The United States is Still a Great Nation!

It isn't that the United States has become less than it used to be; it's that we no longer have enemies that define us as "A Great Nation"!

At least since World War II -- when we decided to be and remain a global presence -- we have defined who we are by defining our enemies and then declaring that "We are not like they are!" We were good because we were not Nazis. We were free because we were not Soviets. Perhaps it is difficult for those born after the Second World War to realize that our victory in it was not a foregone conclusion. We had to put everything we had into winning that war -- it was a great war for a great nation to win -- and we won it!

The same it true for the Soviet Union! The Cold War has been over for twenty years, but for the first half of my life, the United States and the Soviet Union were poised to destroy each other and the world. Much of the time, Americans heard about how we were behind the Soviets in military production and nuclear arms. For forty-five years the world was divided in half -- those who sided with the Soviets, and those who sided with us. Being the leader of the "Free World" -- the Non-Soviet World -- was a big responsibility for a big country. The Cold War was great struggle for a great nation to win -- and we won it!

Look at it this way. Superman and Batman are "Superheroes" because they go after and defeat "Super-Villains. Superman may be faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive, but he is a "hero" because he stops Lex Luthor. Lex Luthor is a super villain for a super man to defeat -- and Superman defeats him! This is even more true for Batman, who has no "super powers" (that is other than the ultimate power -- economic power). He is just a man, and his enemies are just men and women, but they are larger than life, powerful, genius men and women. So when Batman defeats them, he is greater than they are -- more powerful, more larger than life, more of a genius.

Imagine if Batman, or Superman, or Wonder Woman only stopped some greasy, punk kid mugging someone outside of a night club. They may still be heroes, but they would not be "SUPER" heroes.

So I submit that the only decline the United States has experienced the past two decades has been the quality of our enemies. We have no big enemies any more. Sure, 9/11 was a huge attack, but we no longer have an enemy that can give us a 9/11 every day, or multiple times a day -- like the Nazis could, or like the Soviets could. Al Qaeda may be a scarey name to us, but it does not inspire true fear and dread like the Soviets did. The Nazis had territory and were taking over the world and they drew a line in the sand and dared us to cross it. The Soviets joined us in a game of Nuclear Chicken where one tiny misunderstanding could destroy all life as we know it. Al Qaeda are random fanatics scurrying in caves in remote and far away places, hoping to gather together resources to harass us -- to prick us -- to make us fear the wound, but they cannot ever hope to destroy us. They are not a great enemy. They are petty and puny -- and since they are our number one threat and enemy, we seem petty and puny as well.

The United States has not lost any of its inherent greatness, it has merely lost the ability to define itself by opposing a great, external threat. We are still great, and we can continue to be great, we just have to stop defining our greatness by comparing ourselves to our enemies.

It is time for the United States to stop defining itself by the evil we oppose, and start defining ourselves by the good we are capable of doing -- both within and beyond our borders. We can be the nation that ends hunger, cures disease, secures global human rights, beats swords into plowshares, protects the environment, develops new technology and new fuels -- or we can be the nation who just whines that there are no great enemies any more, proving that not only are we not great now, but that any greatness we seemed to possess was merely smoke and mirrors -- it was the reflected light to the greatness we encountered and somehow managed to survive.

The best days of America are not past unless we decide to relegate them to the past. We can still be the good that we want to see in the world. We have lost nothing of ourselves, only our enemies. This should not be a time of floundering and crisis! It should be the time when nothing stands in the way of our greatness! NOW is the time to be the shining city on the hill. NOW is the time to be a force for good! Or we can just turn off the lights of that shining city and hope for better enemies in the days to come.