While analogies are useful, however, they can also be misleading. They smuggle in assumptions that can be wrong.

American power confers benefits on most inhabitants of the planet, even on many who dislike it and some who actively oppose it, because the United States plays a major, constructive, and historically unprecedented role in the world.

The values, the programs, the formula, the determination, and the patriotism responsible for America's past success are still here to be tapped.

The main division in the world is between democratic and undemocratic countries.

The American political system is so porous, it's so open, it's so frustrating for those who are trying to make policy.

To call the American role in the world imperial was, for many who did so, a way of asserting that the United States was misusing its power beyond its borders and, in so doing, subverting its founding political principles within them.

The world needs a strong America.