Is United States Foreign Policy "Imperialist" or "Imperial"?
For most of the postwar period the dominant scholarly consensus on the United States role in international politics closely paralleled the image that policy makers themselves held: the United States was a defensive, status-quo power seeking to contain the revolutionary or simply imperialist expansionism of Soviet-led communism. The dominant critique of United States foreign policy operated well within this framework of assumptions; one common argument was that the United States had a tendency to overreach itself, to undertake commitments that excessively taxed its military and economic capabilities. The focus was on the limits of American power; critics never tired of quoting Sir Denis Brogan on "the illusions of American omnipotence."