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14 There is another problem with realism. Like it or not, the United States is a revolutionary power. Whether our government is trying to overthrow foreign dictators is almost irrelevant; American society is the most revolutionary force on the planet. The Internet is more subversive than the CIA in its prime. The dynamism of American society is constantly creating new businesses, new technologies, new ideas and new social models. These innovations travel, and they make trouble when they do. Saudi conservatives know that whatever geopolitical arrangements the Saudi princes make with the American government, the American people are busily undermining the core principles of Saudi society. It’s not just our NGOs educating Saudi women and civil society activists; it’s not just the impact of American college life on the rising generation of the Saudi elite. We change the world even when we aren’t thinking anything about global revolution — when Hollywood and rap musicians are just trying to make a buck, they are stoking the fires of change around the world. A revolutionary nation cannot make a conservative foreign policy work for long. In the 1820s and 1830s Washington tried to reassure the Mexican government that it had no hostile designs against Mexican territory. But the American people were moving into Texas and the US government couldn’t stop that movement or blunt the threat to Mexico if it tried. In the same way today, the economic and political activity of individual Americans and American companies is changing the world in ways that make life much harder for governments in countries like Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. We can press all the reset buttons with Russia that we want, but the Russian government will still notice that both US society and sometimes the government are actively working to help foreign subversives overthrow repressive regimes. Feckless Idealists HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_031889