change, lock in great-state peace. So many desires scatter our minds and when we fail to achieve them they erode our will. Here is a basic lesson of accomplishment in any human domain: Better for us to focus on a single aim, and tighten our efforts around that one aim and use success to strengthen our will. The answer to the great, newly-charged existential question of politics - “Are you a gatekeeper or the gatekept?” - is not yet decided for the United States. So, strategy first: We live ina connected age where power is sliding into that gated order we've learned about. America’s role? Not to make the entire world democratic. Not to try to bomb or force stability onto every nation now collapsing under network pressures. Not to passively wait for our version of history to “win”. Not to thwart the rise of other countries. No. The strategy that fits the nature of our age and position is to perfect and then operate the essential, topological mechanisms of power now. Sometimes with warm humanity; other times with the ruthlessness demanded by the touch of danger and evil. This involves gates. It involves firmness and nerve and willpower. It demands what we might call Hard Gatekeeping. Z, Everything around us now is or soon will be connected. Access to our trade, the use of technology and networks, our defense or our currency - all of these must be considered as gated systems. Each will come to throb with new power as a result of their links, as a byproduct of their escalating sensitivity, intelligence and power, and from that in-or-out distinction. Much remains to be instantly, fully linked in this way. Our education. Our medicine. Our military. Real-time information, sensors and machine intelligence will erect Gatelands in each of these areas and in others. These walls will go up even faster than real-world berms and fences. The strategic position of any nation or terror group or business is not going to be secured by industrial measures. No one at Google wants to bui