China isn't a boogeyman, North Korea is genuinely frightening, and we could stand to be more diplomatic with Russia. Those ideas come from Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who says the U.S. can be a stabilizing force in the world, so long as it does a better job of discerning when to speak softly and when to use the big stick. Haass is the author of A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order.

For the Spiel, you're nobody until you're somebody that President Trump considers—and then you're everybody.

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