ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of domestic constraints on the ability of governments to pursue goals of this kind in their foreign policy. Democratic control of foreign policy is of course indispensable in the United States (US) political system. The normative component establishes the desirability of the policy; the cognitive component its feasibility. Policy legitimacy is invaluable for the conduct of a long-range foreign policy. Foreign policy that aims at establishing a new international system or regime generally has an internal structure— a set of interrelated components. Isolationism had been strong in the United States in the 1930s before Pearl Harbor. The question of who and what would fill this vacuum would pose the most serious implications for the vital interests of both the Soviets and the Western powers. The cold war had been easier to legitimate domestically in the United States because it rested on a simple negative stereotype— a devil image of the Soviet leaders.
