to stand for it, and we want to lead toward

to stand for it, and we want to lead toward it.
So have we always had constraints? Yes. Of course, we ve always had constraints. The constraints change as the times change, and that requires leadership on our part that keeps thinking about tomorrows. How do we throw our interests and our needs into the future? The future preference has to be who we are, and the greatest threat to us as a nation is that we start looking both inward and backward, and that we begin to doubt ourselves, and that we don t even believe as much in ourselves as others still believe in us. And I think that since I am so completely imbued with that sense of American exceptionalism and the airbag reset conviction that we are called upon to lead, then it s up to us to figure out how we position ourselves to be as effective as possible at different times in the face of different threats and opportunities.
You ve talked about that we re entering this participation age, and in terms and move beyond the notion of limits to American power, but there is a new because of social media, because of technology, there seems to be a new relationship between citizens I think governments, citizens, and each other. Is that a net positive for the U.S.? And if so, why? And how do we exploit that?
I think it is a huge net positive for us. One of my goals upon becoming Secretary of State was to take diplomacy out of capitals, out of government offices, into the media, into the streets of countries. So from the very beginning in February of 2009, I have tried to combine the necessary diplomacy of government meetings, of creating structures in which we enhance our participation government-to-government with people-to-people diplomacy. Because given social media, given the pervasion now of communications http://www.obdii.co.uk/car-diagnostic-tools-c-2/opel-com-based-diagnostic-tool technologies everywhere, no leader is any longer able to ignore his people.
Right.
What was possible for autocrats and dictators in the past, no longer is. You have to have to be conscious of what is bubbling below. And so for me, it s this top- down, bottom-up combination