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The US and major European powers have long sought to institute varying kinds of political order across borders. This course will provide a critical examination of such attempts in the 20th and 21st centuries and their legacies for today. The class looks at US and European attempts to compel, institute, or promote “new world orders” as empires waned, Communist regimes assumed power, new forms of European integration emerged, the Cold War unfolded, and technological advances reshaped politics. It will focus on the three times in the 20th century that the US competed in conflicts of European origin and subsequently tried to construct new forms of political order—first in 1918, then again in 1945, and yet again in 1989. Students will compare these episodes in the three parts of the course and evaluate their legacies for the 1990s and the 21st century. The class will set these episodes in their broader context, contrasting them with (1) the actions of Germany and other major European states; and (2) the Communist challenge and the Putinism of the post-Soviet space. It will also assess the impact of global events (such as those in Afghanistan, China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam) and of technological developments on transatlantic relations. Finally, the class will examine the failure on the part of both the US and European states to create actual “world order” and the consequences for transnational challenges today.