The United States was born out of the wilderness and the wildness of the frontier spirit. Since the conception of the country, its inhabitants have had to confront many of the world's most powerful states, sometimes in the face of superior power. Thus American foreign policy has been molded into an aggressive form, although not ever having followed a decidedly straight path.

Upon the conclusion of World War II, Spanier describes a nation caught in the balance between old world power politics and an isolationist agenda. The United States may have desired to keep to itself and out of Europe's affairs. However, as the U.S. was drawn into Europe during the early nineteen forties it upset the balance of power there. Germany, previously having been checked primarily by France, and to an extent by England, had its power stripped by the U.S. during the war. Into this vacuum of power the Soviet Union stepped, as did the U.S. However, the apparent interests of both countries were so much in contrast that neither was able to allow the other to assume a particularly greater position of power in Europe. This became the macro- conflict that overshadowed every other ensuing conflict over the next fifty years.

The standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union grew from simple mistrust over the government of Germany to a power struggle that reached near to the ends of the earth. This "cold war" shaped American foreign policy from the nineteen fifties through the nineteen eighties.

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