By Nelson Denis.
During the 1970s, various academics began to notice certain weaknesses in American foreign policy. This was the time of the American defeat in the Vietnam War, the breakdown of the Bretton Woods System, the first oil crisis, and the end of accelerated post-war economic growth, which ended with what historian Eric Hobsbawm called “The golden years of capitalism.” It was also the time of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, the Islamic revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; considered, at that time, as great geopolitical defeats for the US.