A brilliant and visionary argument for America's role as an enforcer of peace and order
throughout the world and what is likely to happen if we withdraw and focus our attention
inward. Recent years have brought deeply disturbing developments around the globe. American
sentiment seems to be leaning increasingly toward withdrawal in the face of such disarray. In
this powerful urgent essay Robert Kagan elucidates the reasons why American withdrawal would
be the worst possible response based as it is on a fundamental and dangerous misreading of the
world. Like a jungle that keeps growing back after being cut down the world has always been
full of dangerous actors who left unchecked possess the desire and ability to make things
worse. Kagan makes clear how the realist impulse to recognize our limitations and focus on our
failures misunderstands the essential role America has played for decades in keeping the
world's worst instability in check. A true realism he argues is based on the understanding
that the historical norm has always been toward chaos that the jungle will grow back if we let
it.
