There was serious work to do in January 1981 if the United States was to protect its empire. The country's reputation had plummeted following the defeat in Vietnam. There were hairline cracks in the U.S. alliance structure after the nation's most important allies turned decisively against America's exercise of military power in Southeast Asia. There was no longer much confidence at home or abroad in a demoralized American military establishment.

It didn't help to have President Carter's bold 1980 rescue mission in Iran come to a humiliating conclusion. The Iranian revolution had overthrown the Shah of Iran, America's puppet ruler, and the Ayatollah Khomeini was transforming the nation's government into a theocracy bitterly opposed to the influence of the United States, the “Great Satan.” Rumors that America was once again going to intervene in Iran prompted a small group of revolutionary students to take over the American embassy and seize American hostages. After negotiations failed, Carter sent a small force on a secret mission to rescue the hostages. But the operation, Eagle Claw, was a disaster. When the helicopters crashed, they seemed to symbolize the nation's failure as the military, political, and economic leader of the world's capitalist democracies.