ABSTRACT
In speaking about US policy and global change, it is important to stress at the outset the underlying continuity of that policy. The point of departure for US involvement in the world is our relationship with Western Europe and Japan. A secure and economically cooperative community of the advanced industrial democracies is the necessary source of stability for a broad system of international cooperation. One-third of mankind lives under Communist systems, and emerging states have to be assimilated, to the extent that they are willing, into a wider fabric of global cooperation. The United States is moving to meet the global threat to the welfare of mankind. The struggle for the shape of the future has strong parallels to the experience of Western democracies in the last century and a half. It is that experience that offers a measure of hope for a more rational and just accommodation on a vastly more complex and larger scale.
