Transcript
LESLIE GELB: I know it's very popular to say that there used to be an era of American dominance, where we could call the shots and now we're in the post-American era, where just, you know, the maybe first among equals. It's just not so.
First of all, we were never the dominant power in the sense we could dictate to others; never. During the Cold War there was, if my memory serves me right, another super power and we didn't dominate it by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, we suffered some severe defeats. Even when the Soviet Union fell and we were talking about creating a new world order, we didn't create a new world order because we didn't have that kind of power to order others around. So we've forgotten the past: it was never that. And we've misbegotten a future, thinking that it's still isn't our responsibility to lead.
Every nation around the world still looks to the United States as the only leader in solving major international problems. Like it or not, that's the reality. We're still the only one who can exercise that leadership, whatever front you're on. Now again it isn't to same degree as before, but it's still there. That responsibility is ours.
You want a global warming treaty, the U.S. has to lead. You want a new free trade agreement, it's the United States that has to start the bidding by making concessions. You want security action in places like Kuwait or Sudan, if the United States isn't there to do it, nothing much happens. That is the reality of it. But what we’ve got to understand, and I what I hope President Obama does understand, is that even though we are the sole leader in solving major international problems, we need equally indispensible partners -- at least those eight I spoke of and in most cases, other nations as well.
We're the indispensable leader. We need equally indispensable partners. And the central operating principle of power in the 21st Century has to be mutual indispensability and it has to be based on America moving to solve mutual problems.
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