The International Implications of Third-World Conflict: An American Perspective

Abstract

The theme of this collection of papers is conflict and security in the Third World. To the implicit question that this theme poses about the future, the generic answer is quite simple: the prospects are increased turbulence and instability for the balance of the century. The basic reason is also simple: the relative decline of American power and, associated with it, the reduced will of the American people to play a combined role as international guardian and self-appointed moral preceptor — in short, the end of Pax Americana. Though the outlines of the future remain dim, we are in a period of international transition. The balance of the century will have an as yet undetermined character, reflecting the slow unravelling of a framework of international security earlier provided by the United States — partly fortuitously, partly through deliberate policy — for a period of 30 years after the close of World War II.