ABSTRACT
In 1985 the American percentage of North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) gross national product was down to 58.2 percent. For all intents and purposes, NATO is an American military protectorate—dependent on American nuclear weapons to stop even a Soviet conventional attack. A more serious study of history, moreover, can help liberate the present from too tenacious an attachment to historical "laws" inappropriate to contemporary conditions. Pluralism, or a balance-of-power theory of international order, does offer a defensible theoretical alternative to the hegemonic view-an alternative that leads to quite different practical conclusions when applied either to history or to contemporary policy. Whether a hegemonic or pluralist perspective is preferable in current circumstances depends not on some universal iron law that determines history but on a correct reading of the circumstances themselves. Given the appropriate conditions, a hegemonic or plural system can function successfully.
