New York Times bestselling author and conservative U.S. Senator Tom Cotton exposes the progressive left’s decades-long plot to sabotage American power, culminating in a behind-the-scenes look at the dangerous failures of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden–and explains what we must do to recover America’s strength.

If it seems to you that Barack Obama and Joe Biden have weakened America and emboldened our enemies, you’re not alone. But Senator Cotton explains that their failures aren’t just incompetence or bad luck–it’s decline by design.

Only the Strong reveals the untold inside story of how progressive ideologues and Democratic politicians abandoned the American tradition of strength, pride, and honor. From the beginning, early progressives like Woodrow Wilson repudiated our Founding in favor of globalist fantasies abroad and big government at home. By Vietnam, leftists had begun to blame America first for the world’s problems–just as Barack Obama did for eight years as he apologized and sought to atone for America’s supposed sins. Along the way, Democrats have sold out America’s sovereignty and hollowed out our military to restrain American power. Even when Democrats have acted tough, it usually ends in disaster, from John Kennedy’s debacle at the Bay of Pigs to Bill Clinton’s fiasco in Mogadishu to Joe Biden’s humiliating retreat from Afghanistan.

While offering a timely warning of the dangers ahead and new stories from Senator Cotton’s service in the Senate and the Army, Only the Strong also provides a formidable and urgent roadmap to restore American strength before it’s too late. Because only the strong can survive in a dangerous world and only the strong can preserve their freedom.

THEIR DUTY IS SACRED. THEIR STANDARD IS PERFECTION.

An extraordinary journey behind the scenes of Arlington National Cemetery, Senator Tom Cotton’s Sacred Duty offers an intimate and inspiring portrait of “The Old Guard,” the revered U.S. Army unit whose mission is to honor our country’s fallen heroes on the most hallowed ground in America.

Cotton was a platoon leader with the storied 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment–The Old Guard–between combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the height of the Iraq Surge, he carried the flag-draped remains of his fallen comrades off of airplanes at Dover Air Force Base, and he laid them to rest in Arlington’s famed Section 60, “the saddest acre in America.” He also performed hundreds of funerals for veterans of the Greatest Generation, as well as the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

The Old Guard has embodied the ideals of honor and sacrifice across our nation’s history. America’s oldest active-duty regiment, dating back to 1784, The Old Guard conducts daily military-honor funerals on the 624 rolling acres of Arlington, where generations of American heroes rest. Its soldiers hold themselves to the standard of perfection in sweltering heat, frigid cold, and driving rain. Every funeral is a no-fail, zero-defect mission, whether honoring a legendary general or a humble private.

In researching and writing the book, Cotton returned to Arlington and shadowed the regiment’s soldiers, from daily funerals to the state funeral of President George H. W. Bush to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, reliving the honor–and the challenges–of duty at the nation’s “most sacred shrine.”

Part history of The Old Guard, part memoir of Cotton’s time at Arlington, part intimate profile of the today’s soldiers, Sacred Duty is an unforgettable testament to the timeless power of service and sacrifice to our nation.