America's allies sometimes imagine that America's superpower status has transformed it, or ought to have transformed it, into some giant disinterested force for peace and good.

ECONOMIST: America��s world

Mr. Laffer, chairman of Laffer Associates and the Laffer Center for Supply-Side Economics, is co-author, with Stephen Moore, of "Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Economic Superpower Status" (Threshold, 2010).

WSJ: Arthur B. Laffer: Class Warfare and the Buffett Rule

If the world's only superpower turns inward or is unable to display leadership worthy of its status, that could have a negative effect on the world.

CNN: Highlights from the world's press