"In Made by the U.S.A.: The International System, Alex Roberto Hybel explains the 200-year effort by the U.S.A., first to become a global power and, subsequently, to create an international system capable of protecting and advancing its strategic and economic interests. He builds his explanation on the claim that history is framed by tensions generated by contradictory forces, that a state's ability to constructively mold pressures in the world arena is determined extensively by its own domestic political and economic systems' degree of openness and competitiveness, and that leaders anchor their decisions to lessons derived from earlier, crucial events. He demonstrates how the special attributes of the United States' domestic systems repeatedly forced its leaders to revisit past foreign policy errors, and to try to rectify them. He cautions that if the United States hopes to retain its status as the international system's leader for the next two decades, its foreign policy makers cannot indulge in complacency and indecisiveness."--BOOK JACKET.