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"1776 Is Not for Sale"--The Revolution’s Lessons Stand in Stark Contrast to Today’s Politics of Isolation and Arrogance. The Revolution was won through alliances, humility about power, and relentless resolve—not bluster or unilateralism. As the nation marks 250 years, it falls to citizens—not politicians—to reclaim those truths and apply them to the present moment. In two months, the United States will celebrate the 250 th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The signing of the Declaration marks the official beginning of the nation, and the start of a lengthy struggle to make our independence a reality. That struggle contains important lessons today. It is our tragedy that not since the Declaration was written, 250 years ago, have we been led by people more ignorant of the Declaration, or more contemptuous of its principles, than we are now. We can expect little of value from the official messages and ceremonies organized by the federal government. Every effort will be made to turn these into celebrations of Donald Trump. Fortunately, the administration does not have a monopoly on the American story. Now is the time for true patriots to offer our own thoughts, our own reflections, our own commemorations. We should not do this, however, in a spirit of nostalgia. Instead, we should look back on the Declaration and the Revolution it ignited to strengthen ourselves with lessons that speak to our time. Lesson #1–Allies Matter The current administration has little use for allies or practicing diplomacy. Countries once viewed as trusted partners are described at the highest levels as vampires, sucking America’s blood and treasure and giving nothing in return. Arbitrary tariffs, threats to Greenland, and a major war in the Middle East—about which no American friend was consulted—are leading allies to distance themselves from America. Meanwhile, ambassadors around the world have been fired for the crime of having been appointed under Biden. Key positions sit vacant, while obnoxious political hacks have been sent to Paris, Warsaw, and other major posts. How different was the perspective of American leaders in 1776. It was sustained and clever American diplomacy that won the war by drawing France to our side. The country’s best and brightest—Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson—were sent to Paris to build relations and persuade France to send aid. A great effort was made to influence public opinion and educate the people of France about the American cause. America welcomed French sympathizers like the Marquis de Lafayette, who developed close friendships with people like Washington and Jefferson. These French sympathizers played a central role in persuading their countrymen to side with the Americans. The Americans understood how their interests and those of France could be aligned. France wanted to weaken its great enemy, England. The French had recently been humiliated during the Seven Years’ War (the French and Indian War, as it is known in the United States). They had lost Canada to the British. They wanted revenge and saw the creation of an independent United States, indebted to France and allied against British power, as a tremendous opportunity. Benjamin Franklin, the most famous American of his time, arrived in Paris in December 1776. He adroitly reshaped his image to gain entrance to French society. Franklin was a sophisticated scientist at home in London’s best salons, but he donned a fur hat and play-acted the uncouth American frontiersman to win over the French. As Stacy Schiff describes the effect in “A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, the French quickly adopted the ‘ coiffure a la Franklin ,’ in which every effort was made to sculpt hair into the shape of a backwoods hat.” One might think it would be impossible to convince a French King and Queen to support a revolution against kings and hereditary privilege. Somehow, Franklin did it. That’s diplomacy. French artillery helped the then-colonials win the Battle of Saratoga. French soldiers joined with Americans to besiege Savannah. France established a permanent naval base at Newport. The French fleet defeated the British at the Battle of the Chesapeake, enabling the decisive American-French victory at Yorktown that ended the war. With France showing the way, Spain joined the war against England. So did the Dutch. Isolated and faced with threats across its Empire, Great Britain was forced to concede. Lesson #2–No One Holds All the Cards Donald Trump regularly opines that the weak have no chance against the strong. He berated Ukrainian President Zelensky for imagining he could hold out against Russia, since “without us, you don’t have any cards.” Iran is repeatedly imagined to be on the brink of surrender in the face of American firepower. One might imagine that recent American experiences in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan would have taught a different lesson. But any American paying attention would have learned this lesson in elementary school. On paper, the American revolutionaries had no chance against Britain, the world’s premier naval power. We had no professional army, no navy, and few trained officers. We were divided into 13 separate states without a central government. We had agricultural economies and little industry. But we won. Strength has many sources, and the power of a nation’s weapons is just one factor. Determination and leadership matter. Morale matters. Friends and allies matter. Intelligence and spycraft matter. Even the strongest opponents have weaknesses that careful planning and execution can exploit. The British were forced to realize that the costs of continuing to fight a war across the Atlantic, in a landscape where the enemy could always melt away, against a people no longer willing to be subservient, outweighed any possible gains. As historian Jonathan Dull notes in A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution: “The British government, blind to the danger of an American rebellion, failed to provide itself in advance with allies or to compromise with its enemies.” Making concessions to the Americans was seen by British imperialists as a dangerous weakness. Forcing the rebels to cave would send the right signal to the other colonies. Overconfidence in hard power can be fatal. Real strength often lies elsewhere, as our revolutionary forebears demonstrated. A country that foregoes soft power and imagines that everyone will roll over for its bullying is setting itself up for hubris and humiliation. Lesson #3–We Have Not Yet Begun to Fight! John Paul Jones uttered these famous words while captaining the Bonhomme Richard , a ship given to the Americans by Louis XVI and named after Franklin (in his guise as Poor Richard, author of the famous Almanac). The Richard was sinking, and Jones was being asked to surrender. Instead, he fought on. We, too, must fight on by not letting others define who we are. We must not let our history, our symbols, our anniversaries be appropriated by those who seek to twist them for their own un-American purposes. Let’s remember, learn, and celebrate. Adam Wasserman is a retired CIA analyst with experience on failing democracies in the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. He served on the State Department Policy Planning Staff, the CIA Red Cell, and the National Security Council staff. He is a member of The Steady State. Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 400 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines, including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs, and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions. https://steadystate1.substack.com/p/1776-is-not-for-sale-the-revolutions