ABSTRACT
Security concerns are overwhelmingly at the heart of United States (US) intervention, and second place is held by humanitarian and ideological motives. That mix of interests was evident in Vietnam, and it seems also to be present in our involvement in Central America. The American propensity to intervene in other nations' affairs to a great extent arises from our role as a superpower with global responsibilities. As a superpower the US makes excessive use of a global prism and expects others to adopt the same outlook, following the US lead in pursuing common interests and shaping their policies. Within the global preoccupation of the US government are little pockets of thriving regionalism. US failure to reach strategic arms-control agreements with the Soviet Union in the late 1970s greatly undercut the legitimacy of our demands that nonnuclear states adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
