This was, it said, "a vision of a more engaged nation, one in which we take more responsibility for ourselves and our neighbours; communities working together, not depending on remote and impersonal bureaucracies".
As James Poterba, an M.I.T economist who served on the panel, delicately puts it, the Jeffersonian ideal of a civically engaged nation of landowners "wouldn't necessarily lead you to a policy that had the biggest benefits at the higher marginal tax rates".
This strategy of engaging nations with a common enemy is nothing new in world history or American foreign policy.
American diplomacy has engaged illiberal nations forever.
He engaged the nation in a lengthy, vigorous debate about involvement in World War I.
We should not be engaged in nation building, but we can certainly support Syrians committed to rebuilding their country.
Britain is in the EU because it is "an engaged trading nation" which sees "huge potential" in the completion of the single market, said Mr Cameron.
"The U.S. is still engaged in nation building here two hundred and twenty-five years plus after the Declaration of Independence, and we still have a long way to go," he said in 2002.
With the United States already fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the administration is fearful of straining an already overstretched military and of being seen as engaged in nation building in the region.
For now, at least, Palestinians, still engaged in nation-building, cannot seem to define themselves without denigrating Israelis; their textbooks have remained mostly unrevised, much of their media vitriolic in tone.
I continue to believe that the most important foreign policy issue America faces today is its ability to successfully engage in nation building — nation building at home.
