The Foreign Service Journal, December 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2021 13 Share your thoughts about this month’s issue. Submit letters to the editor: journal@afsa.org tion to sugarcoat our damaged reality and instead face it head on.” Carothers and Brown say the U.S. should surrender its “almost reflexive” role as the natural leader and exporter of global democracy. Show a little humil- ity, they suggest, and acknowledge our missteps as evidence that “democracy requires constant tending and self-correc- tion, both at home and overseas.” America needs the December summit, they maintain, but “it will succeed only if it celebrates mutual accountability and part- nership, rather than trying to resurrect the idea of America as the sun at the center of democracy’s solar system.” n Bill Wanlund FSO, retired Falls Church, Virginia CORRECTION In the October letter from Bob Fretz, “A Project That Challenges Our Think- ing,” three sentences should have read as follows: “Estevanico often went on ahead, as he related better to Native Americans.” “In 1565, Black people helped found St. Augustine, America’s oldest city.” “For the 60 Africans who disem- barked, this was their lucky day.” We regret the errors.