In 1968 Henry Kissinger wrote: “A mature conception of our interests in the world … would deal with two fundamental questions: What is it in our interest to prevent? What should we seek to accomplish?” (Kissinger, 1974: 92) Whatever its general relevance, that passage is an apt description of the lens through which American policymakers have contemplated the phenomenon of political change in the Third World. Those are the first questions they tend to ask.

The rationale for this particular concept of foreign policy tasks has its roots (1) in the complexities of an increasingly interdependent world in which world politics have become truly global for the first time in human history, and (2) in the deep antagonisms embedded in the US/Soviet relationship. Because nuclear realities .have placed a cap on the way in which the two superpowers confront and contend with one another, conflict between them tends to get pushed to the periphery and to take place in indirect ways.