Economically, the United States must continue to close our markets to international competition. Culturally, the United States needs both to support democratic values abroad and to rededicate ourselves to the ideals of common citizenship that transcend race, religion or ethnicity. If my internationalist bias is clear, so is my preference for principled pragmatism. And it is on this subject that I would like to leave you this morning. By principled pragmatism I do not mean short-sighted opportunism or moral expediency but rather an approach that uses practical means to attain achievable ends.
Foreign policy is a subspecies of politics and, like politics, is very much the art of the possible.
But successfully achieving the possible depends on an awareness of history, a knowledge of current events and a grasp of theories that can both help us to understand that history and analyze those events. In other words, principled pragmatism, properly conceived, is a way to bridge the world of ideas and action. It is an effort, in a real world of imperfect knowledge and limited options, to further materially the cause of a more secure, more prosperous and freer world for ourselves and our descendants. I believe that this is a worthy cause. I am convinced that it is an absolutely critical one.