Frame for failure, and failure is inevitable. Frame for success, and success is possible.

We have always been so sure of our rightness, that we tend to assume that will overcome the shades of wrongness we impose upon others to ensure our own interests. It doesn't.

Or said another way, we are too quick to rationalize why it is ok to deny for others the very things we demand for ourselves. 100 years ago one could sort of still get away with that. Today it is an impossibility.

If we swapped our current NSS for Washington's farewell address we would be far better served as a nation. Partners grown overly dependent would quibble, as would the neocon hawks, but it would lead to approaches much better suited for the world we live in today.