Underlying the transatlantic tensions of recent years is a philosophical gap between visionaries who can imagine, for example, a radical democratic reordering of the Arab Middle East, and counter-visionaries who worry more about costs and unintended consequences. The fundamental issue is strategic. It concerns the readiness to acknowledge and adjust to the power of others, however undeserved, illegitimate, inconvenient and awkward this power may be. By and large, the counter-visionaries believe that the visionaries go wrong by always seeking to ignore, circumvent or defeat opponents. This disagreement between visionaries and counter-visionaries is not simply one of Americans versus Europeans, although it has recently turned out that way. While the limits to the ability of Western states to promote political change elsewhere have become apparent, and so the transatlantic disagreement has eased, questions of ideology and legitimacy are still vital, as is evident in the debates about how to deal with China and Iran. In some respects liberal democracies cannot help but provide a strategic vision for those coping with authoritarianism, but the potency of this vision in the end will depend on how well it seems to work at home, and the capacity of the transatlantic states to cope with the domestic as well as the international challenges they face.