ABSTRACT
Frequently the United States has presented itself as a massive political, economic, and ethical monolith equipped with a formidable concentration of real power and persuasive ability and hence adept at commanding other countries. If the world is the oyster, the shell, the crust, then the United States can only be the pearl, a "City of the Sun," which a Manifest Destiny has consigned to all humankind. Even the current crisis in the bipolar system—more strictly a crisis of performance than of identity—brought on by the steady diffusion of power and the implosion of the Communist world, can be traced back to the very first step, namely, the war itself. The "efficiency" of the international system can be measured by its ability to stabilize the ratio between conflict and cooperation and to handle the communication flows among the different actors, in each of the various regional areas.
