GII's recent work with clients has given me the occasion to think quite a bit about prospects for improved U.S. public diplomacy in the coming administration. There is an innate temptation, evident in the way parties who are out of power campaign in elections around the world, to believe that new leadership will be able to fix it all, or nearly all. When opposition parties take power, they usually find a steeper climb than they had anticipated -- certainly steeper than they promised voters.

It's a few weeks old, but I just caught up to the Economist's in-depth look at how American foreign policy could change with the next administration -- and where the next president will have a tough time breaking with current policy. Even the "easy wins" -- closing Guantanamo, stepping up on climate change, joining the ICC -- won't be very easy, and the list beyond these is long and difficult.

Closing Guantánamo may require America to try the suspected terrorists it can build a case against but let the others go free--free, if nobody else takes them, on American soil. And although it is easy for a president to promise international co-operation on climate change, it is hard to make Congress enact laws that trample on vested interests, threaten to hamper growth or price Americans out of their huge cars. The Senate would not have ratified Kyoto even if Mr Bush had asked it to.

Besides, these "easy" early wins do not come close to encompassing the broad sweep of policy that the wider world wants the new broom to change. Millions of Europeans (including the faithful Brits--see our poll) want America to stop playing world sheriff and submit to the same rules as everyone else under the United Nations. A billion or more Muslims want America to boot Israel out of the West Bank, if not dismantle the Jewish state altogether. Strong constituencies at home and abroad are impatient to see America quit Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not just Russians who find America's plans for missile defence in Europe provocative, or Iranians who say the sanctions against Iran's nuclear programme reek of double standards. Most of the world sympathised with America after September 11th, but a large and prickly chunk of it now sees its war against terrorism as a war against Islam.

You have only to inspect this catalogue of things different parts of the world want America to do or to stop doing to see that the new president's honeymoon will be short. No president can satisfy this great welling up of external demands.

And none, of course, should try. Showing a decent respect for the opinions of mankind does not mean competing in a global popularity contest at the expense of sound policy. Much of the next president's foreign policy will, rightly, continue the present one. Its central aims will include preserving the NATO alliance (see article), holding the line against nuclear proliferation, and undergirding the security of allies such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea in Asia and Israel and the Gulf Arabs in the Middle East. America under a new president will need to adapt to the relentless rise of China without seeking refuge in a self-defeating protectionism, keep a weather eye on a newly obstreperous Russia and--yes--continue to seek out and fight al-Qaeda and other terrorists.

I appreciated this holistic look at American foreign policy going forward. Advocates, by the nature of their focused work, often tackle issues piecemeal. But context like this a good check. That's not to say that a window of opportunity to push meaningful change through on certain foreign policy issues may not open during the next administration -- inevitably it will on issues that no one can predict -- but it helps to have the whole picture in mind.