I think a huge amount of our foreign policy vision is predicated on assumptions that are radical

the Cold War, though it had not been started by the United States, revealed some of the unhappy traits of the American mind”: a willful ignorance beneath which there was something worse, a kind of national self-adulation.

our government essentially has the right to shape and dominate the politics of other parts of the world and to use force to quash resistance to its efforts.” We seek this radical change partly because we do not really understand the world and want to make it more like ourselves, and partly because it gives us an occasion to celebrate ourselves. Both are ultimately a function of pride, but this is then formalized into an entire mythology, capped off by tales of the importance of Pax Americana.

What Americans consider moderation in foreign policy

, is wildly militaristic, expansionistic and aggressive.