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

American foreign policy, for all its shortcomings, has underpinned political stability around the world.

The American empire will not disappear... because America does not have an empire.

The real threat to world stability is not too much American power. It is too little American power.

The less oil the world uses, the less important the region that has so much of it becomes.

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

One thing worse than an America that is too strong, the world will learn, is an America that is too weak.