The following are excerpts from yesterday’s speech as prepared for delivery by the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, to Sy Syms School of Business of Yeshiva University:

The development and dissemination of understanding about free markets and economic vitality is critical to the well-being of the human family.

As you have heard, I have spent most of my career in the private market, first by consulting to major corporations around the world, then by starting or acquiring companies.

It takes some nerve to buy a company from someone else, someone who knows the business inside out, someone who has decided that now is the best time to sell, someone who has hired an investment banker to hawk it to everywhere, and then to think that having paid more than anyone else was willing to pay, you would make a profit on your investment.

It’s truly an improbable way to make a living. But it worked, and it worked far better than I could ever have imagined. During the 15 years I was at Bain Capital, our compound rate of return on our investments exceeded 100% per year.

What was the secret? No secret really. What we did is done in the private sector every day. We started with good people — highly intelligent, intellectually curious, driven. We gathered extensive data and carried out rigorous analysis before we made decisions. And then we developed a highly focused strategy to make the enterprise more successful.

I have found that the same approach works in the public sector as well. Good people, data, analysis, and focused strategy. It’s not the way government usually does things, but it’s the way it should do things.

Today, America faces a number of critical challenges. In my view, at the top of the list is the threat of radical, violent Jihad and the associated threat of nuclear proliferation.

I think many of us, including many of our leaders, fail to comprehend the extent of this threat. Take former President Jimmy Carter. President Carter thinks that Israel’s security fence is the thing that keeps peace from coming to the Holy Land. Having just been to Israel, I came to the opposite conclusion: the security fence is keeping peace in Israel — it is helping prevent bloodshed and terror and violence.

What Jimmy Carter fails to understand is what so many fail to understand. Whether it is Hamas or Hezbollah; Al Qaeda or Shia and Sunni extremists, there is an overarching goal among the violent Jihadists that transcends borders and boundaries. That goal is to replace all modern Islamic states with a caliphate, to destroy Israel, to cause the collapse of the West and the United States, and to conquer the world.

Jihadism — violent radical fundamentalism — is this century’s nightmare. It follows the same dark path as last century’s nightmares: fascism and Soviet communism.

Radical, nuclear Jihad is the greatest threat that faces humanity. It cannot be appeased. It can only be defeated.

In my view, there are several steps America must now take.

First, we must sharply increase our investment in national defense. I want to see at least 100,000 more troops. I want to see us finally make the long overdue investment in equipment, armament, weapon systems, and strategic defense. This will require that we spend at least 4% of our GDP on defense spending.

Second, America must become energy independent. Our economic and military strength require it. I’m not just talking about symbolic measures, I mean that we must finally take the necessary steps to actually produce as much energy as we use.

Third, we must transform our international civilian resources, to enhance our influence for peace, for security, and for freedom. Just as the military has divided the world into common regions with a single commander, our civilian agencies must now follow suit. With a single civilian leader, who like their military counterpart is fully empowered with authority, responsibility, and resources, we can spread our great instruments of peace, like economic growth and basic freedoms like health care and the rule of law to nations everywhere.

Fourth, we must strengthen old partnerships and alliances, and inaugurate a new one. I agree with former Prime Minister Aznar of Spain that we should build on the NATO alliance to defeat radical Islam. And further, if I were fortunate enough to be elected president, I would call for a Summit of Nations to create a new partnership — a Partnership for Hope and Prosperity.

Fifth, we must keep Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. Their weapon ambition is clear: they have a virtually inexhaustible supply of clean natural gas for energy, and they have refused Russia’s offer to supply nuclear fuel for power.

Earlier this month, Iran boasted the production of nuclear fuel on an “industrial level” with a goal of installing 50,000 centrifuges. On April 9, Iran marked a new national holiday — “Nuclear Day.” On April 16, Iran announced that it is seeking requests to build two new nuclear reactor plans.

What more must Iran do before the world community takes serious action?

The Iranian regime threatens not only Israel, but also every other nation in a region that supplies 60% of the world’s oil and natural gas. Close to a dozen countries in the Middle East are now expressing interest in developing their own nuclear energy programs.

There is yet another source of Jihadist danger, beyond Iran. It is the pursuit by Jihadists of acquiring what are commonly known as “loose nukes.” The Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, which was launched last year, was a good start, but we need to greatly accelerate, expand, and elevate efforts on this issue, making it a top presidential priority to combat this growing threat. …

In the final analysis, only Muslims will be able to permanently defeat radical Islam. But we can and should help. We will work with moderate peoples to help them build the foundations of modernity and human rights.

We should remember that in the two other global confrontations with totalitarianism in the past century, it was not always obvious that the West would prevail. Indeed, in those conflicts, the balance of power was not always in the West’s favor. Those were wars we could have lost, but we did not.

In the current conflict, defeat is not nearly as dangerously close as it was during the darkest moments of World War II and the Cold War. There is no comparison between the economic, diplomatic, and military resources of the civilized world and those of the terrorist networks that threaten us.

In those previous global wars, there were many ways to lose, and victory was far from guaranteed.

In the current conflict, there is only one way to lose, and that is if we, as a civilization, decide not to lift a finger to defend ourselves, our values, and our way of life.

I will not be silent, you will not be silent. Together, we can lead the world to do what it has sought for so many centuries — to accept different people and cultures, to respect the inalienable rights of every child of God, and to welcome a time of peace and prosperity.