New York Times bestselling author and conservative U.S. Senator Tom Cotton exposes the progressive left’s decades-long plot to sabotage American power, culminating in a behind-the-scenes look at the dangerous failures of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden—and explains what we must do to recover America’s strength.

If it seems to you that Barack Obama and Joe Biden have weakened America and emboldened our enemies, you’re not alone. But Senator Cotton explains that their failures aren’t just incompetence or bad luck—it’s decline by design.

Only the Strong reveals the untold inside story of how progressive ideologues and Democratic politicians abandoned the American tradition of strength, pride, and honor. From the beginning, early progressives like Woodrow Wilson repudiated our Founding in favor of globalist fantasies abroad and big government at home. By Vietnam, leftists had begun to blame America first for the world’s problems—just as Barack Obama did for eight years as he apologized and sought to atone for America’s supposed sins. Along the way, Democrats have sold out America’s sovereignty and hollowed out our military to restrain American power. Even when Democrats have acted tough, it usually ends in disaster, from John Kennedy’s debacle at the Bay of Pigs to Bill Clinton’s fiasco in Mogadishu to Joe Biden’s humiliating retreat from Afghanistan.

While offering a timely warning of the dangers ahead and new stories from Senator Cotton’s service in the Senate and the Army, Only the Strong also provides a formidable and urgent roadmap to restore American strength before it’s too late. Because only the strong can survive in a dangerous world and only the strong can preserve their freedom.