A National Intelligence Council analysis, "Global Trends 2025,” published last week projects that “U.S. economic and political clout will decline over the next two decades and the world will be more dangerous, with food and water scarce and advanced weapons plentiful.” Countries like China and India “will join the United States atop a multi-polar world and compete for influence.”

The outlook, “intended to inform U.S. President-elect Barack Obama of factors that will influence global events,” holds little good news for the United States. But does it portend the beginning of the end for America’s place at the pinnacle of power, or is it a wake-up call for America to take an introspective look at itself and, as we have done before, rise to the occasion?

From our current vantage point in the middle of a global financial crisis that threatens free-market capitalism, the outlook is rather bleak. Added to the problems we were facing before the crash--al-Qaeda, rogue states, nuclear proliferation, dependence on foreign oil, climate change, the rise of China, and the resurgence of Russia--what other conclusion can we come to?

We’ve faced greater challenges in our country’s brief history, however. Why are the challenges facing us today and over the next 20 years any different? We survived the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War. In every case we became a stronger, better country.

Time after time, what sustained America through its travail and propelled it forward was our belief in a concept increasingly seen today as out of date. Indeed many believe it is the root of all our problems.

American exceptionalism “is the idea that the United States differs qualitatively from other developed nations, because of its national credo, historical evolution, distinctive political and religious institutions, ethnic origins and composition, or national ideals.” First used to describe the United States by Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1831 “Democracy in America,” it’s how, until the end of the Cold War at least, America saw itself.

There are two distinctive self interpretations of American exceptionalism in US history. The first was the era of Manifest Destiny from the 1840s through the Spanish-American War. America expanded its territory and its power at the expense of others. We saw what made the colonial powers great and we wanted our piece of the action.

By the early 20th century, however, Americans, sobered by the reality of World War I, began to see the United States as different from, but not superior to, other nations because of our values and our struggle to make the world a better place. We liberated millions of people from the grip of Nazism and Fascism. We admitted our own failings and embraced the Civil Rights movement, making the eventual election of Barack Obama possible. We defeated the spread of communism with an idea instead of guns and bombs and spread freedom and democracy around the world.

Increasingly, however, a cacophony of voices, mostly on the extreme left, tell us that we shouldn’t see ourselves as exceptional. Doing so is arrogance. Instead we need to go with the flow, become just another team player, not the leader, in the world community of nations. Using President George W. Bush as their poster child, they tell us we’re causing more problems than we solve.

The spreading viruses of moral relativism, political correctness, and revisionist history all contribute to the perception. If Americans today are confused about what we stand for in the 21st century and what role we ought to play in the world, it should come as no surprise.

Our challenge in the years ahead, and what will determine if the 21st century will be another American century, if the world will be a safer or a more dangerous place, is whether we believe we are still exceptional. And if we believe we are, are we willing to make the sacrifices and hard choices that exceptionalism demands? We have been the leader of the free world, not because we subjugated it, or declared ourselves the leader, but because other nations believed we were exceptional and followed us. If we no longer see ourselves as exceptional, will they; and to whom will they turn?

What other country in the world today offers a beacon of hope for the future? Do Russia and China, authoritarian governments running free-market economies, offer better examples for a changing world? Which other capitalist democracy would even accept the burden of leadership?

The problems and circumstances outlined in “Global Trends 2025” are real; they threaten world peace and stability and America’s preeminent role in maintaining them. But as the world’s problems worsen, the community of nations must do more than just adapt to them, it must stay ahead of them if it is to prevent worst-case scenarios. That requires cooperation. Effective cooperation requires leadership.

Thomas Fingar, chairman of the intelligence council and deputy national director of intelligence for analysis, in a news conference where “Global Trends 2025” was released to the public, said harmful outcomes were not inevitable. "It is not beyond the mind of human beings, or political systems, (or) in some cases (the) working of market mechanisms to address and alleviate if not solve these problems," Fingar told reporters. "We could have a better world in 2025."

A better world will be far more likely if America leads the way and sets the standard. It’s time to stop feeling guilty about American exceptionalism. It’s time to stop blaming America for the world’s problems. It’s time to do what America and only America can do--take a hard look at ourselves, admit we make mistakes, and chart a course for ourselves that the rest of the world can follow that leads to peace, prosperity, and freedom.