ABSTRACT
As Henry Kissinger correctly stated, the major difference between Europe and the United States (US) in terms of the scope and vision of their respective foreign policies is that Washington has traditionally neglected the balance of power as a normative principle for grounding its action in the international arena. By contrast, since the signature of the Treaty of Westphalia at the end of the 17th century, a balance of power amongst the main European nations – understood as that no single nation-state could dominate the European landscape – has remained a major strategic objective in European international affairs (Kissinger 2001). Protected by two huge oceans, and with no major power counterweight north and south of its borders, the US has positioned itself since the early stages of its nationhood to accomplish a so-called ‘manifest destiny’ for protecting and expanding democratic values as a condition for guaranteeing international peace. This American exceptionalism was translated into territorial expansionism at the turn of the 19th century and to periods of either isolationism or unilateralism during the 20th century. Furthermore, since the Monroe Doctrine at the beginning of the 19th century, one strategic tenet of US foreign policy has been to sustain its leadership in the western hemisphere by neutralising the influence of out-of-area powers.
