The United States faces national elections in November 2004 at a time of deep internal divisions and noteworthy elements of public consensus. The United States bears vast international responsibilities notwithstanding profound reluctance to bear them. The presidential and congressional elections may result yet again in a partisan tie in a country where, nevertheless, citizens share and agree upon many deep beliefs regarding liberties, markets, family, religion, and where the last third of the twentieth century witnessed a major shift toward tolerance in race relations. The United States is at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and has adopted an international strategy of preemption that lowers the bar on commitment to future war. These decisions have been undertaken by an administration most of whose members, once disdainful of the prospects for “nation building,” had criticized their predecessors for excessive engagement in the world beyond the nation's boundaries. Over the past dozen years, the U.S. economy demonstrated impressive powers of transformation, efficiencies, and growth, along with a financial bust, and whose government's fiscal posture has swung dizzyingly in those same years. The nation's institutions combine the majestic legacies of those grounded in a very old constitution and the innovative creativity of an always-changing civil society. This Talloires conference seeks to assess U.S. politics, institutions, economy, and foreign policy in the belief that the United States matters a great deal to a world that does not vote in its elections and to peoples who may care more about this country's fate and actions than do the half of U.S. citizens who do not vote in its elections.