The three of us who have written this book believe there are at least six reasons why what we propose is a more viable strategy than any we are familiar with – with the caveat that sovereignty may be only a stopgap as the world shakes out, although it should also prove sufficient to shake the world out:

1. The United States will reach the point of having to be decisively destructive on a large scale at some point in the near future.  Better to have worked out why and how ahead of time – before Chicago is left in ruins.
2. Granting other people the opportunity to remain who they want to be and how they want to be is the principled approach for us to take as twenty-first-century Americans.
3. The only principled way to preserve opportunity, choice, and responsibility for ourselves is to extend this principle to everyone.
4. This is the ultimate liberal agenda – it liberates others to live as they, not we, see fit.
5. This is the ultimate conservative agenda – it conserves our values undiluted.
6. This strategy plays to our strengths.  In the end, we don’t have to be the same, think the same, or practice the same the world over.  States just have to accede to the same set of rules for occupying the planet together.  And yes, that then makes this the ultimate states’ rights argument.

We can think of two reasonable objections: how does this strategy handle unintended consequences?  As history makes clear, there will always be unintended consequences, just as there will always be unforeseen events, and more bad actors will pop up.  We should count on that.  But, if you compare this strategy with other national security strategies, this is the only one that gives us – and the world – a framework for how to respond to bad guys regardless of their degree or brand of badness.  Critics might contend that that is no better than saying “if all you have is a hammer, you’ll treat everything like a nail.”  Our rejoinder: when it comes to nails, nothing is more effective than a hammer.