From Isolation to Leadership, Revised A Review of American Foreign Policy
Confederation came in , in part as a way to meet the American challenge without depending on British armed forces. The Fenians movement collapsed from its own incompetence.
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Canada could never be defended so the British decided to cut their losses and eliminate the risk of a conflict with the U. The first ministry of William Gladstone withdrew from all its historic military and political responsibilities in North America. It brought home its troops keeping Halifax as an Atlantic naval base , and turned responsibility over to the locals. That made it wise to unify the separate Canadian colonies into a self-governing confederation named the Dominion of Canada. Blaine , a leading Republican and its losing candidate for president in was a highly innovative Secretary of State in the s.
By , Blaine had completely abandoned his high-tariff Protectionism and used his position as Secretary of State to promote freer trade, especially within the Western Hemisphere. Secondly, he believed that by encouraging exports, he could increase American prosperity. President Garfield agreed with his Secretary of State's vision and Blaine called for a Pan-American conference in to mediate disputes among the Latin American nations and to serve as a forum for talks on increasing trade. At the same time, Blaine hoped to negotiate a peace in the War of the Pacific then being fought by Bolivia , Chile , and Peru.
Blaine sought to expand American influence in other areas, calling for renegotiation of the Clayton—Bulwer Treaty to allow the United States to construct a canal through Panama without British involvement, as well as attempting to reduce British involvement in the strategically located Kingdom of Hawaii. By , however, a new Secretary was reversing Blaine's Latin American initiatives. Serving again as Secretary of State under Benjamin Harrison , Blaine worked for closer ties with the Kingdom of Hawaii , and sponsored a program to bring together all the independent nations of the Western Hemisphere in what became the Pan-American Union.
Before senior diplomats from the United States to other countries, and from them to the U. While European powers, and Japan, engaged in a intense scramble for colonial possessions in Africa and Asia, the United States stood aloof. This all changed to , with the result of American ownership of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, and a dominant role temporarily in Cuba. By the early s, the United States had a small army stationed at scattered Western forts, and an old fashioned wooden navy.
By the U. In the business community in Kingdom of Hawaii overthrew the Queen and sought annexation by President Harrison , who forwarded the proposal to the Senate for approval. But the newly elected President Cleveland withdrew the proposed annexation; Hawaii formed an independent Republic of Hawaii. Unexpectedly foreign-policy became a central concern of American politics.
Historian Henry Graff says that at first, "Public opinion at home seemed to indicate acquiescence President Grover Cleveland , on taking office in March , rescinded the annexation proposal. His biographer Alyn Brodsky argues he was deeply adverse to an immoral action against the little kingdom:. Cleveland had to mobilize support from Southern Democrats to fight the treaty. He sent former Georgia Congressman James H. Blount as a special representative to Hawaii to investigate and provide a solution.
Blount was well known for his opposition to imperialism. Blount was also a leader in the white supremacy movement that in the s was ending the right to vote by southern Blacks.. Some observers speculated he would support annexation on grounds of the inability of the Asiatics to govern themselves.
Instead, Blount opposed imperialism, and called for the US military to restore of Queen Liliuokalani. He argued that the Hawaii natives should be allowed to continue their "Asiatic ways. A vigorous nationwide anti-expansionist movement, organized as the American Anti-Imperialist League , emerged that listened to Cleveland and Carl Schurz , as well as Democratic leader William Jennings Bryan , industrialist Andrew Carnegie , author Mark Twain and sociologist William Graham Sumner , and many prominent intellectuals and politicians who came of age in the Civil War.
However, the Antis could not stop the even more energetic forces of imperialism. These expansionist had vigorous support from newspaper publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer , whipping up popular excitement. Mahan and Roosevelt designed a global strategy calling for a competitive modern navy, Pacific bases, an isthmian canal through Nicaragua or Panama, and, above all, an assertive role for America as the largest industrial power. It would quickly be gobbled up by Japan--already a fourth of the islands' population was Japanese. Japan would then dominate the Pacific and undermine American hopes for large-scale trade with Asia.
Hawaii became a territory in with full U.
From Isolation to Leadership, Revised by John Holladay Latané
It became the 50th state in Foreign-policy expertise in America in the s was in limited supply. The State Department had a cadre of diplomats who rotated around, but the most senior positions were political patronage appointments. The holders sometimes acquired a limited expertise, but the overall pool was shallow. At the level of presidential candidate and secretary of state, the entire half-century after showed minimal expertise or interest, with the exception of William Seward in the s, and James G.
Blaine in the s. After , experience deepened in the State Department, and at the very top level, Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Hoover and their secretaries of state comprised a remarkable group with deep knowledge of international affairs. American elections rarely featured serious discussion of foreign-policy, with a few exceptions such as , , and Anytime a crisis erupted, the major newspapers and magazines commented at length on what Washington should do.
The media relied primarily on a small number of foreign-policy experts based in New York City and Boston. Newspapers elsewhere copied their reports and editorials. Sometimes the regional media had a local cadre of experts who could comment on Europe, but they rarely had anyone who knew much about Latin America or Asia. Conceptually, the media experts relied on American traditions — what would Washington or Jefferson or Lincoln have done in this crisis?
Social Darwinist ideas were broad, but they seldom shaped foreign-policy views. The psychic crisis that some historians discover in the s had very little impact. Travel in Europe, a close reading of the British media, with the chief sources for the media experts. In the mid s, American public opinion denounced the Spanish repression of the Cuban independence movement as brutal and unacceptable. Most Democrats and many Republicans demanded war to liberate Cuba.
Almost simultaneously the two countries declared war. Every other country was neutral. In the peace treaty of Paris the U. It marked America's transition from a regional to a global power. Cuba was given independence under American supervision. Democrats, led by William Jennings Bryan , had strongly supported the war but not strongly opposed annexation. Navy emerged as a major naval power thanks to modernization programs begun in the s and adopted the sea power theories of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan.
The Army remained small but was reorganized in the Roosevelt Administration along modern lines and no longer focused on scattered forts in the West. The Philippine—American War was a short operation to suppress insurgents and ensure U. The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine , which proclaimed a right for the United States to intervene to stabilize weak states in the Americas, further weakened European influence in Latin America and further established U.
The outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in ended a half century of peaceful borders and brought escalating tensions, as revolutionaries threatened American business interests and hundreds of thousands of refugees fled north.
President Woodrow Wilson tried using military intervention to stabilize Mexico but that failed. After Mexico in rejected Germany's invitation in the Zimmermann Telegram to join in war against the U. Military interventions did occur in other small countries like Nicaragua, but were ended by the Good Neighbor policy announced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in , which allowed for American recognition of and friendship with dictatorships.
American foreign policy was largely determined by President Woodrow Wilson , who had shown little interest in foreign affairs before entering the White House in His chief advisor was "Colonel" Edward House, who was sent on many top-level missions. With the outbreak of war in , the United States declared neutrality and worked to broker a peace.
It insisted on its neutral rights, which included allowing private corporations and banks to sell or loan money to either side. With the British blockade, there were almost no sales or loans to Germany, only to the Allies. The widely publicized German atrocities in Germany Shocked American public opinion. Neutrality was supported by Irish-Americans, who hated Britain, by German Americans who wanted to remain neutral, and by women and the churches. Wilson insisted on neutrality, denouncing both British and German violations, especially those German violations in which American civilians were killed.
It sank in 20 minutes, killing American civilians and over 1, Britons. It was against the laws of war to sink any passenger ship without allowing the passengers to reach the life boats. American opinion turned strongly against Germany as a bloodthirsty threat to civilization. It also made overtures to Mexico, in the Zimmermann Telegram , hoping to divert American military attention to south of the border. The German decision was not made or approved by the civilian government in Berlin, but by the military commanders and the Kaiser.
From Isolation to Leadership, Revised A Review of American Foreign Policy
They realized it meant war with the United States, but hoped to weaken the British by cutting off its imports, and strike a winning below with German soldiers transferred from the Eastern front, where Russia had surrendered. Following the repeated sinking of American merchant ships in early , Wilson asked and obtained a declaration of war in April He neutralized the antiwar element by arguing this was a war With the main goal of ending aggressive militarism and indeed ending all wars.
During the war the U. After the failure of the German spring offensive, as fresh American troops arrived in France at 10, a day, the Germans were in a hopeless position, and surrendered. Wilsonianism —Wilson's ideals—had become the hope of the world, including the civilian population Germany itself. At the peace conference at Versailles , Wilson tried with mixed success to enact his Fourteen Points.
He was forced to accept British, French and Italian demands for financial revenge: Germany would be made to pay reparations that amounted to the total cost of the war for the Allies and admit guilt in humiliating fashion. It was a humiliating punishment for Germany which subsequent commentators thought was too harsh and unfair.
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Wilson succeeded in obtaining his main goal, a League of Nations that would hopefully resolve all future conflicts before they caused another major war. Wilson refused to compromise with the majority party in Congress, or even bring any leading Republican to the peace conference. His personal enemy, Henry Cabot Lodge, now control the Senate.
Lodge did support the league of Nations, but wanted provisions that would insist that only Congress could declare war on behalf of the United States. Wilson was largely successful in designing the new League of Nations, declaring it would be:. The League did go into operation, but the United States never joined. With a two-thirds vote needed, the Senate did not ratify either the original Treaty or its Republican version.
Washington made separate peace treaties with the different European nations. Nevertheless, Wilson's idealism and call for self-determination of all nations had an effect on nationalism across the globe, while at home his idealistic vision, called "Wilsonianism" of spreading democracy and peace under American auspices had a profound influence on much of American foreign policy ever since.
Perhaps the harshest attack on Wilson's diplomacy comes from Stanford historian Thomas A. In the s, American policy was an active involvement in international affairs, while ignoring the League of Nations, setting up numerous diplomatic ventures, and using the enormous financial power of the United States to dictate major diplomatic questions in Europe.
The Republican presidents, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, avoided any political commitments or alliances with anyone else. They minimize contact with the League of Nations. However, as historian Jerald Combs reports their administrations in no way returned to 19th-century isolationism. The key Republican leaders:. The Washington Naval Conference , was the most successful diplomatic venture the s.
It focused on resolving misunderstandings or conflicts regarding interests in the Pacific Ocean and East Asia. The main achievement was a series of naval disarmament agreements agreed to by all the participants, that lasted for a decade. It resulted in three major treaties: These treaties preserved peace during the s but Were not renewed, as the world scene turned increasingly negative after The Dawes plan was the American solution to the crisis of reparations, in which France was demanding more money than Germany was willing to pay, so France occupied the key industrial Ruhr district of Germany with its army.
The Occupation of the Ruhr in Caused an international crisis; Germany deliberately hyperinflated currency, making the occupation highly expensive for France. The crisis was solved by a compromise brokered by the United States in the form of the Dawes Plan in Dawes , set out a new financial scheme. New York banks loaned Germany hundreds of millions of dollars that it used to pay reparations and rebuild its heavy industry.
France, Britain and the other countries used the reparations in turn to repay wartime loans they received from the United States. With the collapse of the German economy in , reparations were suspended for a year and in during the Lausanne Conference they were suspended indefinitely. Between and , Germany paid less than 21 billion marks in reparations. After West Germany paid the entire remaining balance. Since the turmoil of the Mexican revolution had died down, the Harding administration was prepared to normalize relations with Mexico. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover took the lead in order to promote trade and investments other than in oil and land, which had long dominated bilateral economic ties.
No compensation was provided to the American owners. Small-scale military interventions continued after as the Banana Wars tapered off. The Hoover administration began a goodwill policy and withdrew all military forces. His Secretary of State Cordell Hull endorsed article 8 of the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States; it provides that "no state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another".
In the s, the United States entered the period of deep isolationism, rejecting international conferences, and focusing moment mostly on reciprocal tariff agreements with smaller countries of Latin America. When the Spanish Civil War erupted in , the United States remained neutral and banned arms sales to either side. This was in line with both American neutrality policies, and with a Europe-wide agreement to not sell arms for use in the Spanish war lest it escalate into a world war. Congress endorsed the embargo by a near-unanimous vote. Only armaments were embargoed; American companies could sell oil and supplies to both sides.
Roosevelt quietly favored the left-wing Republican or "Loyalist" government, but intense pressure by American Catholics forced him to maintain a policy of neutrality. The Catholics were outraged by the systematic torture, rape and execution of priests, bishops, and nuns by anarchist elements of the Loyalist coalition. This successful pressure on Roosevelt was one of the handful of foreign policy successes notched by Catholic pressures on the White House in the 20th century. The Soviet Union provided aid to the Loyalist government, and mobilized thousands of volunteers to fight, including several hundred from the United States in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion.
All along the Spanish military forces supported the nationalists, and they steadily pushed the government forces back. By , however, Roosevelt was planning to secretly send American warplanes through France to the desperate Loyalists. His senior diplomats warned that this would worsen the European crisis, so Roosevelt desisted. Adolf Hitler and Franco mutually disliked one another, and Franco repeatedly manipulated Hitler for his own benefit during World War Two. Franco sheltered Jewish refugees escaping through France and never turned over the Spanish Jews to Nazi Germany as requested, and when during the Second World War the Blue Division was dispatched to help the Germans, it was forbidden to fight against the Allies, and was limited only to fighting the Soviet.
Wilson called for neutrality in thought and deed, while Roosevelt made it clear his administration strongly favored Britain and China.
Unlike the loans in World War I, the United States made large-scale grants of military and economic aid to the Allies through Lend-Lease , with little expectation of repayment. Wilson did not greatly expand war production before the declaration of war; Roosevelt did. Wilson waited for the declaration to begin a draft; Roosevelt started one in Louis marked it as to-read Jan 03, Ian marked it as to-read May 16, Ryan marked it as to-read Sep 17, Megan is currently reading it Jan 29, Ryan Koch marked it as to-read Jun 30, Quenterius Tolen marked it as to-read Nov 05, Dima is currently reading it Jul 10, David belt marked it as to-read Sep 27, There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
About John Holladay Latane. Books by John Holladay Latane. Quincy Wright; From isolation to leadership, revised. A review of American foreign policy. By John Holladay Latane. Doubleday Page and company, Most users should sign in with their email address. If you originally registered with a username please use that to sign in. To purchase short term access, please sign in to your Oxford Academic account above. Don't already have an Oxford Academic account? Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.