Di cosa parlano gli Americani quando parlano di sicurezza nazionale? Le ambiguità e i dilemmi dell'internazionalismo

The article illustrates the ambiguities of the American “national security” notion on which the United States’ internationalist foreign policy has been premised; the article also highlights the peculiar security dilemma with which American foreign policy has grappled since the United States shifted from isolationism to internationalism. On the one hand, the United States resolved to abandon the isolationist course and to take part to the international power politics on the basis of the assumption that only an active participation to world politics would have made it possible for the Americans to safeguard their way of life, their institutions at home and their identity. On the other hand, the internationalist elite have never ceased to be afraid that the involvement in the world affairs would end up placing too heavy a burden on the United States and putting in jeopardy – as a consequence – that very way of life and institutions which they aimed at preserving through the policy of overseas intervention and engagement. The article states that the search for an effective way to solve this dilemma has been a major part of the American foreign policy from Wilson to Obama.