First, and easiest, he must give voice to a new — that is, old — understanding of America. The George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, 1960s approach in which America is the problem must be repudiated in the inaugural address itself. The new president must reassert a firm belief in the goodness of our society and the effect of our power in the world. There are some nice quotes to use from Barack Obama's Nobel speech, where he spoke about America in stirring tones that reflected his sense of the occasion but sadly not his foreign policy — and were rarely heard from him again. He should assure Americans that our system of government, our natural resources and our open economy will restore prosperity and that we are not constrained by economics to reduce our influence in the world and hollow out our military. He must declare that defence spending did not create our economic problems and will not be sacrificed to solve them. It would be good, in the debate over the decline of the United States, to hear the voice of a president who does not believe it and will work every day to prevent it and to reassert American influence.

Second, he must begin to define a foreign policy for a self-confident great power when the unipolar moment is passing but the great goals of our foreign policy remain. We seek the expansion of freedom and prosperity, and an international system based on law and justice, but cannot impose our desires as the British Empire did in 1850 or we very largely could as recently as 1990. So he must declare as a key goal the strengthening of traditional alliances such as Nato and new alignments such as that of Asian and Pacific nations facing Chinese expansionism. In concert with allies we will strengthen the effort to bring rising powers in when possible — if not to alliances then to participation in the institutions and actions that maintain prosperity, stop aggression and try to prevent the worst cases of human rights abuses. The Obama administration did figure out the importance of India, if a bit slowly, but this is an example of a relationship to be strengthened year after year. On China he should welcome its modernisation but stress the importance of political as well as economic institutions, and he should express support for the Chinese people in what is now a century and a half of their own failed efforts to build a decent and free modern society. Growing Chinese wealth and power do not threaten us; the foreign policy of the Communist Party is another matter. It threatens every Asian and Pacific nation, producing for us allies as disparate as Vietnam and Australia in the effort to restrain Chinese activities. A new policy would tighten ties with all those resisting China, speak more clearly about the need for China to open its political system and empower its people, and seek cooperation with China whenever it is willing to act positively, as it has on Libya and Somali piracy, for example. 

Third, he must continue the struggle against Islamism and Islamist terrorism. To the extent that this is a debate within Islam the United States cannot participate in it, but we can help the anti-extremist side. More should be done to cut off funding to Islamist groups, for a decade after 9/11 it remains very robust and still largely originates in the Persian Gulf.  The advent of the Arab Spring provides an opportunity to work with new governments, parties, and NGOs in societies now debating Islam's role in politics, and those societies can provide an alternative to the grim and bloody Islamist view of the world. Obama's understanding of this entire struggle as centred in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is wrong. It should be replaced with the lessons taught by Bush after 9/11, lessons far clearer now even to dim students after the Arab Spring, whose goals are personal and political freedom.