For the foreseeable future, leading the world will have to take a back seat to repairing the nation. The French Army’s assumption in 1940 that the next war would be just like the last one paved the way for failure. American leaders shackled to the assumption that the global distribution of power created by the end of the Cold War in 1989 will exist forever and a day invite a comparable outcome. Repairing itself at home will require the United States to acknowledge that its brief turn as sole superpower has not only ended but that its passing finds the country facing difficulties that in 1989
...more
