In my respectful view, one example of where there was a negative for us was that in what I think was about 10 years, we twice tried to get a seat on the Security Council of the United Nations and twice lost out to much smaller countries, relatively speaking: to Ireland, I think, and to Norway, if my recollection serves, both of whom have a much broader and larger footprint on the international plane, both of whom have much deeper ties to the global south and both of whom basically have their ears on the ground based on values of what the world community actually expects in the 21st century.
We've failed to meet the challenge not once but twice, and it was because we dropped the ball on our values and didn't adhere to them.