Every nation has problems. That much is banal. What is not banal is the nature of those problems — and that distinction is the real dividing line. Some problems are structural, sitting at the foundation of a system. Others are more like buildup: real, visible, sometimes ugly, but sitting on top of a foundation that is basically sound.

America’s problems, and the problems of its principal rivals — China, Russia, and Iran — belong to different categories entirely. Confusing the two is the surest way to misdiagnose the patient and to misjudge who actually sustains a long contest.

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Think of the American system as a well-built water-filtration machine. It has run for nearly 250 years, doing what it was built to do: draw in a chaotic mix of people, ideas, and capital, and dispense something clean and usable — rule of law, property rights, freedom of speech, a functioning market, peaceful transfers of power. It has never stopped running.

But precisely because it has run so long without ever being shut down for a full overhaul, it has accumulated limescale. Calcified interest groups. Outdated regulations. A political culture that rewards gridlock over maintenance. Institutions........

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