The new realism.

• Author: Richardson, Bill
• Position: Excerpt

On November 7, 2007, Governor Bill Richardson laid out his vision for U.S. foreign policy for National Interest online (www.nationalinterest.org), from which the following excerpts are taken.

THE DEMOCRATIC values that unite America and its allies are indeed enduring, but the realities we face in the 21st century are new. Never has the world experienced such a combination of global growth and environmental decline, technological change and dwindling global resources, the emergence of new great powers and of existential asymmetric security challenges. Globalization has eroded the significance of national boundaries: Many of the greatest challenges that face us--from jihadism to nuclear proliferation to global warming--do not face only us. Urgent problems that once were national are now global, and dangers that once came only from states now come also from transnational mafias and extremist social movements--as well as from social trends, such as our excessive consumption of fossil fuels. The problems of the 21st century are not the problems of a nation: They are the problems of an interdependent global society.

The world's only superpower must lead that global society if we are to respond effectively to common challenges. We must reject the fantasies of those who advocate retreat from global engagement, just as we must reject the delusion of those who claim we can transform other countries through the unilateral application of American military power. We also must go beyond the balance-of-power realism of the last century and embrace a New Realism that understands that to exercise power effectively in the 21st century we must rise to a new level of global leadership....

Getting out of Iraq will be the first essential step in restoring our reputation and beginning a new strategy of U.S. global leadership. But to lead effectively, we must understand the strategic challenges we face. The following trends are transforming our world. We must have clear ideas on how to cope with all of them:

The first trend is jihadism--a flame which the invasion and collapse of Iraq has stoked into a conflagration. Never in our history have we faced such an asymmetric security challenge. The second trend is the growing power and sophistication of international mafias capable of disrupting the global economy and trafficking in Weapons of Mass Destruction. Together these two trends raise the specter of nuclear terrorism. We know that Al-Qaeda has tried to acquire...