One of the enduring myths sedulously cultivated by apologists of American foreign policy is that America, the land of the free and the brave, is besieged by malevolent foreign powers. In the realm of pure thought unsullied by empiric evidence the lone superpower bravely battles rogue states to prevent free societies from nuclear extinction. As Michael Howard, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford says “For 200 years the United States has preserved almost unsullied the original...