One has already to know (or be able to do) something in order to be capable of asking a thing's name.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein*
DIFFERENT CONSTITUTIONAL orders are responsive to different demands for legitimacy. Legitimating characteristics, such as dynastic rights, that are sufficient for one constitutional order are inadequate for another. The reason that the constitutional order of the nation-state is undergoing a transformation is that it faces a crisis of legitimation. When the American state changes to reflect a new constitutional archetype, † it will do so in response to demands for new bases for legitimacy, demands that arise in part as a consequence of the strategic innovations that won the Long War. In light of this new constitutional form of the State, the Americans will desire an appropriate national security paradigm. The reason the United States needs a new national security paradigm is that the Wilsonian internationalism‡ that guided us throughout the Long War was derived from the constitutional order of the nation-state. Obviously, Wilsonian internationalism was not the only option available to nation-states as diverse as Fascist Italy and Communist China; perhaps less obviously, determining the rough shape of the new constitutional form the United States is in the process of adopting will not by itself determine how and when the U.S. should use force in international affairs. That determination will require an examination of the special situation of the United States, a unique state with unique advantages and burdens.
These three subjects—the source of the constitutional crisis of legitimation and the nature of the new constitutional order; the practical choices a State faces in defining a national security paradigm; and the crafting of such a paradigm that is compatible with that order and responsive to our particular position—are the subjects of the three final chapters of Book I.