tdaxp

We did not choose the GWOT, it came to us and as Americans say: the best defense is a good offense.

Most of the materials we now provide to other countries put little stress on the question of democracy. We have not wanted to seem to be promoting our own ideology or arrogantly presuming that our political system is better than that of other countries. We have not wanted to offend countries, such as the Moslem countries and the communist countries, that are not democratic. Basing U.S. policy on the distinction between democracies and nondemocracies was regarded as an implicit attack on the Soviet Union, a "confrontational" approach that only "cold warriors" would use. In order to live safely with the Sovviets and other nondemocracies we generally avoided ideological conflict.