The United States spends nearly twice as much as other industrialized nations per citizen on health care — often with worse outcomes. We spend more per student on education than most other wealthy countries, with few results to show for it. Attracting top-quality teachers, rewarding them for success, and enabling parents and students to choose effective schools would be a better use of resources.

And with only modest government funds we could foster public-private partnerships to rebuild this country’s often crumbling infrastructure, refashion immigration policy to give preference for visas and green cards to many more immigrants with advanced degrees and needed skills, and above all reduce long-term entitlement obligations, cutting the ratio of public debt to G.D.P.

These steps, along with individual and corporate tax reform, would facilitate a return to the high levels of economic growth that America enjoyed in much of the post-World War II era.

This is not a recipe for isolationism. Rather, it is a new grand strategy for America that views national security as a function of both foreign and domestic policy.