Alone at the pinnacle of superpowerdom, Americans face a special burden. As we gaze out into the perpetuity of a long struggle, we know that for as long as we are the obvious leader of the world, we will also be the obvious target in the world.

America's Role In the World

From the vantage point, however, it's possible to begin assessing some of the doctrines and dogmas that have guided the US, for better and for worse, over the past few decades. For example, the doctrine of preserving a strong military, even in post-Cold War peacetime, has been validated. But the dogma of multiculturalism has been invalidated, as all the academic emphasis on "the other" didn't help us avoid surprise and calamity on September 11.

Last week we reviewed the four traditions of American foreign-policy-making: the liberalism of the Jeffersonians, the commercialism of the Hamiltonians, the idealism of the Wilsonians, and the militarism of the Jacksonians. Together, these four traditions have made America what it is today. No small achievement, to be sure, but as the United States enters its fourth century of existence, a fifth tradition -- one that looks to a wider world and longer future -- is needed.

The battle in Afghanistan is going far better than most observers expected -- the US, once roused and riled, is a fierce foe, thanks to the Jacksonians. But the war against terror has yet to be won. Indeed, the new dangers illustrated on September 11 -- notably the permeability of security systems, networks, and borders -- will take years and cost billions, even trillions, of dollars to address.

Alone at the pinnacle of superpowerdom, Americans face a special burden. As we gaze out into the perpetuity of a long struggle, we know that for as long as we are the obvious leader of the world, we will also be the obvious target in the world.

From the vantage point, however, it's possible to begin assessing some of the doctrines and dogmas that have guided the US, for better and for worse, over the past few decades. For example, the doctrine of preserving a strong military, even in post-Cold War peacetime, has been validated. But the dogma of multiculturalism has been invalidated, as all the academic emphasis on "the other" didn't help us avoid surprise and calamity on September 11.

Our larger goal must be to develop an enduring framework for thinking about maintaining America's role in the world, and for the maintenance of an America-friendly, freedom-friendly, free-enterprise-friendly order for that world.

We can begin to do this by learning from recent events. The instant but true cliche of the moment is that globalization cuts both ways now; sadly, Al-Qaeda is as much a product of the borderless world as Alcatel or ADM. If we seek to alleviate this threat, we must be more tough-minded than the Jeffersonian liberals, more national-security minded than the Hamiltonians, more practical-minded than the Wilsonians, and more proactive-minded than the Jacksonians. If we're going to lead, we first need to think. We need a new tradition, if such an oxymoron can be allowed -- a systematic anticipation of things to come. And since ideas are often best captured by their names, the right name for this new tradition, this fifth tradition, is worth pondering.

Extending the Pax Americana

One could make a good case for "Rooseveltianism," as in President Roosevelt -- one, or both. Teddy, of course, was a war hero; his charge up San Juan Hill won him a belated Congressional Medal of Honor earlier this year. He was also a peacemaker, one of only two US presidents to win the Nobel Peace Prize, earned for mediating and ending the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. TR, an early advocate of naval power, helped usher in The American Century -- but because of his eager interventionism around the Third World, his name can't be invoked today for an America that must use its power judiciously. Of course, it was TR's fifth cousin, Franklin, who actually presided over the realization of the American Century during World War II; one shudders to think what the world would be like today if FDR had not steered the US to victory over Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan. Yet if FDR was clear-eyed about fascism, he was a bit starry-eyed about communism.

Alternatively, one could poke around the pantheon of American heroes for other possible fifth-tradition name-givers -- from James K. Polk, manifest destinarian, to Harry Truman and George C. Marshall, aiders and alliance-makers, to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, strong but peaceful demolishers of the evil Soviet empire. But it's apparent that the name of any old leader, no matter how revered, brings associations that might not be a good fit for a new fifth tradition.

If it is to work, this fifth tradition will have to be different. It should start, of course, with the full and frank embrace of Pax Americana. Americans, inheritors of four different foreign policy traditions, might blanche at such an imperial-sounding concept, but supervised world order is needed, now more than ever. Besides, while a 21st century American Peace might sound a bit imperial, it would be the result of a new kind of empire, a republican empire that seeks no territories or indemnities from defeated foes. Indeed, it's a vision of a non-imperial empire that offers help, not hurt, to its ex-enemies.

In Afghanistan, for example, America must oversee the de-Talibanification of the country, but it can't do all the work itself; we can't be policeman to the world. As Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld said last week, it is "highly unlikely" that US troops would be sticking around, on the ground, for long-term peacekeeping. But if that duty is to fall upon the shoulders of Turks, or Canadians -- or Afghans -- the US must still be mindful of a world in which weapons of mass destruction will surely increase in scope even as they decrease in size.

What's needed is a leader, or leaders, who can look far ahead, past the next election cycle, or the next decade. This long look is the quintessence of the fifth tradition: the creation of a vision -- and a set of policies built around that vision -- of America shining through the next millennium.

What policies? Mostly, these new policies would entail the research, development, and deployment of new technologies, for defense and for offense. And ultimately, they would carry Americans to their strategic destiny, to the high, safe, and strong place of space. John Kennedy could give his name to this tradition, perhaps, but he, too, is loaded with other past associations that would muddy the clarity of future-anticipation.

Asimovianism

Noting the speculative nature of this proposed tradition, perhaps the naming of this tradition should go to one of the great speculators of all time: Isaac Asimov. Author of hundreds of books and thousands of essays, Asimov (1920-1992) is perhaps best known for his Three Laws of Robotics, a Hippocratic Oath for the third millennium, a trio of guidelines that will start coming in handy very soon.

But Asimov was also a historian of sorts -- "a historian of the future," he called himself. His "Foundation" series, some 11 books in all, in which humanity spreads itself across the galaxy, was modeled after Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. But whereas Gibbon covered some 13 centuries of history, Asimov takes history forward some 40,000 years. Yet in all of Asimov's futurings, he carried with him the idea that human nature changed little, that the issue of human survival always required the cold calculus of cost and benefit. It's this realpolitik tone that makes the Asimovian tradition so valuable to the future politics of America.

Is the US really ready for an Asimovian tradition? It should be, and it will have to be. Because the threats America faces, in its renewed role as leader of a free, peaceful, prosperous -- and yet potentially ever more dangerous -- world, require the sort of sweep-think, through time and through the universe, that Isaac Asimov exemplified.