washington dont write off the united states for the world that was the subtext of us president obamas state of the union address on tuesday night in which he invoked the countrys storied creative spirit and entrepreneurial energy while laying out a blueprint for an american revival in the face of an asian challenge from countries such as china and india in a feisty 65minute speech that that was nationalistic in spirit and challenging in tone obama gave not a call to arms as many past presidents have done but a rallying cry to preserve and extend american economic scientific and technological primacy through greater investment in education and technology there was nary a mention of terrorism just one reference to terrorists and he barely touched on issues such as climate change europe was a blip and africa remained in darkness instead it was a rage against us decline couched in language that challenged americans to rediscover their drive in the face of the asian challenge although the us is still the birthplace of some of the most sweeping technologies of the day from ipad to facebook obama twitted americans for falling behind in many areas telling them that south korean homes have better internet access and china now has faster trains while the us president bluntly conveyed to americans that global rules of trade and commerce have changed and they could not expect the good times to return so easily he did not demoralize them instead he tried to fire them up reminding them of the time the us overcame the soviet unions lead in the space race so yes the world has changed the competition for jobs is real but this shouldnt discourage us he counseled and went on to exhort no workers are more productive than ours no country has more successful companies or grants more patents to inventers and entrepreneurs we are home to the worlds best colleges and universities where more students come to study than any other place on earth the problem obama suggested was the countrys school system which needed to be reformed and the lack of emphasis on math and sciencein one of the most striking moments of the speech obama asked young americans contemplating a career choice to become teachers adding your country needs you a line that was once used to enlist fighting men in fact war and terrorism took a backseat in an address that was conspicuously tilted towards education and economy one tv pundit said that for once the secretary of education must have felt more important than the secretary of state and the defense secretary there were two references to india in the address one in the context of indian and chinese investment in education and research and the other referring to recent agreements with the two countries that would create jobs in the us but while the chinese economic challenge included citations about specific chinese advances worlds fastest supercomputer worlds largest solar research facility