LIVE DEMOCRACY BY EXAMPLE AND LESS BY FORCE

GIG HARBOR, WASH. - American power and America's decisions about the
use of that power are often on the mind of people all around the
world. Desperate citizens in Liberia, caught between warring rivals,
plead for US intervention. Whether it is Indonesia's counterattack on
terrorism, Middle East progress on the road map, Colombia's drug war,
or any of a dozen other issues, "what Washington thinks" is often a
key factor in local debates about policy.

The depth of this attentiveness came home to me in Jordan during the
last US presidential campaign. Jouncing in a pickup truck across a
roadless stretch of desert en route to a village development project
not far from the Iraqi border, I commented on my Jordanian host's
nuanced insights into the Bush and Gore campaign strategies.
"Remember, he is our president, too!" he responded, as he outlined how
the future of the Middle East might turn on the US election.

Americans harvest immense benefit from this stature, built as it is on
universally attractive qualities. Our feisty democracy illustrates how
a diverse society peacefully harmonizes divergent interests; our
impartial court system proves that justice - missing from the lives of
so many of the globe's people - is a practical dream; our wealth
verifies that skill and hard work are a better route to prosperity
than joining a warlord's robber band or selling opium.

America's example helps catalyze local trends toward a more peaceful,
democratic, and prosperous world; in turn, those trends nurture
America's own global economy and political clout.

However agreeable, there is nothing inevitable about these
relationships. Naturally tribal and territorial, we humans align more
to local urgency than distant precept. It is almost as certain as
gravity that admiration will flip into hostility the instant outside
example hardens into pressure.

Alarmingly, the "sole superpower" school of thought now ascendant in
Washington seems to prefer pressure and confrontation over the subtler
arts of collaboration. Republicans and Democrats alike seem oblivious
to the consequences of the present dissipation of America's most vital
international asset: its example. I am not the only international
traveler reporting a sea change in attitudes.

A few years ago, one could expect an automatic welcome in a developing
country. Nowadays, Americans abroad must be prepared to work through
initial suspicion. Some even claim to be Canadian.

Make no mistake, much more than our national image or an individual
traveler's comfort is at risk. The long-term well-being of American as
a truly globalized country and culture depends much more on the
perception of our national character than on the vigor of our military
deployments.

Set aside the struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan to impose order en
route to the birthing of two transformed nations. Even if America
somehow turns those headstrong adventures into success, American
stature in the world will still be put at risk by some very doubtful
habits.

Example: the US economy. We benefit hugely by the world's choice of
the dollar as its standard currency. Yet our budget deficit, trade
imbalance, and energy practices reflect a careless profligacy that
could easily tilt confidence elsewhere.

Education: The absolute heart of our international success has been
our schools. Our children have been well educated, our universities
the world's top schoolhouse for advanced study. Not any more. Sham
reforms leave vast numbers of young Americans uneducated, permanently
locked out of productive careers. Partisan posturing over pseudo
counterterrorist measures is locking out tens of thousands of fine
young foreign students. The American example of how to design a
nation-building education system is fading into third-world disarray.

At heart the problem seems more arrogance than policy. We are too
quick to dismiss the peoples of other countries as backward natives,
too ignorant of how closely we are studied by people no less
interested than we in peace, justice, and prosperity.

Is there a remedy? For starters we might expect more of our leaders
and our media-star journalists. Both profit from hyping military
adventures. Their public trust demands a more careful examination of
the whole balance sheet of America's power - including the garbage
being shipped overseas by our infotainment industry - than they have
been delivering.

In this media-rich world, nothing is more visible than America and
Americans. Our future depends less on how we push people around in our
various wars on terrorism, drugs, and so-called weapons of mass
destruction than on how successful we are at the endless work of
translating our democratic principles into a credible example for
those billions in the world whose lives are not as fortunate as ours.

For many, we are their democracy, too.

Larry Seaquist, a former US Navy warship captain and Pentagon
strategist, designs conflict prevention and community-building
campaigns in the developing world and American cities.