Today democratic institutions are taking root in places where liberty was unimaginable not long ago. At the start of the 1980s, there were only 45 democracies on Earth. There are now more than 120 democracies, and more people now live in freedom than ever before. (Applause.)
America is proud to promote the expansion of democracy, and we must continue to stand with all those struggling to claim their freedom. The advance of freedom is the great story of our time, and new chapters are being written every day, from Georgia and Ukraine, to Kyrgyzstan and Lebanon, to Afghanistan and Iraq. From our own history, we know the path to democracy is long, and it's hard. There are many challenges, and there are setbacks along the way. Yet we can have confidence in the outcome, because we've seen freedom's power to transform societies before.
In World War II, we fought Germany on battlefields across Europe, and today a democratic Germany is one of our strongest partners on the Continent. And in the Pacific, we fought a bloody war with Japan. And now our alliance with a democratic Japan is the linchpin for freedom and security in the Far East. These democracies have taken different forms that reflect different cultures and traditions. But our friendship with them reminds us that liberty is the path to lasting peace, and that democracies are natural allies for the United States.
Today we have no closer ally than the nation we once fought for our own independence. Britain and America are united by our democratic heritage, and by the history that began at this settlement 400 years ago. Last month some of the greatest legal minds in Britain and America, including Justice O'Connor and Chief Justice John Roberts, came to Jamestown to lay a plaque commemorating our shared respect for the rule of law and our deeply held belief in individual liberty.
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