The Conversion to the Balance of Power

In: The review of politics, Band 14, Heft 2, S. 233-243

Abstract

Political thought in the United States certainly bears out the truth of the observation that infancy impressions are the determining factor of a nation's as well as of an individual's outlook. Americans had to wrest their independence from an imperialistic British government headed by a king. This became the source of three indelible notions: first, crowns are all suspect; secondly, imperialism is something specifically British; thirdly, since British foreign policy has been imperialistic, its methods stand condemned, and one of them is known as the balance-of-power. Conclusion: away with that balance!So it happened that the second half of the twentieth century had to dawn before American statesmen and generals realized and proclaimed the necessity of the balance-of-power and before the American public was ready to be told so. On May 29, 1951, there occurred a significant exchange in the Senate inquiry on the MacArthur ouster.