LAST AUGUST, the Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney performed what has become a quadrennial rite of passage in American presidential politics: he delivered a speech to the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. His message was rooted in another grand American tradition: hyping foreign threats to the United States. It is" wishful thinking," Romney declared," that the world is becoming a safer place. The opposite is true. Consider simply the jihadists, a nearnuclear Iran, a turbulent Middle East, an unstable Pakistan, a delusional North Korea, an assertive Russia, and an emerging global power called China. No, the world is not becoming safer." Not long after, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta echoed Romney's statement. In a lecture last October, Panetta warned of threats arising" from terrorism to nuclear proliferation; from rogue states to cyber attacks; from revolutions in the Middle East, to economic crisis in Europe, to the rise of new powers such as China and India. All of these changes represent security, geopolitical, economic, and demographic shifts in the international order that make the world more unpredictable, more volatile and, yes, more dangerous." General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concurred in a recent speech, arguing that" the number and kinds of threats we face have increased significantly." And US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reinforced