international conflicts unless existential national interests are at stake. In Foreign Affairs in 2005, Professor Walt argued that the United States should pursue a strategy of “offshore balancing”: “This strategy assumes that only a few parts of the world are of strategic importance to the United States, such as Europe, industrialized Asia and the Persian Gulf. Instead of controlling these areas directly, the United States would rely on local actors to maintain the regional balance of power.”
I’m afraid that the theory of “offshore balancing,” with its idea that the United States can rely on local actors to maintain the balance of power, does not work in practice. Consider Europe. The dominant geostrategic challenge of the continent is the balance between Russia and Europe. The key question is: How do we secure a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace? For many of the Central and Eastern European countries, which only recently emerged from half a century of totalitarian domination imposed by Moscow, this translates into an existential question about a credible defense against possible Russian aggression. Can the Europeans solve this task on their own? The short and candid answer is no. First, the Europeans don’t have the necessary military strength. In terms of both conventional and nuclear forces, Russia is far stronger than Europe. Certainly, the Europeans’ combined investments in defense represent about 15 percent of total global military spending, while Russia’s military investments represent only about 5 percent of the global total. However, the European defense investments are not effective, and the defense is fragmented: more than thirty-five different national armies with independent, sovereign decision-making mechanisms. Overall, the European military is too static, too slow to mobilize, and too limited in its capacity to deploy; it is poorly developed technologically; and the total firepower is too limited.
Next, could the Europeans develop a common defense or integrate their defense better, for example, in the EU? In theory yes, but in practice no. Indeed, there have been attempts to develop a common defense dimension of the EU. But it is a paper tiger. France is traditionally at the forefront of efforts to develop a common EU defense policy, sometimes at the expense of NATO. But at the same time, it is France that strongly insists on maintaining national sovereignty over defense. And that is the fundamental obstacle to developing a common European army: Europe remains a continent of independent, sovereign nation-states. And national sovereignty is inextricably linked to national defenses with national political sovereignty. Therefore, we will not see a European army, either in my lifetime or my children’s or grandchildren’s. Perhaps we will see a stronger defense dimension within the EU, but the real operational capability will remain extremely limited. The real defense business will still have to take place through NATO—that is, with a strong American involvement.
The Americans have rightfully requested that European allies invest more in defense to ensure a fairer burden sharing within the alliance. But even if Europe invested more in her own defense, Europeans would not be able to counter the increasingly assertive Russia. Fundamentally, there is a lack of political cohesion in the approach to Russia and a lack of political will to use military force. The three biggest military powers in Europe are the UK, France, and Germany. But they have very different approaches to Russia and to the use of robust military force. For historical reasons, Germany is reluctant to use military force, and is hesitant to challenge Russia; it is more inclined to seek rapprochement and appeasement. France and the UK are much more willing to use force if necessary, but they are very different in their approach to Russia. While the UK insists on a robust rejection of Russia’s ambitions to reestablish a Russian sphere of interest in Eastern Europe, the French political leaders, across the political spectrum, are far more accommodating to Russia.
These fundamental differences among Europe’s big countries create a lot of anxiety about security, in particular in the Central and Eastern European countries. Throughout history, they have been traded among different empires, with no regard to their own desires. Now they are worried that they are once again falling victim to a great-power game that resembles chess, in the sense that the pawns are just sacrificed by the big players if it serves their long-term geostrategic interests.
For these reasons, the Europeans, on their own, cannot secure the necessary geostrategic balance between Russia and Europe. As a former prime minister of a small European country, let me say bluntly: While I appreciate the political cooperation between large and small countries in the EU, it is, seen from a small country’s perspective, by far preferable that the necessary geostrategic balance in Europe is secured by a distant, benign, democratic superpower that rises above the intra-European quarrels and political and historical entanglements rather than being entwined in them. Only the United States can exercise that role. It is entirely fair to demand a greater contribution to the common security by Europeans themselves. But at the end of the day, only the United States has the necessary strength, decisiveness, and credibility to counter the Russian assertiveness and uphold the vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. That’s how it has been since the transatlantic alliance, NATO, was created in 1949, and so it remains.
And it would be in America’s own interest not to outsource the job of maintaining the regional power balance to local actors but to stay engaged in European security. First, it would counter fundamental American interests if Russia succeeded in expanding its sphere of influence, destabilizing Europe and threatening the international order. Second, an American disengagement from Europe would risk disintegrating the continent as European countries would struggle to find a cohesive approach to a resurgent Russia. The United States has a vital interest in keeping Europe as a solid, unified partner. And third, the United States has a strong interest in cultivating European allies that welcome and anticipate American leadership and security guaranties, and in return are ready to provide support for the American global policeman.
There will always be a need for a strong power or constellation of powers to prevent conflicts, deter aggression, and protect and maintain an international rules-based order. The key question is whether we want to live in a bipolar or multipolar world with an alliance of repressive states working together to deny their peoples’ legitimate demands for change—which is what the balance of power ultimately means. Or do we want a unipolar world with strong and determined leadership by one liberal democratic power assisted by a network of like-minded allies and partners?
The latter option is also a kind of power balance, but a power balance that favors freedom, a power balance that is not static but dynamic and allows freedom to flourish. It is the difference between a city run by rival mobs of gangsters, keeping the peace by agreeing that only one mob will be allowed to terrorize each district, and a city run according to the law, where the peace is kept because the police make sure that people keep it.
We need a superpower that is willing to use its supremacy for the good of all, not just its own good—a supremacy that is so compelling that autocrats, rogue states, or terrorist organizations are discouraged from challenging freedom and peace and deterred from threatening the international order based on the rule of law. Uniquely in history, that is the role the United States has played for the last seventy years. We need it still.
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Because of our inherent self-doubt, the world’s liberal democracies require true statesmen at the helm to reinforce our belief in our own values and our will to lead on the international stage. In no political office is statesmanship more crucial than in the presidency of the United States. Being the leader of the free world, undertaking the role as the world’s policeman, and assuming determined global leadership are daunting tasks that place great demands on conduct, communication, and conviction. In order to perform these tasks efficiently, and in a confident, inspiring, and inclusive manner, the president of the United States must master many different disciplines. Let me just mention three elements in a blueprint for smart international presidential leadership.
First, lead by example. There must be a clear link between the words and deeds of the United States. A red line is a red line that cannot be crossed without consequences. International rules and standards should be not only invoked but also enforced.
The United States should be the unequivocal leader when it comes to respect for and observance of fundamental civil rights and liberal democratic principles, and it must set a good example. Alleged US violations of these fundamental values in Guantánamo and the Abu Ghraib prison, in the CIA’s use of torture, and in the NSA’s surveillance of American and foreign citizens are weakening the struggle for liberal democracy and fueling anti-Americanism. The next president must make sure that such abuses cannot recur, to rebuild international faith in America’s adherence to its own standards.
It is impossible to overstate the damage these abuses have caused to America’s global standing. Because of them, the United States has lost the moral high ground; it has lost the weight that allowed it to criticize autocratic regimes for their use of torture and espionage. “What about the NSA?” has become the rallying cry of all those accused by the United States of cyber crime, espionage, and abuses of human rights. Because of them, too, America’s image in the eyes of key allies, especially Germany, has been critically injured. Rebuilding the world’s trust in American values will demand enormous courage and conviction, and take an immense and long-lasting effort, but it must be done. American leadership is strongest when other countries follow its lead wholeheartedly. The series of scandals has truly broken the hearts of many devoted supporters of America throughout the world.
Most important, leading by example means nurturing and maintaining the American people’s commitment to military strength and an active role for the United States in the world. The president has a crucial role to play in constantly and vigorously communicating the need for American global leadership to American voters. If the president fails in this role, it will be tempting for opportunistic politicians in Congress to target defense spending in potentially harmful ways.
The American taxpayer is already bearing the heavy burden of financing the world’s largest and most powerful military. Today, the United States accounts for 34 percent of total global investment in defense. It is unmatched, and I will not, as a European, give advice to the American people about whether defense spending should be raised or lowered. But we know that emerging powers are increasing their defense spending, and it is in America’s interest to uphold a global reach and maintain the ability to negotiate and facilitate political solutions from a position of strength.
Second, go together, not alone. The next president will need to make building, maintaining, and using alliances a central part of his or her mandate. The president should seek multilateral action as the default option in international operations and, in particular, make good use of already existing, tried and tested alliances and partnerships. While the United States would be able to go it alone in most political, military, and economic actions, building coalitions provides legitimacy, and using existing alliances will often prove the most cost-effective way of doing business.
America’s oldest and strongest security alliance is NATO. Since 1949, NATO has been the bedrock of security in the Euro-Atlantic region, and NATO is the framework for consultations and cooperation between allies that share common values and principles: individual liberty, democracy, and the rule of law. This transatlantic alliance is a community of values. Within NATO, the United States has its go-to partners when push comes to shove. The American president should nurture that transatlantic bond.
Operation Unified Protector in Libya demonstrated that NATO is uniquely positioned to respond quickly and effectively to international crises. Besides the United States, only NATO can provide the common command structure and capabilities to plan and execute complex operations. By contrast, ad hoc coalitions, “coalitions of the willing,” have no common command structure or capabilities to quickly integrate national forces into a cohesive campaign, nor do they have a standing political forum for debating, and then deciding on, an agreed course of action. Such ad hoc coalitions therefore almost always rely disproportionately on a single nation to bear the brunt of security burdens that ideally should be more equally shared, and there is less transparency and less political control.
In the run-up to the Libyan operation, some countries hesitated to place NATO in charge of a military action, fearing that the alliance would not garner enough support in the region; but it turned out that Arab states preferred to work through NATO. Several of them had already participated in NATO-led operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan, and others had fostered closer relations with NATO through partnership programs. Yet when the air campaign started on March 19, 2011, it was not as a NATO operation but as a coalition of the willing. It was not until the United States clearly stated that it would withdraw from the mission after the initial operations unless NATO took the lead that the skeptics realized that they had to accept a handover of the operation to NATO. This example demonstrates that it takes American leadership to use NATO to its full potential.
There will always be some arguments against using the alliance, in particular because decision making requires consensus, so any member state can block any decision. But experience shows that there is a strong consensual spirit within the alliance and an ability to move quickly when needed, as the Libyan example demonstrates.
Moreover, for an American president, time is spent more effectively building consensus within NATO than building a new costly coalition of the willing, and in a longer-term perspective, smart American global leadership must put emphasis on nurturing already existing alliances. After all, if allies are not cultivated on a daily basis, they may not be there when needed. It is like limbs: If they are not used, they will gradually lose strength. For effective execution of security operations, the American president should think NATO first.
It may appear that NATO is largely a tool to be used in Europe, especially in these times of growing Russian aggression, but it is worth remembering that NATO’s largest and longest-ever deployment was in Afghanistan, thousands of miles away, while the Libyan operation was also conducted outside Europe. NATO already has partnerships with Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea, among other countries; those partnerships could, and should, be strengthened, and the United States should take the lead in doing so.
Alliances are especially important when it comes to the time-consuming and expensive job of rebuilding and stabilizing former conflict zones.
Military operations should be accompanied and followed up by a comprehensive approach involving twenty-first-century Marshall Plans for the reconstruction of devastated societies to prevent failed states and breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism. Any military operation should have such a plan—an “Operation Wealth of Nation,” so to speak—embedded in it, and strong alliances are crucial in order to finance and sustain these long-term engagements.
Third, the future president will need to use personal diplomacy. The president must act as the visible leader of the free world. He or she must “lead the leaders,” acting as first among equals in the community of democracies, and, as far as possible, a friend among friends. This will mean building good personal relationships with leaders of the liberal democracies, including frequent visits to those allied liberal democracies and outreach to media and opinion formers all over the free world. And the president must exercise predictability, reliability, and commitment to allies and a firm stance against opponents—that is, keep promises and make sure there will be no crossing of red lines.
As prime minister of Denmark, I saw the value of personal diplomacy and support from the American president. At the beginning of 2006, I needed American backing to calm the waters in the Muslim world in the wake of the “cartoon crisis.” A Danish newspaper had published some cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. Eventually it led to violent protests in a number of Muslim countries, culminating in attacks on the Danish embassies in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. The initial public reaction from Washington at the subordinate State Department level was ambiguous, and interpreted as criticism of the cartoons, probably because the State Department found it distracting that the cartoons stirred up anti-Western sentiment among Muslims while the United States was struggling to improve the image of America in the Muslim world. However, taking the close relationship between Denmark and the United States into account, that lack of clear support for the Danish government was disappointing. Political parties in parliament also started to question the heavy Danish engagement in international military operations, including Afghanistan, if we couldn’t rely on our allies in such a critical situation. I concluded that we needed unequivocal American support to put an end to the violence and protect Danish property and interests. The United States had to use its influence to get governments in the region to stop the violence. I decided to call President George W. Bush.
I told the president that many Arab countries seemed to have difficulties controlling the extremist opposition. The pressure was building up, and threats were being issued against Danes and Danish property. I urged him to let the leaders of those countries know that America would not tolerate threats to Denmark and Danish interests. The president expressed his support and solidarity. There was no doubt in his mind: The United States would stand up for a strong ally and a good friend, and he promised to use America’s clout to help calm the situation in the region. American diplomats started working actively with the governments of Muslim countries, they managed to pour oil on troubled waters, and gradually the protests faded away.
This is just one tiny example of the significance of American global leadership. For my country, a small nation of 5.6 million inhabitants, the backing of the world’s superpower in a crisis like this was of vital importance. When warranted, the leader of the free world must stand ready to engage personally, and possibly help other leaders of liberal democracies, irrespective of the size of the nation. Effective leadership and conduct is also a matter of taking a principled stance, and being a friend who can be trusted.
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We who enjoy the privilege of living in free societies have an interest, and I would say an obligation, to promote freedom and democracy in the world. This was the driving force behind the Freedom Agenda that President George W. Bush launched, most powerfully, in his second inaugural speech on January 20, 2005: “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. . . . So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” It has been called an idealistic foreign policy, and set up as a contrast to the so-called realistic foreign policy, but there is no contradiction. Yes, it is idealistic, because we regard human rights as universal, but it is also realistic because increasing freedom and democracy is the best way to improve our own security. Democracies are more peaceful than dictatorships.
President Bush emphasized Japan on several occasions as an example of a successful transformation from an authoritarian militaristic state to a peaceful democracy. By creating a Japanese democracy after 1945 and making sure that it could not be overturned before it had taken root, the United States managed to turn a foe into an ally. Countless times, President Bush mentioned Germany, South Korea, and Eastern Europe as examples illustrating that freedom and democracy can turn former enemies into friends and allies. And why should a similar transformation not be possible in today’s dictatorships?
In this context, the United Nations Arab Human Development Report from 2002 was an eye-opener. The report, which was prepared by Arab experts, revealed how the Arab countries are lagging behind in crucial areas, due to three deficits: a deficit of freedom, a deficit of education, and a deficit of women’s empowerment and participation in public life. Subsequent reports have, by and large, confirmed that these deficits persist; and while some progress has been made since 2002, there is no doubt that tyranny and oppression in the Middle East have led to anger and resentment. Feeling powerless and frustrated, many people have turned to extremist religious leaders. That has, in turn, provided fertile ground for recruiting terrorists.
President Bush took the mantle of leadership with his Freedom Agenda. He launched a number of initiatives to promote freedom and democracy in the region. In June 2002 he officially launched the idea of a two-state solution, with Israel and a democratic Palestine living side by side in peace and security. Peace negotiations began on this basis; elections were held in Palestine, and later, moreover, in Lebanon. The Freedom Agenda made progress, but as so often is the case, the militant forces and terrorists in the region succeeded in stopping the promising development. However, that is not an argument against the promotion of freedom and democracy but rather a reinforcement of the fact that it requires considerable strength and determination to win the fight against tyranny and terror.
In free elections, you obviously run the risk that extreme forces can win seats in parliament. Indeed, we have seen such examples. That has led some skeptics to warn that too much freedom can lead to instability and chaos. But we cannot, out of convenience, sacrifice freedom and democracy to maintain order and oppression. In the long run, dictatorship leads to rebellion. No ruler can endlessly suppress the will of the people. No people can forever be held in serfdom. No power is stronger than man’s legitimate demand for freedom. In the long run, freedom and democracy are the best guarantees of peace, security, and stability.
Nevertheless, there are people who prefer stability and order to freedom and democracy. They argue that democracy is not the solution for extremely complex societies with deep-rooted tribal traditions. When Mu’ammar Gadhafi, Hosni Mubarak, and Saddam Hussein were toppled, it opened a Pandora’s box of religious, ethnic, and political strife. Their countries plunged into chaos and extremism, which has led some people to conclude that we should show some restraint in all that talk about freedom; that some people are not suited for democracy; that stability must take precedence over freedom; and that a firm hand and some oppression are needed to prevent instability and disorder.
I refuse to accept the basic premise that some people are incapable of democracy and should therefore be condemned to live in tyranny and be deprived of their fundamental freedoms. In fact, I think such an attitude is a manifestation of a repulsive and contestable political and cultural patronage. By what right can we, who enjoy the fruits of free societies, deny other people the same opportunities? We saw the universal desire for liberty in the millions of Iraqis who faced down the terrorists to cast their ballots and elected a free government under a democratic constitution; the millions of Afghans who lined up to vote for the first democratic government in the long history of their country; the Lebanese people who took to the streets to demand their freedom and help drive Syrian forces out of their country; the Tunisian people who toppled a dictator and elected a new parliament and a president in free and fair elections; and the Egyptian people who demanded the overthrow of the dictator Mubarak and the introduction of freedom and democracy.
These young democracies are far from perfect, and in Egypt we have seen a return to authoritarian military rule. However, the problem is not a lack of desire for freedom but rather the lack of a solid democratic culture within weak institutions and fragile societies that are vulnerable to terrorism and rogue armed groups. It is crucial to understand that democracy is much more than elections and majority rule. A true democracy is also about safeguarding individual liberty, protecting the rights of minorities, and securing the rule of law; and an integral part of a true democracy is a vibrant civil society and stable, reliable institutions. It will take time and a lot of effort to develop that political culture. We who live in free societies should remember that it took generations—and sometimes violent conflicts—to develop our democracies. We tend to be too impatient in expecting the emerging democracies to transform into fully fledged democracies overnight. Culture matters, but culture can also be changed. Yes, it may take some time. And we cannot afford to have any more illusions: The forces of oppression will always try to wear freedom down. That is why the forces of freedom must unite under the leadership of the world’s strongest liberal democracy.
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Many of us are inclined to believe that the community of values with the best story will win, that the West won the Cold War because the better worldview triumphed, and that progress is inevitable. However, the rise of autocratic powers and Islamic radicalism reminds us that the victory of democratic powers over oppression is not inevitable and it need not be lasting. History has taught us that we cannot be complacent.
Thomas Jefferson reminded us that “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” I will continue dreaming of the predominance of liberal democracy. I will not accept the argument that certain people are not well suited for democracy. In a world that grows in freedom and democracy, people will have a chance to raise their families and live in peace and build a better future. The terrorists will lose their recruits and lose their sponsors and lose safe havens from which to launch new attacks, and there will be less room for tyranny and terror. But to ensure the progress of freedom and democracy, we must ensure an invincible global balance in favor of liberal forces. The world’s democracies must rise to the challenge, and America must exercise determined global leadership.