The purpose of this work is to analyse Argentine foreign policy of alignment with the United States in the 90`s. It is shown that the strategy of Menem`s foreign policy has a clear connection with a line of interpretation of the diplomatic history of the country, based on the assumption that the historic incapacity of Argentina to establish good relations with the United States was a crucial factor in the country`s process of economic and institutional decay. In the theory of peripheral realism, Carlos Escudé departs from this notion to advocate the construction of a special alliance with the United States, in which Argentina should make all the concessions in the political-strategic domain, though preserving the right of confronting the United States whenever its immediate economic interests would be at issue.