A democracy can be a fragile thing, one that demands constant vigilance and care. As our nation seeks to steel itself against an array of boogeymen personified by Russia, Iran and North Korea, it might do us well to remember the financial, moral and security consequences of acting upon our grievances in Iraq, which many say contributed to the creation of a power vacuum that led to the eventual rise of ISIS and a global terror threat. It may be comforting to attribute Donald Trump's presidential victory to Moscow, but that would be dismissive of our own agency and culpability, for it is we who pulled our levers last November, not Mr. Putin. We would be wise to defuse tensions and to seek common ground with those foreign adversaries who seem by and large to be acting in accordance with the will of their own people, and we ought to take a discomfiting look in the mirror at a nearer, more frightening boogeyman.