ABSTRACT
During the inter-war period US power and influence continued to rise. Clearly there had been a tremendous shift in the balance of power on both sides of the Atlantic. The Central European empires, tsarist, AustroHungarian and German, had collapsed. France and Britain too suffered considerably as a result of the war. Even if they had not been broken, they had to recover from the wartime destruction and, furthermore, they were in debt to the United States. On the other hand, Washington presided over a burgeoning country: the economy was expanding; Americans were the creditors to European debtors; Washington shaped the security arrangements that characterised the next decades; and its ideology was increasingly influential and offered an alternative to European visions. The US national interest still juggled its economic objectives, security concerns and ideological ambitions. During the 1920s economic stability was considered of paramount importance. It was widely believed that unless stability and prosperity ensued, peace would be problematic. US security concerns were addressed through a series of conferences that limited the munitions of the principal powers and, as the Second World War erupted, Washington promoted its ideological objectives through the Atlantic Charter and subsequent declarations.
