In his 1931 classic The Epic of America, James Truslow Adams defined the American Dream as “a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.” The American Dream has since been understood — and preached — in terms of individualism, social mobility, and “inalienable rights [such as] life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
This individual-centered American Dream is all about domestic politics. But there is also an American Dream about international affairs, and it has been no less frequently and eloquently articulated by U.S. leaders. Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine, for example, amply illustrate the territorial and geopolitical ambitions of the fledgling republic. By 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson declared before a joint session of Congress that “the world must be made safe for democracy,” America, the nation, had committed itself to becoming the leader of the democratic world — if not the entire world. When Henry Luce called on his fellow Americans “to create the first great American Century,” he was speaking not only for himself, but also for a uniquely blessed nation that was soon to become the most powerful in human history.
To be sure, this American Dream of global leadership faced serious challenges from the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, and there were moments of grave doubts among the highest level of American leaders. Eventually Moscow imploded, and Washington has since been the one and only superpower. In 1996 Sydney Blumenthal and James Chace coined the term “indispensable nation” to describe America’s role in a unipolar world. “Only the United States had the power to guarantee global security: without our presence or support, multilateral endeavors would fail,” Blumenthal later wrote about the intended message of this phrase.
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