The efficient realist: Technology as a systemic factor in the interwar balance and wartime preparedness of the United States

An ongoing problem in Ink Relations theory is the case of U.S. military behavior in the interwar period, 1919--1941. The Realist prediction that states will rationally and self-interestedly react to shifts in balance of power is challenged by the allegation that the interwar United Mates failed to internally balance in response to the increased threat from the fascist, challenger states, which resulted in military unpreparedness in World War II. In contrast, thus dissertation will prove both the empirical thesis that the United Mates did internally balance throughout the interwar period and therefore was militarily prepared for World War II, and the causal thesis that this observed behavior is explicable by systemic forces alone. This evidence will support Systemic Realism and disproves cultural or domestic economic factors as determinative, independent variables in this case.