Not long before a virus born in China began spreading around the globe, destroying lives, devastating economies and, oh yes, shutting down the Washington social scene, I attended an elegant, off-the-record dinner hosted by a well-funded think tank of the libertarian persuasion.

The guest of honor, a senior figure in the Trump administration, excused himself before dessert, citing pressing matters of state. At that point, a distinguished professor from a prestigious university held forth, posing a question to those around the table: "Who here is in favor of starting a new Cold War with China?"

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The assassins were professionals and they had planned carefully. On Aug. 7, 2020, around 9 o'clock on a warm evening, they rode a motorcycle down a street in Pasdaran, a well-off Tehran neighborhood. They pulled alongside a white Renault L90. A middle-aged man was at the wheel, a young woman in the seat next to him. Five shots were fired from a pistol fitted with a silencer. The motorcycle sped off as the couple in the sedan drew their last breaths.

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With the defeat of the Axis Power in 1945, the United States emerged as the strongest military, economic and cultural power on earth. Rather than emulate hegemons of the past, American leaders envisioned a new and different world order.

Their goal was to organize an "international community," establish "universal human rights," and a growing body of "international law." This project required new institutions, in particular the United Nations. President Harry Truman predicted that the U.N. would become "the means of preserving the international peace and of creating conditions of mutual trust and economic and social well-being among all peoples of the world."

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Suppose you're a teacher, and you're French, and you want your students to learn about France's tradition of freedom, the reasons your nation believes it's good and useful to tolerate a wide range of opinions, beliefs and perspectives, including those some people find offensive. Do you go ahead and teach this lesson? Or do you remain silent because to speak freely about freedom in France today is to risk your life?

These are not hypothetical questions. In January 2015, the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad sparked the slaughter of twelve people at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine. After an obviously long delay, 14 alleged accomplices in that attack have recently gone on trial.

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In the Soviet Union of the 1970s it wasn't hard to meet Russians who knew the Communist system was incorrigibly corrupt, dysfunctional, and oppressive. But it was one thing to whisper such truths to trusted friends, quite another to speak openly, to make oneself the target of the police state. A member of the intelligentsia who kept his head down asked me this question: "What do you call a man of integrity in the Soviet Union?" When I shook my head, he dolefully provided the answer: "An inmate."

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