In these troubled times everyone is looking round for decisive and wise leadership. In particular the world is looking to America, as still the biggest and richest nation by far, despite its current financial problems, to make a better contribution to world peace and stability under its new president than it seems to have done recently.

In fact, in the recent presidential campaign, this is just the question that Americans in all parts of the political spectrum have been asking each other: How can America best reassert its world leadership and influence and become loved and admired again as once it was?

In looking for an answer Americans should perhaps try taking a leaf out of the Japanese book. In Japan the spirit of mutual obligation prevails — perhaps not as universally as it once did, but still quite strongly. People are guided by a sense of obligation to each other. That is the lubricant by which business is done, relationships are handled and teams are built. The concept of going it alone is unthinkable.

Like it or not, realize it or not and admit it or not, America is today more deeply obliged than ever to others.

It is obliged to China for holding such massive quantities of its currency and for a vast cascade of products and supplies which increasingly underpin the entire U.S. value chain. It is obliged and indebted to South Korea, Japan, Abu Dhabi and several others for the same reason. It is obliged to India for the endless flow of superior computer wizards (who help sustain Silicon Valley), and it is obliged to Brazil for showing the way with genuinely clean biofuels, and for much else besides in the way of design and now even aero technology.

It is obliged to Russia for keeping open the gas spigot to Western Europe (most of the time). It is obliged to Japan as a machine shop, innovator and defense ally, as well as for the reasons given above. It is obliged to Britain both for past services in standing alone against Nazism for long enough to let America gird up and turn up, as well as for recent Middle East support, for which the Brits have earned nothing whatever in return except world unpopularity.

The list goes on and on. Germany is certainly owed something for its loyalty and readiness to subordinate all past ambitions to a peaceful continental unity. A mutual obligation is owed to Turkey for eschewing Islamic extremism, to Palestine for struggling to come into being as a state, to Iraq for its efforts to develop its vast oil potential (recognition of which might have helped America get along faster with its status of forces negotiations with the Iraqis).

It could even be argued that the U.S. shares a degree of mutual obligation with prickly Iran, as a huge nation with a strong culture and timeless history, well capable of making a major contribution to the whole Middle East region's prosperity and stability.

Starting from that stance, instead of from the evil empire standpoint, might be just what is needed to move on to careful cooperation with the proud Iranians in developing a peaceful nuclear capacity, rather than sticking to the present mixture of confrontation, threats and sanctions which, although inflicting some pain, are ultimately futile. This is, incidentally, a course that wiser heads in Israel are already considering.

The central consideration in all this is that obligation is mutual. Globalization sets the seal on this international structure of mutual indebtedness which seems not to have been taken fully on board by recent U.S. foreign policymakers. It imposes an almost universal pattern of mutual obligation not just in terms of trade and investment, but in terms of security as well.

Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been talking about the need for America to take the lead again. She calls for an international order that shares American values and that expands the circle of America's allies. She calls this "the new American realism."

But the new realism is not as Rice believes it to be. The new realism is that the American people today, more than ever, owe their prosperity, security and future welfare to many others. This puts America in a position no different from most other nations, although in the American case its sheer size makes the obligation both ways even bigger.

This is not what the American people are being told by their leaders, on either side politically, or by their chief communicators and opinion-shapers. America's contribution to world peace and stability would be vastly enhanced if they were, as would its internal peace of mind in place of the present almost universal angst and bewilderment.

What the world now asks from the great, generous and a well-meaning American Republic, with its fine, if today somewhat tarnished, values and beliefs, is to sound less assertive and more cooperative and understanding of the position, values and political structures of others — to play on the team.

When a new secretary of state goes before Congress early next year to have his, or her, appointment confirmed, that should be the key issue addressed.

David Howell is a former British Cabinet minister and former chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. He is now a member of the House of Lords ([email protected] www.lordhowell.com).