Schoen makes clear that the indispensable ingredient for any constructive path forward is effective, engaged, and committed American leadership. This is discussed through the lens of the failed models of President Trump's two recent predecessors, which reflected, respectively, an uncritical embrace of American power―lacking strategic insight and proportion―and an uncritical abandonment of American leadership that suggested an abject view of the U.S. moral example in the world. Instead, Schoen posits assertive democratic idealism―an embrace of U.S. moral leadership around the world but in ways that remain leavened by realism and a guiding understanding of our national interest. Whether President Trump can deliver on such a vision remains to be seen.
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