ABSTRACT
Americans have historically not been comfortable thinking of the world and their place in it entirely in geopolitical terms, in which war and the use of military force play a prominent part in the national existence. In the first 150-plus years of the republic, military affairs-and especially the use of military force-were considered aberrations, unwelcome interruptions to the normalcy of peace. As the United States emerged on the world stage after the American Civil War, it was American economic prowess, not military power, that underlay the country’s status as a world power.
