ABSTRACT
The stability of the post-war period was based on overwhelming US power-economic power, political power, military power, cultural power. This power was unquestioned not only among its allies but essentially even by the USSR. The economic strength of the United States during that period was constructed out of its “efficiencies” of production in virtually all fields. US power had been significantly diminished by the 1970s; the United States was forced to withdraw from Vietnam; the world-economy was in a serious downturn, a Kondratieff B-phase. Industries in Western Europe and Japan were by and large fully competitive with US industries on the world market, and indeed in many cases the former had become more “efficient” than US industries. The political positions of Western Europe and Japan could no longer be taken for granted by the United States.
