The USA and The World 2023–2024

David M. Keithly is a retired university professor. He has published five books and over 80 articles in journals and magazines, and served as editor of The Defense Intelligence Journal and Civil Wars. He was a Fulbright fellow in Europe twice, a fellow of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, a resident scholar at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Bonn, Germany, and a legislative fellow in the parliament of the German state of Thüringen. He is president of the Fulbright Association’s Southeast Virginia Chapter. He has a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University and an M.A. from the German University of Freiburg. He did additional graduate work at the French University of Rennes. Selected to “Outstanding Young Men of America,” he was also designated a Navy National Reserve Officer of the Year in 1993. In his younger years, he was on the Navy physical fitness team and is now an avid senior athlete. He was named the IMA (Individual Mobilization Augmentee) Officer of the Year at the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2000, and received the annual faculty research award at the Joint Military Intelligence College in 2001. A retired reserve officer, he held field-grade rank in two services.

Introduction

Chapter One: National Interest Priorities

National Security

The Northern Neighbor: Canada

Regional Cooperation in the Western Hemisphere

Europe’s Political and Economic Stability

Russian Stability and Economic Development

The Greater Middle East

Stable Transitions in Africa

Development in South Asia: India and Pakistan

Asia Pacific Peace and Stability

Promoting Democracy

Transnational Threats

The Environmental Dimension

Realism and Democracy

The American World Image

Chapter Two: National Expansion

Enduring Interests

International Commerce

In the Beginning

The New Nation and Its Constitution

First Diplomatic Steps

Restructuring Strict Constructionism

Unleashing the Dogs of War

A Cautionary Tale

Manifest Destiny

Advances in Democracy

America Becomes a Great Power

The Path of Empire

Chapter Three: Ascent to Globalism

Europe’s Lights Go Out

World War I

The Paris Peace Conference, 1919–1920

Isolation and Normalcy: the 1920s

Economic Problems of the Peace 1919–1939

The Dictators Take Over

Neutrality and Appeasement

Into the Abyss

The Arsenal of Democracy

America’s Entry

War in the Pacific

Pandora’s Box of Atomic Weaponry

Wartime Planning for Peace

Uniting for Peace

Old Game, New Rules

The East-West Conflict

Cold War and Iron Curtain

Power and Purpose

Cracks in the Bloc

Nationalism Triumphs

Chapter Four: The Anguish of Power

World Tensions

On the Brink

The Ordeal of Vietnam

The Middle East Conflict

Security in the Nuclear Age

The Second Cold War

Strategic Defense

South of the Border

The Arc of Crisis

Looking East

The World Turned Rightside Up

The Middle East in Peace and War

The Western Hemisphere

Heirs of Pericles: NATO and OSCE

Transnational Turbulence

A Nation Apart?

Cold Dawn

Glossary of International Terms

Chapter Five: Political Ideas and Political System

Deliberative Bodies

Separation of Powers

Checks and Balances

The Changing Constitution

The Federal System

The Legislative Branch

The Executive Branch

The Judicial Branch

The States

Elections in the United States

Revved Up with Somewhere to Go

All Politics is Local

Glossary of Political Terms

Chapter Six: The U.S. Economy

Going Commercial

Fluctuations Before 1860

Called to Account

All the World’s An Exchange

War and Peace, 1914–1919

The Crest of the Wave

Exit Prosperity

Comparative Disadvantage

National Recovery 1934–1941

World War II

The Bretton Woods System

Patterns of International Economic Cooperation

The Yellow Brick Road

The “Soaring Sixties”

Trade with the East Bloc

Shocks to the System

Meddling and Muddling

The Navigator

Go-Go Global

Home to Roost

What is Past is Prologue

Cry Havoc

Reindustrialization

Glossary of Economic Terms

Chapter Seven: A Nation of Nations

Immigration

Freedom and Civil Liberties

The “Melting Pot”

Demography as Destiny

The Future

Web Sites and Bibliography