Pragmatic Engagement: A National Security Strategy for the Next President

The United States is exceptionally secure. No country today presents a clear and imminent security threat in the way that Germany, Japan, or the Soviet Union did in the 20th century. In the short and medium term, there is also no alternative value system that could displace America’s conception of individual liberty and a market-oriented economy—principles that have been embraced by all of the world’s wealthy industrialized countries in Western Europe, North America, and East Asia.