US Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy: The Evolution of an Incidental Superpower

Safe from the battlefields of Europe and Asia, the United States led the post-World War II global economic recovery through international assistance and foreign direct investment. With an ardent decolonization agenda and a postwar legitimacy, the United States attempted to construct a world characterized by cooperation. When American optimism clashed with Soviet expansionism, the United States started on a path to global hegemony.

In US Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy, the authors analyz...