India, Sept. 30 -- Moscow and Kyiv, Tel Aviv and Tehran have little in common with Detroit and Scranton, Phoenix and Atlanta. Beirut and Gaza, Pokrovsk and Kursk, have little in common with Milwaukee and Las Vegas and Raleigh. Yet, the fate of Russia and Ukraine, Iran and Israel, indeed the very future of Europe and West Asia and the global security architecture, rests on how swing voters in swing counties of seven swing states of America vote in the presidential elections. And it rests on how Senate battles shape up in states as distant as Montana and Texas, or House of Representative races in Alaska and Maine and New York.

Domestic American politics has always shaped international politics, from the days of the US's late but game-chang...