LA Times editorial: 'The common defense'

The seventh in a series of editorials examining American values and the candidates for president.

December 27, 2007

From the wreckage of the Bush administration's foreign policies, the next president will inherit many intractable problems. Underlying many of them is a hard fact that some of the candidates recognize, but that none dare speak: Although the United States still leads the world economically, politically and militarily, its power and prestige, and hence its ability to lead, have been sharply eroded. The overwhelming military superiority the U.S. enjoys has not been matched by a comparable ability to master the geopolitical challenges that threaten our peace and prosperity. This relative decline in power predated the Bush administration but has been accelerated by its wars, its antiterrorism policies, its unilateralism and its failure to address domestic woes, notably the twin fiscal and trade deficits. The result of eight years of arrogant and unwise stewardship will be a weaker and more vulnerable America.

The challenge for the presidential candidates is to explain how they plan to defend the United States, particularly how they would combat international terrorist networks and how they would restore American prestige and leadership in the aftermath of the Iraq war. Most are struggling to do so while trying mightily to avoid awkward truths. It's not politic to admit that the U.S. is weaker than it was a decade ago. And there is no campaign advantage to acknowledging that our current troubles cannot be blamed solely on either the very real failures of President Bush (as the Democrats would prefer to do) or on the very real dangers posed by Islamist terrorists, nuclear proliferators or oil-flush anti-American strongmen (the preferred targets of Republicans).

(Continued here.)