It requires nourishment and encouragement. Our nation's leadership in such an international effort will satisfy our obvious national aspirations for a bipartisan and non-partisan foreign policy based on our traditional values of human dignity. The role of the United States in world affairs would, thereby, be consistent with our moral energy. Close cooperation among the world's democracies could have important benefits. We must work together more effectively to provide assistance to the new and emerging democracies.
Democracy is now demonstrably a universal value.
Closer and more visible association among democracies with different racial, religious and other characteristics can counter the frequent charge that opposition to despotism and corruption is a concern only of rich, white, Western societies. By acting together, the democracies can create a moral authority that, with any hope, can prevent conflicts before they turn violent and that can squelch violent and illegal attempts to overthrow elected governments. Only when democratic governments begin to work together more effectively will it be possible to establish the levels of public confidence our international institutions need to do what we expect of them. One difficult issue the organizers of the Warsaw meeting have to face is whom to invite. Obviously, some countries claim to be democratic whose practice is really quite brutal.