ABSTRACT
To act in the world effectively, it is first necessary to know who we are and who 'they' are and what they are likely to do. We must have the skill and the political will to use that knowledge, using it to build the broad support that is the sine qua non of action in a democratic society. We are the heirs of a tradition that acknowledged that people have natural rights, and that the central purpose of government is the protection of those rights. Recognizing our national security as a legitimate, core concern of our foreign policy has many consequences. The expansion of the power of the political elite that operates in the name of Marxism-Leninism has surely been the most dramatic political fact of the post-World War II period. The Soviet advance in the world we can understand in the abstract: their cynical leaders manipulate the symbols of liberation, nationalism, and socialism.
