Of greater centrality, however, is the fact that, by its very nature, the U.S. is a revolutionary power. Its foundational beliefs posit universal truths that permeate all of its actions and perceptions of the world. These have had, and continue to have, catalytic effects on other societies. Fidelity to our ideals means that we have little choice but to support freedom around the world. No one with a heart or a head would wish it otherwise.
But we also have a duty to ourselves and to our own interests, the protection and advancement of which may sometimes necessitate actions focused on more tangible returns than those of altruism. Lashing our interests to the indiscriminate promotion of democracy is a tempting but unwarranted strategy, more a leap of faith than a sober calculation.
There are other negative consequences as well. A broad and energetic promotion of democracy in other countries that will not enjoy our long-term and guiding presence may equate not to peace and stability but to revolution.
We can and have used democracy as a weapon to destabilize our avowed enemies and may do so again. But if we unleash revolutionary forces in the expectation that the result can only be beneficent, I believe we are making a profound and perhaps uncorrectable mistake. History teaches that revolutions are very dangerous things, more often destructive than benign, and uncontrollable by their very nature. Upending established order based on theory is far more likely to produce chaos than shining uplands. Edmund Burke's prescient warning of the deadly progress of the French Revolution, a revolution guided by intoxicating theory and heedless of all warnings, endures.
There is no evidence that we or anyone can guide from afar revolutions we have set in motion. We can more easily destabilize friends and others and give life to chaos and to avowed enemies than ensure outcomes in service of our interests and security.

Let me return to my original theme, namely that our enormous power allows us to maintain a highly theoretical approach to the world, one that draws so deeply from the universal truths embedded in our makeup as to be impervious to contrary evidence.
I am not making an abstract point. We are well advanced into an unformed era in which new and unfamiliar enemies are gathering forces, where a phalanx of aspiring competitors must inevitably constrain and focus our options. In a world where the ratios of strength narrow, the consequences of miscalculation will become progressively more debilitating. The costs of golden theories will be paid for in the base coin of our interests.
For some, the promotion of democracy promises an easy resolution to the many difficult problems we face, a guiding light on a dimly seen horizon. But I believe that great caution is warranted here. Without strong evidence to the contrary, we should not readily believe that, without an enduring American presence, democracy can be so easily implanted and nourished in societies where history and experience suggest it is quite alien. It may, in fact, constitute an uncontrollable experiment with an outcome akin to that faced by the Sorcerer's Apprentice.
A few brief years ago, history was proclaimed to be at an end, our victory engraved in unyielding stone, our preeminence garlanded with permanence. But we must remember that Britain's majestic rule vanished in a few short years, undermined by unforeseen catastrophic events and by new threats that eventually overwhelmed the palisades of the past. The life of preeminence, as with all life on this planet, has a mortal end. To allow our enormous power to delude us into seeing the world as a passive thing waiting for us to recreate it in an image of our choosing will hasten the day when we have little freedom to choose anything at all.

@锟吾剑

有中译吗？