ABSTRACT
The United States needs a consistent policy toward the Third World that protects its short- and long-term interests within an international environment that may be characterized by instability, the fragmentation of traditional coalitions, and rapid and unpredictable change. The key to stability in any system, but especially a system dominated by uncertainty and fears of instability, must lie in expectations of dependability. A great deal of instability in the Third World seems inevitable, but it is very unlikely that this will generate a series of "Cubas", which is to say a series of revolutions that directly threaten US interests and that are sufficiently contagious or exportable to begin to undermine systemic stability. Most radical governments are likely to be forced into moderation by the pressures of dealing with massive internal and external problems and perhaps by the inefficiency of some "radical" solutions, and US interests are not greatly implicated in the majority of Third World countries.
