ABSTRACT
The model of international relations for the United States during the formulation of United States war aims between 1940 and 1941, and hence while plans were drawn up for postwar foreign policy, was composed of two separate structures. On the one hand, there was the depressing spectacle of the "intermediate system", built on the ruins of the noble balance-of-power system. On the other hand, a crude and simple mechanism of interaction was slowly forming a pragmatic and provisional international structure, based on force and astuteness and established by and subordinated to the laws of war: the war system. During the preceding period of Republican and isolationist administrations, certain core ideas of internationalism had been nurtured through a tenacious campaign of information, analysis, and documentation. The sudden involvement of the United States in the war in Europe upon the fall of France inspired the internationalists in the United States to take action.
