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...