American Exceptionalism: An Idea that Made a Nation and Remade the World 1135048592, 9781135048594

Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 6
Copyright......Page 7
Dedication......Page 8
Contents......Page 10
Preface......Page 11
Acknowledgments......Page 13
1 How to be an American......Page 16
PART I A distinct nation is born......Page 40
2 Challenging the identity dichotomy......Page 42
3 Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy......Page 71
PART II A mission to lead the world......Page 112
4 Rethinking the “turn-around” theory......Page 114
5 The triumph of Henry Cabot Lodge over Woodrow Wilson......Page 143
6 Hegemony vs. multilateralism......Page 168
PART III Resisting the laws of history......Page 210
7 American exceptionalism reaffirmed......Page 212
8 American exceptionalism today......Page 240
Bibliography......Page 256
Index......Page 275

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American Exceptionalism

How does American exceptionalism shape American foreign policy? Conventional wisdom states that American exceptionalism comes in two varieties – the exemplary version and the missionary version. Being exceptional, experts in U.S. foreign policy argue, means that you either withdraw from the world like an isolated but inspiring “city upon a hill,” or that you are called upon to actively lead the rest of the world to a better future. In her book, Hilde Eliassen Restad challenges this assumption, arguing that U.S. history has displayed a remarkably constant foreign policy tradition, which she labels unilateral internationalism. The United States, Restad argues, has not vacillated between an “exemplary” and a “missionary” identity. Instead, the United States developed an exceptionalist identity that, while idealizing the United States as an exemplary “city upon a hill,” more often than not errs on the side of the missionary crusade in its foreign policy. Utilizing the latest historiography in the study of U.S. foreign relations, the book updates political science scholarship and sheds new light on the role American exceptionalism has played – and continues to play – in shaping America’s role in the world. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of U.S. foreign policy, security studies, and American politics. Hilde Eliassen Restad is Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Bjørknes College in Oslo, Norway. A Fulbright alumna, she has a Ph.D. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, and is frequently used as a commentator on U.S. politics in Norway.

Routledge studies in U.S. foreign policy Edited by Inderjeet Parmar University of Manchester

and John Dumbrell

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University of Durham

This new series sets out to publish high quality works by leading and emerging scholars critically engaging with United States Foreign Policy. The series welcomes a variety of approaches to the subject and draws on scholarship from international relations, security studies, international political economy, foreign policy analysis, and contemporary international history. Subjects covered include the role of administrations and institutions, the media, think tanks, ideologues and intellectuals, elites, transnational corporations, public opinion, and pressure groups in shaping foreign policy; U.S. relations with individual nations, with global regions and global institutions; and America’s evolving strategic and military policies. The series aims to provide a range of books – from individual research monographs and edited collections to textbooks and supplemental reading – for scholars, researchers, policy analysts, and students. United States Foreign Policy and National Identity in the 21st Century Edited by Kenneth Christie New Directions in U.S. Foreign Policy Edited by Inderjeet Parmar, Linda B. Miller and Mark Ledwidge America’s ‘Special Relationships’ Foreign and domestic aspects of the politics of alliance Edited by John Dumbrell and Axel R. Schäfer U.S. Foreign Policy in Context National ideology from the founders to the Bush doctrine Adam Quinn

The United States and NATO since 9/11 The transatlantic alliance renewed Ellen Hallams Soft Power and U.S. Foreign Policy Theoretical, historical and contemporary perspectives Edited by Inderjeet Parmar and Michael Cox The U.S. Public and American Foreign Policy Edited by Andrew Johnstone and Helen Laville American Foreign Policy and Postwar Reconstruction Comparing Japan and Iraq Jeff Bridoux

Neoconservatism and American Foreign Policy A critical analysis Danny Cooper

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U.S. Policy Towards Cuba Since the Cold War Jessica F. Gibbs Constructing U.S. Foreign Policy The curious case of Cuba David Bernell Race and U.S.Foreign Policy The African-­American foreign affairs network Mark Ledwidge Gender Ideologies and Military Labor Markets in the U.S. Saskia Stachowitsch Prevention, Pre-­Emption and the Nuclear Option From Bush to Obama Aiden Warren Corporate Power and Globalization in U.S. Foreign Policy Edited by Ronald W. Cox

US Foreign Policy and the Rogue State Doctrine Alex Miles U.S. Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion From Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama Edited by Michael Cox, Timothy J. Lynch and Nicolas Bouchet Local Interests and American Foreign Policy Why international interventions fail Karl Sandstrom The Obama Administration’s Nuclear Weapon Strategy The promises of Prague Aiden James Warren Obama’s Foreign Policy Ending the War on Terror Michelle Bentley and Jack Holland United States–Africa Security Relations Terrorism, regional security and national interests Edited by Kelechi A. Kalu and George Klay Kieh, Jr.

West Africa and the U.S. War on Terror Edited by George Klay Kieh and Kelechi Kalu

Obama and the World New directions in US foreign policy Second edition Edited by Inderjeet Parmar, Linda B. Miller and Mark Ledwidge

Constructing America’s Freedom Agenda for the Middle East Oz Hassan

The United States, Iraq and the Kurds Mohammed Shareef

The Origins of the War on Terror Lebanon, Libya and American intervention in the Middle East Mattia Toaldo

Weapons of Mass Destruction and U.S. Foreign Policy The strategic use of a concept Michelle Bentley

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American Images of China Identity, power, policy Oliver Turner

Presidential Rhetoric Constructing crises, fast and slow Wesley Widmaier

North Korea–U.S. Relations under Kim Jong II Ramon Pacheco Pardo

American Exceptionalism An idea that made a nation and remade the world Hilde Eliassen Restad

Congressional Policymaking in the Post-­Cold War Era Sino-­U.S. relations Joseph Gagliano U.S. Foreign Policy and China Bush’s first term Guy Roberts

The President, the State and the Cold War Comparing the foreign policies of Truman and Reagan James Bilsland

American Exceptionalism

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An idea that made a nation and remade the world

Hilde Eliassen Restad

First published 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

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© 2015 Hilde Eliassen Restad The right of Hilde Eliassen Restad to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Restad, Hilde. American exceptionalism: an idea that made a nation and remade the world / Hilde Restad. pages cm. – (Routledge studies in US foreign policy) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Exceptionalism–United States. 2. National characteristics, American. 3. United States–Exceptionalism. 4. United States–Foreign relations– 20th century. 5. United States–Foreign relations–21st century. I. Title. E169.1.R475 2014 973–dc23 2014024840 ISBN: 978-0-415-81751-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-48543-9 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

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To my mother Mette, my father Jan, and my brother Jon-­Magnus.

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Contents



Preface Acknowledgments

1 How to be an American PART I

x xii 1

A distinct nation is born

25

2 Challenging the identity dichotomy

27

3 Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy

56

PART II

A mission to lead the world

97

4 Rethinking the “turn-around” theory

99

5 The triumph of Henry Cabot Lodge over Woodrow Wilson

128

6 Hegemony vs. multilateralism

153

PART III

Resisting the laws of history

195

7 American exceptionalism reaffirmed

197

8 American exceptionalism today

225



Bibliography Index

241 260

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Preface

This book is the result of work that my dear adviser at the University of Virginia, Michael J. Smith, would refer to as a “big think” project. I do not think he meant by this that my thoughts were particularly grandiose or my ideas particularly impressive. Instead, he meant to say that it was different from the majority of political science work, where the questions and puzzles become ever narrower, and the willingness to communicate across disciplinary boundaries more rare. In spite of the disciplinary trend, this book asks a rather big question, addressed to historians as well as political scientists: How has American exceptionalism influenced U.S. foreign policy traditions? As a foreigner studying in the United States, it was rather obvious to me that American exceptionalism was a real and significant phenomenon. Americans are very proud of their country, and they have a particular understanding of how their country should act on the world stage. Of course, this is true of many countries. The ability to compare countries is important, because it is through others we learn about ourselves. American identity can really only be understood in its international context, especially the one it grew out of – the European great power system of the eighteenth century. Americans believe their country to be unique, but, in a sense, every country is unique. By using the phrase “exceptional,” however, Americans seem to mean that their country is more unique than others. This opens the door to a dangerous nationalism while closing the door on cultural understanding and comparative – and perhaps humbling – perspectives. Indeed, while Alexis de Tocqueville greatly admired the United States, he noticed something he did not like about these newly minted Americans. “In their relations with foreigners,” he wrote, All free nations are vainglorious, but national pride is not displayed by all in the same manner. The Americans, in their intercourse with strangers, appear impatient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise. The most slender eulogy is acceptable to them, the most exalted seldom contents them; they unceasingly harass you to extort praise, and if you resist their entreaties, they fall to praising themselves. It would seem as if, doubting their own merit, they wished to have it constantly exhibited before their eyes. Their vanity is not only greedy, but restless and jealous; it will grant nothing,

Preface   xi

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while it demands everything, but is ready to beg and to quarrel at the same time.1 Yet Tocqueville is well known as the first author to use the term “exceptional” about the United States. Lord Bryce noted that perhaps this was because Tocqueville was French, and was doing that French thing whereby all things non-­ French are somehow “exceptional” and in need of explaining. In no way do I pretend to be an heir to Tocqueville or Lord Bryce. Their interest in, admiration for, and criticism of the United States is, however, a carefully calibrated approach to the study of the United States that I hope I have emulated.

Note 1 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835). Volume II, Part III, Chapter XVI: “Why the national vanity of the Americans is more restless and captious than that of the English.” Access at: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/detoc/ch3_16.htm.

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Acknowledgments

This book has grown out of my dissertation. The question I asked in my dissertation, and in this book, is: How has the powerful, persistent and popular idea of American exceptionalism affected U.S. foreign policy? My heartfelt thanks go to my dissertation committee at the University of Virginia, who encouraged me to ask this question just the way I wanted to: Michael J. Smith, Melvyn P. Leffler, John M. Owen, and Allen P. Lynch. Michael and Melvyn also deserve gratitude for their vigilance in language, teaching me more about how to write English correctly than my previous years combined. I also wish to thank the outstanding faculty at the UVa Department of Politics – Jeffrey Legro, Sidney Milkis, Dale Copeland, Herman Schwartz, and James Ceaser – for their invaluable classes and conversations. I hope this book makes you proud. While at UVa, I was fortunate enough to make friends that I am grateful for every day. Emily Charnock, Kyle Lascurettes, Molly Scudder, Kate Sanger, and Brandon Yoder (among many wonderful co-­grads) continue to cheer me – and this book project – on. Thank you for making graduate school so unforgettably fun. While at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI), I received advice and comments on chapter drafts from helpful colleagues, including Morten Skumsrud Andersen, Benjamin de Carvalho, Nina Græger, Kristin Haugevik, Halvard Leira, Iver Neumann, and Walter Carlsnaes, as well as assistance from the excellent librarian Tore Gustavsson. I was also able to publish a working paper on the war on terror, presidential powers, and human rights, some parts of which are to be found in the penultimate chapter. While there I also published parts of my dissertation in truncated form, as part of the Defence and Security Studies series published by the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies. I am grateful to their editor, Anna Therese Klingstedt, for her assistance. Finally, I published an article in American Political Thought on old and new paradigms in the study of American exceptionalism and U.S. foreign policy, and thank the anonymous reviewers as well as editor Michael Zuckert for their assistance. Parts of these publications are to be found in re-­worked form throughout the book. I wish to thank my current employer, Bjørknes University College, for giving me the flexibility needed to finally finish the book manuscript. My wonderful

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Acknowledgments   xiii colleagues Torstein Dale-­Åkerlund, Tomas Røen, Chris White, Øystein Nedrebø, and Cecilie Stubberud Næss have not only been very understanding about my writing days away from the office, they also make me look forward to coming to work every day. I also wish to thank the students at Bjørknes for being so dedicated to our Peace and Conflict Studies program. I especially thank Haakon Aasness Sørvald for help with my bibliography. Finally, I wish to thank my wicked smart husband, Nadim Khoury. This book took a lot longer to write because Nadim decided to become my unofficial editor and boss me around for a year. The book is so much better for it, as I am a better person for having Nadim as my husband. Although I really look forward to being the boss again. All these inspiring, encouraging, interesting people are a part of this book. Any and all mistakes are mine only.

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1 How to be an American

It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies, but to be one. (Richard Hofstadter)1

Prelude In 2007, Barack H. Obama announced that he was running for president. His announcement set off a rather unusual series of events in the history of U.S. presidential elections. At first, Obama was accused of not being born in the United States.2 Next, Obama was accused, in various and often not too subtle ways, of being anti-­American. During television appearances on Fox News and NBC in June 2008, political commentator Dick Morris argued that “[T]he question that plagues Obama is . . . Is he pro-­American?” and stated that “[T]his whole debate about what kind of president [Sen. Barack] Obama would make has swirled around almost an existential level. Is he sort of a Manchurian candidate? A sleeper agent? Or is he the great hope of the future?”3 Democratic pollster Mark Penn advised Hillary Clinton to target Obama’s “lack of American roots” in the primary by “explicitly own[ing] ‘American’ ” in her campaign.4 After Obama’s election to the White House, a third and subtler way of arguing that the president was not truly American emerged. Specifically, President Obama was accused of not believing in “American exceptionalism.” In an influential cover story for the National Review Online, Richard Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru wrote: It is madness to consider President Obama a foreigner. But it is blindness to ignore that American exceptionalism has homegrown enemies – people who misunderstand the sources of American greatness or think them outdated. If they succeed, we will be less free, less innovative, less rich, less self-­ governing, and less secure. We will be less.5 President Obama’s answer to a question of whether he believed in American exceptionalism at a G20 press conference in Strasbourg in 2009 seemed to give credence to this suspicion. Obama responded by saying that he did believe in

2   How to be an American

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American exceptionalism, but then added another sentence that seemed to qualify its very nature: “just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”6 His reported answer set off a hectic debate in the American media,7 most of which ignored the rest of Obama’s answer. Obama, in the tradition of all U.S. presidents, of course went on to say that he was enormously proud of his country “and its role and history in the world.” In fact, he said: If you think about the site of this summit [Strasbourg] and what it means, I don’t think America should be embarrassed to see evidence of the sacrifices of our troops, the enormous amount of resources that were put into Europe postwar, and our leadership in crafting an alliance that ultimately led to the unification of Europe. We should take great pride in that. . . . And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality that, though imperfect, are exceptional.8 But the suspicion that the United States would be “less” under a president who ostensibly did not believe in American exceptionalism had taken root. Further evidence of this, Obama’s critics thought, was to be found in the president’s handling of the Arab Spring from December 2010 onward. Aiming to lighten the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East after the Bush administration’s controversial “war on terror,” the Obama administration’s initial approach to the Arab awakening was perceived as somewhat hesitant. From the administration’s perspective, being involved in two wars in the Middle East while also being widely distrusted throughout the region necessitated a cautious strategy. This “wait-­and-see” approach in the spring of 2011 amounted to the “unpatriotic acceptance of fading national glory,” as The New Yorker argued that critics were thinking.9 In the specific case of a possible, and controversial, intervention in Libya, the strategy was labeled “leading from behind” by a White House official.10 Republican presidential hopeful at the time Mitt Romney latched onto the phrase, declaring: “God did not create this country to be a nation of followers. America must lead the world, or someone else will.”11

The argument This book is about the connection between American exceptionalism and U.S. foreign policy, but aims to challenge the conventional manner in which the two have been coupled. Most writers on U.S. foreign policy agree that domestic ideas about what kind of country the United States is affect its foreign policy.12 Whether in the study of U.S. commitment to multilateralism,13 post-­cold war policy,14 or the historic U.S. foreign policy traditions,15 scholars write extensively about the importance of an American identity for its foreign policy. In this book, I argue first, that American exceptionalism is a meaningful and helpful way of defining the elusive category of American identity. This

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How to be an American   3 means, as we shall see, treating it not as objective truth, but as subjective self-­ understanding. Second, I argue that the belief in exceptionalism has had a deep and lasting effect on how the United States relates to the world. Specifically, American exceptionalism has contributed to a more constant foreign policy tradition than commonly argued. I call this tradition unilateral internationalism, meaning that the United States has always been internationalist (engaging with the world politically, economically, and militarily) but has preferred to conduct its foreign policy in a unilateral, rather than multilateral, manner. As we saw from the reactions to President Obama’s multilateral strategy in Libya in 2011, engaging in substantive multilateralism is in fact seen as being “un-­American.” The United States does not play by any other rules than its own, and will certainly not be seen as being led by others. My argument differs from conventional literature, which argues either that the United States historically has vacillated between cycles of intervention and isolation, or that the early period of U.S. foreign policy was isolationist or at least non-­interventionist, but that the United States became – with the harrowing experience of World War II – a committed multilateral internationalist. I will refute both the cyclical and the periodic theses of U.S. foreign policy. In short, I will argue first, that the belief in the idea of American exceptionalism is a useful definition of American identity, and second that it has contributed to a more constant unilateral internationalist foreign policy than most other scholars recognize.

A definition to start with What is American exceptionalism? Definitions abound, often because authors confuse the objective and subjective definitions of it. Looking at American exceptionalism as a national identity, I argue that it is made up of three important ideas. Each idea represents a different aspect of the perceived historic significance of the United States and inspires a certain kind of foreign policy, all of which are internationalist in orientation. First is the idea that the United States is distinct from the Old World; second, that it has a special and unique role to play in world history; and third, that the United States will resist the laws of history (meaning that it will rise to great power status yet it will not fall, as all previous republics have).16 These three aspects have important consequences for how the United States relates to the rest of the world. Let us briefly examine them. I  The distinction The significance of seeing “America” as “distinct” is not that it denotes the United States as different from the rest of the world; it is that it invokes a normative hierarchy of nations on which the United States sits atop. In other words, American exceptionalism entails viewing the United States as better than all

4   How to be an American

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other nations. This is different from patriotism.17 “Our country has always been exceptional,” writes the National Review Online: It is freer, more individualistic, more democratic, and more open and dynamic than any other nation on earth. These qualities are the bequest of our Founding and of our cultural heritage. They have always marked America as special, with a unique role and mission in the world: as a model of ordered liberty and self-­government and as an exemplar of freedom and a vindicator of it, through persuasion when possible and force of arms when absolutely necessary.18 If one does not believe that American exceptionalism means better rather than different, one’s Americanness is open to questioning. This is the significance of the criticism Obama encountered after his answer to the question posed to him in France in 2009. Obama’s answer seemed to convey an understanding of American exceptionalism as a subjective idea, not as an objective fact. Contrasting a belief in American exceptionalism with self-­understandings found in other nations such as Britain and Greece, meant the negation of the – seemingly – objective nature of American exceptionalism. The identity-­affirming power of seeing the United States as better rather than different is something that can be traced back throughout American history. In an editorial in the United States Journal on October 18, 1845, one finds this optimistic assessment: “we, the American people, are the most independent, intelligent, moral and happy people on the face of the earth.” In 1935, surveying the power of American nationalism in the nineteenth century, historian Albert K. Weinberg wrote that the “philosophy of American nationalism developed a belief incongruous with the equalitarianism of democracy – the belief that, however equal men might be at birth, Americans had become subsequently a super-­people.”19 Weinberg was studying “manifest destiny,” an idea that provided the ideational fuel for the vast continental empire that the United States claimed for itself from 1787 to 1867. Manifest destiny, in fact, constituted the nineteenth century version of seventeenth and eighteenth century American exceptionalism, as the next chapter chronicles.20 The debate over manifest destiny and continental expansion seen in the 1830s would also foreshadow later debates and rhetoric on why the United States must first obtain a commercial empire on the sea, and later, world power status. Initially, the distinction of “America” was its relative superiority to Europe. The animating idea of the first part of the definition of American exceptionalism is that the New World superseded the Old. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson had thought that there was, in effect, a different code of natural law governing the two worlds, Old and New: I strongly suspect that our geographical peculiarities may call for a different code of natural law to govern relations with other nations from that which the conditions of Europe have given rise to there.21

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How to be an American   5 American exceptionalism entails believing that the founding of the United States inaugurated a new era in world history, where a completely new and different political entity entered the world stage. This belief in U.S. distinction is powerful, persistent, and pervasive and as alive today as it was in early U.S. history. Polling shows that Americans display the highest degree of national pride among Western democracies. Researchers at the University of Chicago reported that before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 90 percent of the Americans surveyed agreed with the statement, “I would rather be a citizen of America than of any other country in the world.”22 The World Values Survey of 2001 reported more than 70 percent of those surveyed declaring themselves “very proud” to be Americans. (The European numbers are routinely lower.23) As for the universal applicability of these values, according to the Pew Global Attitudes survey, 79 percent of the Americans polled agreed: “It’s good that American ideas and customs are spreading around the world.”24 Not surprisingly, such feelings did not subside in the years after 9/11, and in 2006 the study “National Pride in Comparative Perspective” found that Americans, along with Venezuelans, topped the international statistic.25 In 2010, Gallup reported that a huge majority of Americans (80 percent) agreed with the statement “the United States has a unique character because of its history and Constitution that sets it apart from other nations as the greatest in the world.”26 The fact that such a question was even asked by a polling bureau speaks volumes about the pervasive belief in American exceptionalism. II  The mission American exceptionalism – it is believed by most Americans – endows the United States with a unique role to play in world history. The United States in effect has been cast in a very special role in the play of world history. In the words of President George W. Bush: From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-­government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation.27 As we shall see throughout this book, this is a sense of mission that has been fairly constant in the American national narrative, and that has helped frame presidential discourse on foreign policy projects from the Revolution in 1776 to President Obama’s case for military intervention in Syria in 2013.28 The special role of the United States is often especially prominent in presidential rhetoric. Here, it is always the United States that is used as the model for the world, rather than the other way around. In fact, in a quantitative study of presidential State of the Union speeches from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush

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(between 1934 and 2008), Rico Neumann and Kevin Coe found only three instances of U.S. presidents holding up foreign countries as exemplars for the United States.29 Of 2,480 mentions of other nations, only Britain’s persistence in the fight against Nazi Germany (FDR, 1942); Sweden’s health care system (John F. Kennedy, 1963); and Japan’s educational system (Ronald Reagan, 1983) were worthy of mention as examples for the United States to follow. In other words, the foreign policy consequence of the second aspect of American exceptionalism is that the Unites States leads, while others follow. III  The resistance With each turn of events in U.S. history, the third aspect of American exceptionalism has seemingly been vindicated. The idea that the United States shall resist history’s laws – and be the only nation in history to do so – is a powerful one. Whereas nations, empires and countries that have risen to power inevitably fall, succumbing to what Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico referred to as a cyclical law of corsi i ricorsi, the United States will not. The proof of this is in the superior American pudding. First, the United States won over the most powerful empire of its time (Great Britain); then, it successfully conquered a continent (vanquishing native populations as well as thwarting European imperial designs); furthermore it extended across the oceans – showing yet another powerful empire (Spain) the door out of the western hemisphere; and finally won two world wars over various incarnations of Germany that allowed it to establish an international order over which it ruled.30 With the end of the cold war, American exceptionalism was vindicated seemingly for all eternity: The United States had proven itself to be that special nation that shall lead all other nations toward the “end of history.”31 With September 11, 2001, history was suddenly back, but the United States did not shirk from battle. The “war on terror” was cast by President Bush as a civilizational battle where the United States, as the leader of western civilization, simplistically represented the “Good” and radical Islam the “Bad.”32 As historian Ian Tyrrell writes, “The idea of the United States as a unique and indeed superior civilization outside the normal historically determined path of human history, lies at the heart of American exceptionalism.”33 This is why President Bush, when explaining why the United States was attacked, did not point to U.S. foreign policy but rather, to the innate goodness of America.34 This belief in America’s eternal rise to power as an exceptional nation was established prior to the impressive increase in American power and influence in international politics exhibited in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This strongly suggests that an exceptionalist vision was not promoted as a cynical rationale for gaining territory and influence at this later time (although I do not deny there exists a complex interrelationship between rhetoric and action). We shall see abundant evidence of this when surveying the discourse surrounding the Founding and nineteenth century continental expansion in the next two chapters.

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Challenging the conventional wisdom: American exceptionalism and U.S. Foreign Policy How has this popular belief in American exceptionalism and U.S. foreign policy been connected in the literature, and how does my argument challenge this conventional depiction? The conventional understanding of how American exceptionalism has influenced the American identity – and, with it, American foreign policy – employs two main dichotomies. The conventional understanding of how American exceptionalism influences foreign policy links an exemplary identity with a so-­called isolationist or aloof foreign policy, and a missionary identity with an internationalist or interventionist foreign policy. Let us break this down, as there are several moving parts and questionable concepts employed here. Historians and political scientists usually depict the American identity as: 1 2

Exemplary (citing John Winthrop’s “city upon a hill” speech), or Missionary (citing Woodrow Wilson’s quest to make the world “safe for democracy”).

The exemplarist identity is familiar to many, casting the United States as a haven for the deserving, a new beginning for the persecuted of the Old World. It portrays the New World as morally, physically, and psychologically superior to the Old World, a status that can only be maintained by isolating the New World from the Old. The idea of an exemplary New World is of one that will shine its example throughout the Old World but not engage directly with it. The missionary identity, on the other hand, casts the United States in the role of a hands-­on missionary, actively promoting its values of democracy and capitalism around the world. These two sides of American exceptionalism are then connected to the two most common foreign policy traditions: 1 2

Isolationism (or more recently: separate/aloof ), or Internationalism (or more recently: interventionism).

If we think of the two faces of American exceptionalism – exemplary and missionary – as the heads of coins, we can imagine the tails of the coins being their respective foreign policy traditions. Isolationism is the tail of the exemplary coin. It was the foreign policy purportedly espoused by the Founding Fathers and meant that the United States was reluctant to involve itself in the outside world, content instead to nurture its own superior political experiment, and satisfied to serve as an example for the world to emulate. It was, in other words, how the exemplary identity was expressed in foreign policy. Internationalism, on the other hand, meant an active involvement in world affairs, acting out the world historic mission given to the United States. In other words, it is the tail of the missionary coin – how the missionary identity was

8   How to be an American expressed in foreign policy. An internationalist foreign policy is commonly said to have “won” over isolationism after the so-­called “turn-­around” in U.S. grand strategy from isolationism to multilateralism with the events of World War II.35 If we try to summarize this literature in a chart, it would look something like this:

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Conventional literature National Identity Exemplary Missionary

→ → →

Foreign Policy Isolationism/separate/aloof Internationalism/multilateralism

Periodization Some authors, such as Stanley Hoffman and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., have portrayed the relationship between the two descriptors as cyclical, meaning that American foreign policy has swung like a pendulum between isolationism and internationalism in accordance with whether exemplary or missionary exceptionalism has been the dominant identity. It is common for proponents of a cyclical theory of U.S. foreign policy to label the initial period as exemplary–isolationist; indeed some even stretch the isolationist period up till the Spanish–American War of 1898 or the two world wars. In general, one could say that the cyclical relationship is divided into the following periods: Exemplary–Isolationist America 1776–1898; Missionary–Internationalist America 1898–1919; Exemplary–Isolationist America 1919–1941; Missionary–Internationalist America 1941–1968; etc. (Authors may disagree on the exact periodization.) On the other hand, authors such as Albert Weinberg and Walter McDougall see two distinct periods in American foreign policy history (the United States first saw itself as an exemplary nation, and therefore pursued an isolationist/separate foreign policy, then it came to see itself as a missionary nation, therefore it subsequently pursued an internationalist foreign policy).36 The periodic classification is simpler (deceptively so, as there are problems with this periodization): Exemplary–Isolationist America 1776–1898 and Missionary–Internationalist America 1898–today. Unfortunately, this conventional way of connecting American identity to U.S. foreign policy engenders more questions than answers, and is, I argue, not only unhelpful but also incorrect. The exemplary/missionary identity and the isolationist/internationalist foreign policy depictions share a powerful underlying assumption: American exceptionalism. Since one thing (by itself ) can hardly explain four different outcomes – the two identities and their two concomitant foreign policy traditions utilized in conventional scholarship – the aim of this book is to reevaluate how American exceptionalism has influenced foreign policy. The exemplary–isolationist and the missionary–internationalist descriptors in fact fail in both the cyclical and the periodic versions. If viewing the relationship

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How to be an American   9 between American identity and foreign policy as cyclical, how does one decide on the cycles’ time periods? For instance, classic works such as those by Dexter Perkins and Frank Klingberg did not agree on how to classify specific periods: Perkins saw the period 1907–1915 as a period of “relatively peaceful feeling,” whereas Klingberg saw it as a very active phase, continued on from the turn of the century. Jean-­Baptiste Duroselle characterized it as the epoch of American imperialism.37 Furthermore, why is the United States generally not identified as “internationalist” or “missionary” until after Pearl Harbor, when it is acknowledged to be “interventionist” by 1898 or even earlier? Indeed, how should the era of manifest destiny and continental expansion during the nineteenth century be classified? A country can hardly be expansionist (or even imperialist) as well as isolationist, as historians of U.S. foreign relations started pointing out in the mid-­twentieth century.38 As we shall see in the third chapter, the two dichotomies as presented in the classic literature have some ultimately unsolvable tensions, which more recent literature in the field of history has attempted to address. According to the Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, the current consensus in the field is that the exemplary strand of exceptionalism dominated the early years of U.S. foreign policy, whereas the missionary strand of exceptionalism conclusively won out in the foreign policy debate only after the attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.39 This new consensus, I argue, brings up yet more unresolvable issues. In political science, there is a tendency to categorize pre-­1898 continental expansion and hemispheric dominance as domestic politics (and therefore proof of an exemplary identity and isolationism) rather than acts of foreign policy.40 But for historians of U.S. foreign relations, the tendency to pit westward expansion as purely domestic is no longer predominant. Unfortunately, the conventional depictions are still widely used in political science literature and the effects of this now outdated historical literature has permeated American society to such a degree that “everybody” knows the United States was once isolationist. Except it was no such thing. By critically reviewing the literature surrounding each of the two conventional connections made between identity and foreign policy (exemplary → isolationist; and missionary → internationalist), which will be done in chapters 2 and 3, it becomes evident that the conventional wisdom is no longer conventional in the field of history and should therefore no longer be considered particularly wise in that of political science.

My argument My argument, in contrast, is that American exceptionalism makes up a strong national identity that has, in turn, inspired more of a constant international – but unilateral – approach to world affairs than is commonly recognized. In other words, I reject the dichotomous view of American identity and foreign policy (in both its cyclical and periodic versions).

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10   How to be an American Arguing that American exceptionalism is the ideational force behind a more or less constant unilateral internationalism on the part of the United States since the Founding entails challenging some entrenched views in the field of U.S. foreign policy. Building on more recent scholarship in the history of U.S. foreign relations, I argue for the permanent dismissal of the term “isolationism,” as this was not a true U.S. foreign policy tradition in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, despite what many political scientists still argue.41 Then, taking the logical next step, the book takes issue with the “cycles” school of U.S. foreign policy, dismissing the view that the United States has vacillated between periods of isolationism (or replacement terms such as aloofness, separateness, or non-­ interventionism) and internationalism, based on whether or not it has seen itself as exemplary or missionary. Rather, I argue that the way in which American exceptionalism has influenced American foreign policy is to inspire unilateral internationalism. Breaking my argument down into two propositions, I argue that: 1 2

American identity does not have two opposite sides: American exceptionalism is a more helpful concept than “exemplary” and “missionary.” U.S. foreign policy has not consisted of two opposite traditions: Unilateral internationalism is a better description than are “isolationist” and “internationalist.”

To simplify enormously, we can chart my argument in the following manner: American exceptionalism → (national identity)

Unilateral internationalism (Foreign policy)

My argument challenges the conventional view in three important ways. First, I challenge the vast array of terms commonly used to describe American identity, such as “exemplar,” and “missionary” (and even manifest destiny). Rather, I argue that American exceptionalism successfully subsumes all these terms and should be used instead. Second, I challenge the idea of a cyclical or periodic view of U.S. foreign policy. Rather, I argue that U.S. foreign policy has always been internationalist. The real challenge is to correctly describe what kind of internationalist strategy it has pursued – unilateral or multilateral? I argue that unilateral internationalism is a better description than isolationism for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and that hegemony – enabling unilateral internationalism atop a multilateral framework – best describes the twentieth century. Isolationism as a foreign policy strategy in fact never really existed, as historians of U.S. foreign relations now argue but political scientists have been a bit slower to pick up on.42 By “unilateral internationalism,” then, I mean that the United States has maintained as much maneuverability as possible while engaging other countries, either through

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How to be an American   11 lax formal obligations or overwhelming control of the decision-­making bodies governing the rules of the interaction. The key aspect of unilateral internationalism is that the United States has always sought to safeguard its sovereignty in all aspects of international politics, as the chapters on World War I, the interwar period, and World War II will show. U.S. presidents never saw a world government or substantive multilateralism as a real option for the “best last hope of earth” as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently described his nation.43 This means that the exemplarist identity – which was supposed to be the inspiration behind this isolationist foreign policy tradition – becomes largely irrelevant for our purposes. While there have existed groups in American society that throughout U.S. history have argued for less international involvement by the United States, they have consistently lost the policy argument. Finally, I challenge the very entrenched “turn-­around” thesis of U.S. foreign policy. I challenge the common assumption that the United States underwent a personality change from unilateral to multilateral internationalist with World War II. I argue that the historic tradition of unilateral internationalism did not disappear with World War II. In fact, U.S. foreign policy did not undergo as fundamental a “turn around” with World War II as the conventional depiction would have it.44 I aim to show that the “turn-­around” thesis of U.S. foreign policy actually hinges on assumptions about the historical traditions of U.S. foreign policy that are outdated and incorrect. Chapter four will investigate these assumptions, and chapters five and six will conduct case studies of the two world war periods. This book aims to be a contribution to the literature on American exceptionalism and U.S. foreign policy. I shall argue that American exceptionalism illuminates important areas of American foreign policy by bringing conceptual clarity to the existing literature and helping to solve some persistent “puzzles” of American foreign policy, such as what happened between 1919 and 1945. I argue that the manner in which American exceptionalism is currently used to explain U.S. foreign policy is unsatisfactory. By the end of this book, I hope to have convinced the reader that the two foreign policy traditions (“isolationism” and “internationalism”) are outdated and unhelpful when trying to understand the development of U.S. foreign policy since the inception of the Republic. In addition, I hope to have contributed to the analytical thinking on how American exceptionalism can be usefully employed in academic literature. Those scholars who employ the conventional depiction of American identity as either exemplary or missionary have ignored the complex nature of American exceptionalism, in which the vision of a city upon a hill was idealized, but never realized into an identifiable strand that took turns with the other strand in one-­sidedly or cyclically informing U.S. foreign policy.

National identity In order to critique the manner in which American identity has been used in literature on U.S. foreign policy, however, I must examine the notion of identity

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12   How to be an American itself. I argue that the concept “national identity” is useful for our purposes – an argument traditionally considered quite controversial in political science. Indeed, writing on national identity is challenging. The term itself invokes much debate,45 and justly so – it is a contested and sometimes messy concept.46 According to Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, identity can be understood either in a “strong” or a “weak” sense: “Strong notions of collective identity imply strong notions of group boundedness and homogeneity. They imply high degrees of groupness, an ‘identity’ or sameness among group members, a sharp distinctiveness from nonmembers, a clear boundary between inside and outside.”47 Such an understanding of collective identity, however, is easily subjected to criticisms of an essentialist understanding of identity, and the authors thus reject it. Rejecting essentialism, however, leaves us with a weak notion of identity, a term so “infinitely elastic as to be incapable of performing serious analytical work,” they write. In other words, they reject the usefulness of identity as an analytical category altogether. This presents a problem to those who write on U.S. foreign policy. In this literature, the notion of identity is ubiquitous. Whether referencing a national myth, a national narrative, or a collective sense of self, scholars of U.S. foreign policy base their analyses on the assumption that there exists a powerful national agreement of what role the United States is supposed to play in world history because of what kind of nation the United States is.48 Henry Nau writes in his book on identity and power in U.S. foreign policy that “national identity organizes and motivates national economic and military power and tells us for what political purposes nations legitimate and use their wealth and power.”49 In an illuminating study of U.S. foreign policy after 9/11, Karl Schonberg argues one can only understand why the United States undertook the policies it did by understanding the “socio-­cognitive structure . . . in which national identity and ideology are critical variables in determinations of friend and foe, opportunity and threat.”50 In fact, studying the nature of American identity has a long pedigree,51 which is fitting insofar as the entire course of American history “coincides with the rise of modern nationalism.”52 The study of the rise of the United States to great power status is in a sense a study in the development of its national identity. In other words, scholars of U.S. foreign policy agree that one can reasonably talk about – and indeed should account for – an American “national identity” when seeking to understand U.S. foreign policy. We have agreement that a phenomenon akin to an identity is key to understanding U.S. foreign policy, yet we do not necessarily have agreed tools to study it. Jeffrey Legro argues that explanations that incorporate notions of exceptionalism offer much insight, but are ultimately unsatisfying because they fail to offer a theory of change or at least explain variations over time. My argument is that so far, U.S. foreign policy has been characterized more by continuities than by change, and, as such, it is this continuity that warrants explanation.53 National identity, quite simply, is viewed as a slippery subject in political science. This is partly because national identity should not be viewed as a constant but as a variable. How citizens view their nation, and indeed who counts as the

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How to be an American   13 citizens that get to do the viewing and interpreting, often changes through time.54 Nonetheless, there are unquestionable analytical benefits to taking identity seriously in a study on foreign policy. The first of these is that it helps us understand preferences and the way interests are defined. Constructivist theory in political science became attractive throughout the 1990s and 2000s precisely because it challenged the traditional focus on structural and material limitations on states emphasized by the two previously dominant theories of International Relations, neorealism and neoliberalism. It did so by bringing social factors such as identity into the analysis.55 This has allowed social scientists to “open the black box” of neorealist states and enquire as to the role of worldviews, beliefs, norms, and identity in the making of a state’s policies, preferences, and interests.56 For constructivist theorists, it seems obvious that the kind of nation the United States perceives itself to be, who are labeled friends and enemies, and what policies are perceived as possible and desirable in the international environment are not determined by material factors so much as by the ideational framework through which American citizens and leaders view the world.57 In other words, constructivist frameworks emphasize the ideational factors behind foreign policy, dismissing states as mere self-­interested competitors for power. After all, what does it mean to be “self-­interested”? Must we not first know how interests are defined? Might not one’s idea of what nation one belongs to frame what concomitant interests this nation is perceived to have? Indeed, realist theorists – both classical and neo – have often been stumped when analyzing U.S. foreign policy, as we shall see in chapter four. They have more often than not been relegated to criticizing – rather than explaining – both historical U.S. foreign policy trends as well as specific foreign policy decisions. In a lament familiar to realists, Robert Osgood, in his classic work Ideals and Self-­Interest in America’s Foreign Relations, regretted how Americans at the turn of the nineeenth and twentieth centuries were “encouraged to believe that the realities [of international politics] were perfectly consistent with their ideals . . .”58 Osgood derided the American obsession with moral crusades and its lack of understanding of a realistic national interest.59 He lamented that the United States’ rise to great power status had not necessitated a reconfiguration of its moral tradition. Rather, Americans were encouraged to believe that reality was adaptable to their ideals, which was precisely their problem.60 Realist éminence grise Hans Morgenthau had the particular misfortune of seeing former students of his become administration officials in the John F. Kennedy administration, contributing to the design of the Vietnam War he so opposed.61 In 2003, realists Stephen Walt and John J. Mearsheimer wrote that, if President Bush decided to invade Iraq, “Americans should understand that a compelling strategic rationale is absent.”62 Despite attempts by practitioners and theorists alike, realists have been relegated to chastising the strong sense of exceptionalism that the American body politic embodies, or, conversely, to allowing for some effect of ideational variables. In 1997, notable realist Samuel Huntington wrote in Foreign Affairs that “national interest derives from national identity. We have to know who we are before we know what our interests are.”63

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14   How to be an American In this book, I take seriously Huntington’s challenge to know who Americans are. In order to do that, my starting point is sociologist Anthony Smith’s definition of national identity. Smith defines national identity as the “maintenance and continual reinterpretation of the pattern of values, symbols, memories, myths, and traditions that form the distinctive heritage of the nation, and the identification of individuals with that heritage and its pattern.”64 I will use national identity more specifically than this definition suggests, however, in that I am interested in how the American identity as “exceptional” has influenced the dominant U.S. foreign policy traditions through time. The point is not to pit “self-­interests” against “identity” but rather to account for how ideational factors – like a specific sense of exceptionalism among a people – helps us understand how preferences are formed and interests defined when pursuing foreign policy goals.65 The theoretical logic is constructivist, in that I clearly believe ideational variables matter. I do not offer a conventional causal theory of foreign policy that relies on a rationalist ontology. Rather, I argue that the American identity as exceptional constitutes the “national interest” and pushes U.S. foreign policy in the direction of unilateral internationalism as opposed to multilateral internationalism. While acknowledging that “national identities” are subtle, complex, and even somewhat malleable, I still hold that, when examining collective self-­understandings vis-­à-vis other nations in the context of foreign policy, it makes sense to speak of national identity. I choose to operationalize “American national identity” in the context of foreign policy as “belief in American exceptionalism.” While many other concepts rather than “identity” are available in such an endeavor – “narrative,” “collective self-­understanding,” or “self-­identification,” none of these terms capture the collective feelings of national purpose as expressed in long-­standing foreign policy traditions as does the term “national identity” in my view. It is a term that contrasts one nation’s self-­understanding with that of others, meaning it looks at foreign policy as partly derived from such domestic sources of self.

Don’t stop believing American identity is strongly present in U.S. history, culture and politics. Americans believe they are a superior people, they believe they are endowed with a unique mission, and they believe they will never succumb to the merciless laws of history. American identity can be meaningfully defined as American exceptionalism because, notwithstanding its debatable objective validity, the belief in American exceptionalism has been a powerful, persistent, and popular myth throughout American history. It is this belief, I argue in this book, that constitutes, informs, and shapes U.S. foreign policy. The belief in American exceptionalism permeates American society. It is found among the general population, its political representatives, in the media and in academe. This kind of national identity often operates in subtle ways. One must believe in American exceptionalism if one is to be categorized as fully American, especially if one, say, is running for president. Indeed, if a president is thought not to hold such ideas about the United States, the nation’s founding

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How to be an American   15 idea is by definition threatened, as The National Review Online noted. This helps explain the vehement and persistent attacks on candidate and later President Obama from political opponents, claiming in one way or another that he was not the right kind of American. Furthermore, belief in American exceptionalism – despite the efforts of the Republican Party in the 2012 presidential election – is not a partisan issue. U.S. presidents have adhered to the notion of American exceptionalism no matter their party affiliation. Of course, the American identity as exceptional and its concomitant mission to remake the world in its image have gone through several stages and have also been challenged along the way, as we will see in the subsequent chapters. It has not been one monolithic idea unmoved by context, historic time, or individual interpretations. As the next two chapters will show, however, the Founding Fathers and the subsequent generations of U.S. leaders did not shy away from extolling American greatness and historic mission. An eloquent twentieth century example of this is John F. Kennedy, who frequently invoked the sentiment of American exceptionalism in his speeches. Indeed, as president-­elect he held a speech simply referred to as the “city upon a hill” speech, after the discourse written by Puritan Minister John Winthrop: I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arbella three hundred and thirty-­one years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier. “We must always consider,” he said, “that we shall be as a city upon a hill – the eyes of all people are upon us.” Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us – and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill – constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities.66 Winthrop and the Puritans, as we will see, are in many ways the originators of this narrative of exceptionalism, their legacy (real or imagined) echoing through the centuries of American history.67 President Ronald Reagan, for instance, was fond of referring to the United States as a “shining city on a hill” and indeed spent part of his farewell speech in 1989 explaining what he meant by this phrase, describing the United States as being “still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.”68

Overview of the book This book has three main parts. I  A distinct nation is born This first part, consisting of chapters 2 and 3, presents and then challenges the conventional connections between the supposed two sides of American identity and the supposed two foreign policy traditions. Chapter 2 presents and critiques

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16   How to be an American the conventional depiction of American identity as exemplary or missionary, showing how it evolved in the literature on U.S. foreign policy, and explains why these two identity descriptors should no longer be used. Chapter 3 presents and then critiques the conventional depiction of historical U.S. foreign policy traditions as being either isolationist or internationalist. Most historians have long since abandoned this categorization, but this chapter will show that old paradigms in history die hard in political science. In other words, writers on U.S. foreign policy are basing their works on some outdated assumptions that historians have long since dismissed. I argue that it is time we caught up, and show the consequences of this insight for how we look at U.S. foreign policy traditions. Chapter 3 will also show that eighteenth century American exceptionalism and nineteenth century “manifest destiny” are intimately connected, which illustrates the fundamental continuity in the American self-­conception as exceptional from initial rebel Republic to expansionist continental power. Manifest destiny will be shown, in essence, to have been a later version of the early American exceptionalism that started with the Puritan settlers and was further developed by the Founding Fathers. This is significant because it ties an early exceptionalist identity to continental expansion and shows why nineteenth century continental expansion consisted of significant acts of foreign policy on the part of the United States, not a domestic event that can be filed under “isolationism.” II  A mission to lead the world Chapter 4 inaugurates the second part of the book, which presents and challenges the pervasive “turn-­around thesis” of U.S. foreign policy associated with World War II. Chapter 4 first presents the theories, and then discusses how to properly define “multilateral.” This conceptual discussion is necessary in order for there to be a useful debate over whether or not the United States “turned” multilateral with World War II. Chapter 5 presents the World War I case study by surveying Woodrow Wilson and Henry Cabot Lodge’s fight over the League of Nations. Rather than Wilson’s multilateral internationalism, I argue the foreign policy tradition that emerged strengthened out of that dramatic chapter in U.S. foreign policy was the unilateral internationalism of Senator Lodge, Wilson’s mortal enemy. Chapter 6 presents the World War II case study, focusing on the international institutional order being erected under Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. It will show that only by incorporating the reservations promoted by Lodge into the United Nations (UN) Charter did Truman win Senate ratification for the UN Charter in 1945. It was a triumph of Lodgian unilateral internationalism, not Wilsonian multilateral internationalism. III  Resisting the laws of history The last two chapters move us forward to the third part of the book, which is concerned with post-­cold war foreign policy. They discuss the relevance of the third part of the definition of American exceptionalism, namely that belief in

How to be an American   17 American exceptionalism dictates that the United States is not in decline and shall not suffer the fate of previous republics. The chapters will show how the end of the cold war and the war on terror, respectively, reaffirmed the belief in American exceptionalism and gave modern meaning to the American exceptionalist identity.

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What American exceptionalism is not Before we can proceed with the book, however, it is necessary to clarify that “American exceptionalism” means two different things in academe. Within political science, in the study of American and comparative politics, the thesis of American exceptionalism is in fact a scientific claim about the objective distinctiveness of American political and economic institutions.69 Building on both Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations in the 1830s and Marxist observers in the early twentieth century, scholars and social and political commentators in the 1950s and 1960s argued for an “objective” or scientific concept of American exceptionalism. Such an understanding of American exceptionalism essentially sought to identify distinct American characteristics that seemed to make the United States “unique” and “different in crucial ways from most other countries” in approaches to government, to the economy, to culture, to religion, etc.70 Their analyses stressed the importance of a predominant middle class, the absence of class conflict, as well as the lack of divisive debates among rival social ideologies.71 In this perspective, American exceptionalism simply refers to “the ways in which the United States varies from the rest of the world.”72 This book is based on the assumption that the very idea of an objective – as opposed to an ideational – definition of exceptionalism is nonsensical. Why use the term “exceptional” if one does not mean normatively superior? American exceptionalism cannot simply mean different, because all nations are different.73 The picture muddies quickly when trying to ascertain whether one nation is somehow more exceptional than all other exceptional nations. Indeed, despite Seymour Martin Lipset’s assurances that he was not arguing that the United States was culturally superior, he was writing “as a proud American.”74 Trying to design social science studies based on the assumption that the United States is somehow more different than other countries is itself an exceptionalist undertaking. Inevitably the academic endeavor of investigating exceptionalism entails normative judgment. Indeed, Dorothy Ross found that the ideology of American exceptionalism is in fact what underlies the modern social sciences as they developed in the United States in the early nineteenth century.75 In historiography, the United States – having avoided the troubles of the Old World such as class conflicts and authoritarian governments – was often proudly presented as an example of liberty for other states to emulate.76 Tyrrell argues that earlier American historians too often assumed that the United States was exceptional (i.e. qualitatively different from other countries) and thus designed their studies accordingly.77 This could perhaps serve as a national identity

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18   How to be an American feed-­back loop – feeling exceptional leads to uncritically assuming one is, which leads to scholarship that takes this for granted rather than problematizing it, which again strengthens the general sense of exceptionalism. As Tyrrell argues, advocates of exceptionalism such as Frederick Jackson Turner assumed American uniqueness rather than analyzed it.78 Nor is this a phenomenon necessarily relegated to the past. In Michael Walzer book, What it means to be American, he writes: “Insofar as the United States is a society of voluntary immigrants – excluding, then, the Indians, who were conquered and the blacks, who were coercively transported – it is one of the world’s better societies: open, pluralist, and (relatively, again) egalitarian.”79 In other words, Walzer is comfortable normatively ranking the world’s countries according to which are “better.” The distinction between literature treating American exceptionalism as an objective category to be compared to other countries and the normative perspective that sees American exceptionalism as connoting an inherent U.S. superiority is rather blurry. Most often, one sees the two categories bleeding into one another: The United States is normatively superior to other nations because of its genius political institutions, focus on individual liberty etc. Let me at this point underscore that my thesis arguing that the belief in American exceptionalism has had an effect on American foreign policy in no way entails a normative judgment. I do not think it is possible to evaluate whether or not the United States is exceptional in the ideational way. Nor do I believe it is fruitful to argue over whether the United States’ foreign policies have been exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. What is important here is the fact that the belief in exceptionalism has been strong and persistent throughout American history, and has had an enduring impact on foreign policy, notwithstanding the validity of its underlying assumptions. To argue for the existence of something is not the same as endorsing it. This book, then, when referring to American exceptionalism, is solely referring to the idea, not to some “objective” or scien­ tific category of comparison.

The unexceptional exceptional nation Finally, it is important to make explicit that it is not exceptional to believe one is exceptional. “There is not a civilized nation which does not talk about its civilizing mission just as grandly as we do,” Yale sociologist William Graham Sumner remarked in 1899 as a post-­mortem on the War of 1898 against Spain. “Now each nation laughs at all the others when it observes these manifestations of national vanity. You may rely upon it that they are all ridiculous by virtue of these pretensions, including ourselves.”80 In other words, throughout history, great nations have conceived of themselves as superior and as endowed with a mission to dominate other peoples or to lead the rest of the world. Examples abound, from the Ottoman Turks, to nineteenth century Russia, to France’s mission civilisatrice.81 Great Britain certainly had its own civilizing mission, something the United States picked up on and

How to be an American   19

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continued in North America, as we will read about more in the next chapter. A general statement on whether or not such ideologies are developed as a means to achieve great power status is not within the scope of this book. As we shall see, however, in the American case the idea of exceptionalism preceded the great power status. It is my hope that this book will encourage scholars of U.S. foreign policy and of American political thought to rethink how American exceptionalism should be connected to U.S. foreign policy.

Notes   1 Quoted in Hans Kohn, American Nationalism: An Interpretive Essay (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957), p. 13.   2 The “birther” critique was one heard quite often in the 2008 election, which accused Barack Obama of being born in Kenya, not Hawaii. Not being born in the United States makes one ineligible to run for president. See, for example, Ben Smith and Byron Tau, “Birtherism: Where it all began,” Politico (April 22, 2011). URL: www. politico.com/news/stories/0411/53563.html.   3 Brian Levy, “Today hosts Dick Morris, who says people are debating whether Obama will be seen as ‘sleeper agent,’ ” Media Matters for America (June 24, 2008). URL: http://mediamatters.org/print/research/2008/06/24/today-­hosts-dick-­morris-who-­sayspeople-­are-deb/143842.   4 Uri Friedman, “ ‘American Exceptionalism,’ A Short History,” Foreign Policy (July/August 2012). URL: www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/18/american_ exceptionalism.   5 Richard Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru, “An Exceptional Debate: The Obama administration’s assault on American identity,” National Review Online (March 8, 2010). URL: http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=M2FhMTg4Njk0NTQwMmFlMmYz ZDg2YzgyYjdmYjhhMzU=.   6 Michael Scherer, “Obama Too Is an American Exceptionalist,” Time.com (April 4, 2009). URL: http://swampland.time.com/2009/04/04/obama-­too-is-­an-american-­exceptionalist/.   7 Monica Crowley, “American Exceptionalism . . .” in The Washington Times (July 1, 2009).   8 Quoted in Robert Schlesinger, “Obama has mentioned ‘American exceptionalism’ more than Bush,” U.S. News and World Report (January 31, 2011). URL: www. usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-­schlesinger/2011/01/31/obama-­has-mentioned-­ american-exceptionalism-­more-than-­bush. My italics.   9 David Remnick, “Behind the Curtain,” The New Yorker (September 5, 2011). URL: www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/09/05/110905taco_talk_remnick. 10 The phrase was attributed to a White House “adviser” quoted in Ryan Lizza, “The Consequentialist,” The New Yorker (May 2, 2011). URL: www.newyorker.com/ reporting/2011/05/02/110502fa_fact_lizza For a critique of “leading from behind” see Kori Schake, “Leading from Behind,” Foreignpolicy.com (April 27, 2011). URL: http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/04/27/leading_from_behind. 11 Roger Cohen, “Leading from Behind,” The New York Times (October 31, 2011). URL: www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/opinion/01iht-edcohen01.html?_r=0; For a short summary of the use of the term in the 2012 election by the various presidential candidates, see Frank Rich, “What makes us exceptional,” New York Magazine (July 22, 2012). URL: http://nymag.com/news/frank-­rich/american-­exceptionalism-2012-7/. 12 Indeed, this has been simultaneously the traditional lament on the part of realist historians and political scientists and the proof that those very same realist theories do a poor job of explaining U.S. foreign policy. Realists have consistently criticized the

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20   How to be an American adherence to “idealism” or ideology that is demonstrably present in major foreign policy decisions such as Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations and the second Iraq war, for example. See for example Hans J. Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest: A critical examination of American foreign policy (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982); Robert Osgood, Ideals and Self-­Interest in American Foreign Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953); Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994). For a critical overview of classical realism, see Michael J. Smith, Realism from Weber to Kissinger (Baton Rouge, La: Louisiana State University Press, 1986). 13 See for example G. John Ikenberry, After Victory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Henry R. Nau, At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002); Jeffrey W. Legro, Rethinking the World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005); G. John Ikenberry, Liberal Order and Imperial Ambition (Malden, MA: Polity, 2006); Stewart Patrick, The Best Laid Plans: The Origins of American Multilateralism and the Dawn of the Cold War (Lanham, Md: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009). 14 See for example Melvyn P. Leffler, “9/11 and American Foreign Policy,” Diplomatic History, 29(3), 2005, pp.  395–413; G. John Ikenberry, Anne-­Marie Slaughter, and Thomas J. Knock, The Crisis in American Foreign Policy: Wilsonianism in the Twenty-­first Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009). 15 See for example, John G. Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue? Interests, identity, and American foreign policy,” International Security, 21(4), 1997, pp.  89–125; Michael Desch, “America’s Liberal Illiberalism: The ideological origins of overreaction in U.S. foreign policy,” International Security, 32(3), 2007/08, pp. 7–43. 16 For this three-­part definition and its explanation, see Trevor B. McCrisken, “Exceptionalism,” in Alexander DeConde, Richard Dean Burn and Frederik Logevall eds. Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy Vol. II, 2nd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2002), pp.  64–5. See John B. Judis for a slightly different three-­point framework, “The Chosen Nation: The influence of religion on U.S. foreign policy,” Policy Brief 37, March 2005, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved February 19, 2014. URL: http://carnegieendowment.org/files/PB37.judis.FINAL.pdf. 17 As the International Social Survey Program on national identity points out, “Patriotism is love of one’s country or dedicated allegiance to same, while nationalism is a strong national devotion that places one’s own country above all others.” See Tom W. Smith and Seokho Kim, “National Pride in Cross-­national and Temporal Perspective,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 18, 2006, pp.  127–36. See also Graham E. Fuller, “America’s Uncomfortable Relationship with Nationalism,” Foreign Policy Brief, The Stanley Foundation (Muscatine, IA: July 2006). URL: http://reports.stanleyfoundation.org. 18 Lowry and Ponnuru, “An Exceptional Debate: The Obama administration’s assault on American identity,” National Review Online. 19 Manifest Destiny. A Study in National Expansionism in American History (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1935, 6th ed.), pp. 126–7. 20 On July 13, 1787, the Congress of the Confederation established the Northwest Ordinance, inaugurating westward expansion by the admission of new states. The last piece on the continental puzzle, Alaska, was purchased from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867 for the sum of $7.2 million, or 2 cents per acre. 21 Weinberg, Manifest Destiny, p. 29. 22 Minxin Pei, “The Paradoxes of American Nationalism,” Foreign Policy (May/June 2003), p.  32. Seymour Martin Lipset also notes this using statistics from the 1980s and 1990s. See American Exceptionalism: A Double-­Edged Sword (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), p. 51. 23 In many European countries, being patriotic or nationalistic is not seen as an attractive thing, mainly because it is associated with racism and the history of World War II.

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How to be an American   21 24 Cited in Pei, “The Paradoxes of American Nationalism,” p. 32. 25 Smith and Kim, “National Pride in Cross-­national and Temporal Perspective.” 26 Jeffrey M. Jones, “Americans See U.S. as Exceptional; 37% Doubt Obama Does.” Gallup Poll Report, December 22, 2010. www.gallup.com/poll/145358/Americans-­ Exceptional-Doubt-­Obama.aspx. Cited in James Ceaser, “The Origins and Character of American Exceptionalism,” American Political Thought 1(1), 2012, p. 4. 27 Second inaugural address, January 20, 2005, emphasis added. Quoted in Daniel W. Drezner, “The Realist Tradition in American Public Opinion,” Perspectives on Politics 6(1), 2008, p. 53. 28 Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President in Address to Nation on Syria,” The White House (September 10, 2013). URL: www.whitehouse.gov/the-­press-office/2013/09/10/ remarks-­president-address-­nation-syria. 29 Neumann and Coe, “The Rhetoric of the Modern Presidency: A quantitative assessment,” in Jason A. Edwards and David Weiss, eds. The Rhetoric of American Exceptionalism (Jefferson, NC: Macfarland & Co., 2011), p. 23. 30 As we know, and as Chapter 5 will discuss, the issue of the League of Nations and the interwar period is a more complex case. The chapter will argue, however, that refusal to join the League of Nations did not entail a “return to isolationism” nor does it make sense to speak of the “interwar period” as one era. The United States exerted leadership over European politics in the 1920s, but turned to nationalist policies in the wake of the Great Depression. 31 Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National Interest, 6, 1989, pp. 3–18. 32 See for example Deepa Kumar, “Framing Islam: The resurgence of Orientalism during the Bush II era,” Journal of Communication Inquiry, 34(3), 2010, pp. 254–77. 33 Ian Tyrrell, “American Exceptionalism and Uneven Global Integration: Resistance to the global society,” in Bruce Mazlish, Nayan Chanda, and Kenneth Weisbrode, eds. The Paradox of a Global USA (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), p. 65. 34 “President Bush Addresses the Nation,” Washington Post (September 20, 2001). URL: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-­srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html. 35 One could be more specific and divide “internationalism/isolationism” into issue areas: economic, political, cultural, and military. For instance, the classic literature on American isolationism would often point out that the United States, while generally isolationist, was never isolationist in economic affairs. See for example, Lawrence S. Kaplan, Entangling Alliances with None: American foreign policy in the age of Jefferson (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1987), who argued for “political isolationism,” or Bradford Perkins, “Creation of the Republican Empire” in Warren Cohen, ed. The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, Vol. III (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993). This will be further explored and defined in chapters 3 and 4. 36 For proponents of a cyclical theory of American foreign policy, see Stanley Hoffmann, Gulliver’s Troubles, Or the Setting of American Foreign Policy (New York: McGraw-­Hill Book Company, 1968); Frank L. Klingberg, Cyclical Trends in American Foreign Policy Moods (Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1983); Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The Cycles of American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986). For proponents of two periods, see Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny. A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935), reprinted in 1963 by Quadrangle Books, Chicago; Edward McNall Burns, America’s Sense of Mission. Concepts of National Purpose and Destiny (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1957); Dexter Perkins, The American Approach to Foreign Policy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962) revised ed; and Walter A. McDougall, Promised land, Crusader State: the American encounter with the world since 1776 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997). 37 Jean-­Baptiste Duroselle, From Wilson to Roosevelt: Foreign Policy of the United States 1913–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 4.

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22   How to be an American 38 William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Foreign Policy (Cleveland, OH: World Publishing. Co., 1959) argued this, along with the entire “Wisconsin School” of historians associated with the writings of Williams, such as Walter LaFeber, The American Age: United States foreign policy at home and abroad since 1750 (New York: Norton, 1989); in addition there were those arguing for the view that the United States had all along been building an “empire”: Norman A. Graebner, Empire on the Pacific: A Study in American Continental Expansion (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1955); Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire; Ernest N. Paolino, The foundations of the American empire; William Henry Seward and U.S. foreign policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973); Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: American Exceptionalism and Empire, rev. ed., (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003). 39 Trevor B. McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p.  14; “Exceptionalism,” in DeConde et al. eds. Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy. 40 Emily Rosenberg, “A Call to Revolution: A roundtable on early U.S. foreign relations,” Diplomatic History, 22(1), 1998, pp. 63–70. 41 For more on this, see Hilde Eliassen Restad, “Old Paradigms in History Die Hard in Political Science: U.S. foreign policy and American exceptionalism,” American Political Thought, 1(1), 2012, pp. 53–76. See Bear Braumoeller, “The Myth of Isolationism,” Foreign Policy Analysis, 6(4), 2010, pp.  349–71 for a good exception to this rule. 42 Ibid. 43 Abraham Lincoln, “Annual Message to Congress,” (December 1, 1862). Accessed at: The American Presidency Project. URL: www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29503. 44 For scholars arguing for such a turn-­around, see among many others: Robert A. Divine, Second Chance; The triumph of internationalism in America during World War II (New York, Atheneum: 1967); John G. Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue?; G. John Ikenberry, After Victory; Jeffrey W. Legro, Rethinking the World; Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World. America’s Vision for Human Rights (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2005); Stewart Patrick, Best Laid Plans. 45 Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993); Peter J. Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); James D. Fearon, “What is Identity (As We Now Use the Word)?” Unpublished paper (November 3, 1999). URL: www.stanford.edu/~jfearon/papers/iden1v2.pdf; Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, “What is Identity?” Theory and Society, 29, 2000, pp. 1–47. 46 To be clear, the aim of this book is to clarify the connection between American exceptionalism – seen as an identity – and the long-­term U.S. foreign policy traditions. It is not to describe all aspects of American national identity at all times in full. American identity is, of course, more complex than that of American exceptionalism’s connection to U.S. foreign policy, and concerns itself with more issues than how the United States should relate to the rest of the world (see for example Samuel Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004); Robert J. Spiro, Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Seen from a domestic perspective, there are conceivably several kinds of American identities – some even clashing with each other. When seen from an international perspective however, Americans can be treated as a more homogenous group because the contrast is not with other Americans but with other nations. In order to seek conceptual clarity whilst taking ideational variables seriously, some simplification is inevitable in this endeavor. 47 Brubaker and Cooper, “What is Identity?” p. 10.

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How to be an American   23 48 See, for example, Ikenberry, After Victory; Legro, Rethinking the World; Ikenberry, Liberal Order and Imperial; Patrick, The Best Laid Plans; Melvyn P. Leffler, “9/11 and American Foreign Policy;” Ikenberry, Slaughter, and Knock, The Crisis in American Foreign Policy; Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue?” Michael Desch, “America’s Liberal Illiberalism: The Ideological Origins of Overreaction in U.S. Foreign Policy,” International Security, 32(3), 2007/08, pp. 7–43. 49 Nau, At Home Abroad, pp. 41–2. 50 Karl K. Schonberg, Constructing 21st Century U.S. Foreign Policy. Identity, Ideology and America’s World Role in a New Era (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 2. 51 See, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America Vol. I (1835) and Vol. II (1840). Studying national identity used to be called “national character,” which fell out of favor together with the term “political culture.” However, political culture seems to have experienced something of a renaissance; see for instance Peter Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: norms and identity in world politics (New York: University of Columbia Press, 1996); Robert Putnam, with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). 52 Richard W. Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965), p. v; Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed (New York: Verso, 2006). 53 Legro, Rethinking the World, p. 81. 54 Rogers M. Smith, Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999). 55 For a book that shows the usefulness of this approach in the specific case study of U.S. foreign policy after 9/11, see Schonberg, Constructing 21st Century U.S. Foreign Policy. 56 This can be done by using a structuralist approach, as does Alexander Wendt, or by locating the theory on other levels of analyses. See Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Peter Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996) for a variety of constructivist theories. For a realist critique of constructivist theory, see Dale Copeland, “The Constructivist Challenge to Structural Realism,” International Security, 25(2), 2000, pp.  187–212. For Wendt’s response, see Alexander Wendt, “Social Theory as a Cartesian Science: An Auto-­Critique from a Quantum Perspective,” in S. Guzzini and A. Leander, eds. Constructivism and International Relations: Alexander Wendt and his Critics (Oxon, England: Routledge, 2006). 57 See for example, Schonberg, Constructing 21st Century U.S. Foreign Policy, Introduction. 58 Robert Endicott Osgood, Ideals and Self-­Interest in America’s Foreign Relations (Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1953/1964), p. 17. 59 Ibid., pp. 18, 27. 60 Ibid., p. 18. 61 David Fromkin, “Remembering Hans Morgenthau,” World Policy Journal, 10(3), 1993, p. 85. For more on realists and U.S. foreign policy, see chapter IV “The Turn-­ Around Theories.” 62 John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “An Unnecessary War,” Foreign Policy, 134, 2003, pp. 51–9. 63 Samuel P. Huntington, “The Erosion of American National Interests,” Foreign Affairs, 76(5), 1997, pp. 28–49. URL: www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/53391/samuel­p-huntington/the-­erosion-of-­american-national-­interests. 64 Anthony D. Smith, Chosen Peoples (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 24–5.

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24   How to be an American 65 See Legro, Rethinking the World, p.  11; Paul A. Kowert, “National Identity: Inside and Out,” Security Studies, 8(2), pp. 1–34; and Schonberg, Constructing 21st Century U.S. Foreign Policy for a good discussions of this. 66 Address of President-­Elect John F. Kennedy delivered to a Joint Convention of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The State House, Boston (January 9, 1961). URL: www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-­Viewer/OYhUZE2Qo0-ogdV7ok900A.aspx. 67 As we shall see in the next chapter, there is disagreement over what kind of influence the Puritans had over the development of an early American identity. 68 Farewell Address to the Nation, (January 11, 1989). URL: www.reaganfoundation.org/tgcdetail.aspx?p=TG0923RRS&h1=0&h2=0&sw=&lm=reagan&arg s_a=cms&args_b=1&argsb=N&tx=1749. 69 For attempts in this field of inquiry, see Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-­Edged Sword (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996); Charles Lockhart, The Roots of American Exceptionalism. Institutions, Culture, and Policies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Byron Shafer, ed. Is America Different? A New Look at American Exceptionalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Dale Carter, ed., Marks of Distinction: American Exceptionalism Revisited (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 2001). Lipset points out that this scientific endeavor started with the efforts to account for a lack of socialism or a labor movement in the United States, but of course can be traced back to the observations of Edmund Burke during the Revolution, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur’s notes on the new American country, and Tocqueville’s writings in the 1830s and 1840s. See Lipset, American Exceptionalism, pp.  33–4. For critical review essays, see Michael Kammen, “The Problem of American Exceptionalism: A Reconsideration,” American Quarterly, 45(1), 1993, pp.  1–44; Eric Rauchway, “More Mean Different: Quantifying American Exceptionalism,” in Reviews in American History, 30(3), 2002, pp. 504–16. 70 Shafer, Is America Different? p. viii. 71 Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, pp. 4–5. 72 Lipset, American Exceptionalism, p. 17. 73 Joyce Appleby, “Recovering America’s Diversity: Beyond Exceptionalism,” p. 420. 74 Lipset, American Exceptionalism, p. 14. 75 Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Ross is referring specifically to economics, political science, and sociology. 76 Ian Tyrrell, “American Exceptionalism in an Age of International History,” p. 1031. 77 Ibid. For a response to Tyrell, see Michael McGerr, “The Price of the New Transnational History,” American Historical Review, 98, 1991, pp. 1056–67. 78 Ibid., p. 1035. 79 Michael Walzer, What it Means to be an American (New York: Marsilio, 1996), p. 3. Italics in the original. 80 Richard Gamble, “American Exceptionalisms,” The American Conservative (September 4, 2012). URL: www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/american-­exceptionalisms/. 81 See also K. J. Holsti, “Exceptionalism in American Foreign Policy: Is it exceptional?” European Journal of International Relations 17(3), 2011, pp. 381–404.

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Part I

A distinct nation is born

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2 Challenging the identity dichotomy

For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us . . . (John Winthrop, 1630)1

Introduction Classic as well as conventional U.S. foreign policy literature portrays American exceptionalism as having two varieties: exemplary and missionary.2 The exemplary version of American exceptionalism embodies the notion that America is a “promised land,” a providentially assigned New World settled by a “chosen people divinely ordained to lead the world to betterment.”3 This is then linked to isolationism – a foreign policy strategy often exemplified by the image of the Puritans’ “city upon a hill.” In the oft-­quoted words of John Quincy Adams, arguably one of the most influential American grand strategists of the nineteenth century, the United States “does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” but rather, “is the well-­wisher to the freedom and independence of all.”4 The image of the United States conveyed through this narrative is that it was a virtuous nation keeping to itself – by virtue of its isolationism it was better than the colonial powers of the Old World. More recent scholarship uses the terms separate or aloof rather than isolationist, but ends up validating the analysis nonetheless.5 The second variant of American exceptionalism, the missionary one, embodies the notion that the United States is the vanguard of progress and because of this must lead the world to betterment. This is said to have inspired an internationalist foreign policy – which means pursuing an evangelical mission to reform the world (or parts thereof ), like Woodrow Wilson’s mission to make the world “safe for democracy.” This chapter will critically examine the idea that the American national identity is dichotomous and contains two opposite sides to it: one exemplary and one missionary. I aim to show that American national identity is more usefully thought of simply as the belief in American exceptionalism, as defined in Chapter 1. This constant sense of exceptionalism has inspired a dominant

28   A distinct nation is born

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i­nternationalist foreign policy, as we will see in the next chapter, which will discard the old conventional wisdom whereby U.S. foreign policy traditions are divided into two polar opposite versions: isolationist (or aloof ) vs. internationalist. By dispelling the myth of isolationism6 and its newer incarnations found in terms like “aloof,” the old way of portraying U.S. foreign policy as either internationalist or isolationist will be discarded. The contribution of this chapter and the next will be to link a constant sense of exceptionalism to a constant internationalist foreign policy.7 Later on in the book, this argument will be tested against the two cases of World Wars I and II.

The exemplary/missionary identity The Founding of the United States of America combined two powerful ideas of exceptionalism: the Reformation idea of America as a religious exemplar and the Enlightenment idea of America as a political harbinger for the rest of the world. But rather than remain intact as two distinct strands of American identity, leading to two opposite foreign policy traditions, the versions of exceptionalism (religious exemplar and political mission) for all intents and purposes fused with the American Revolution. The popular image of American identity as either exemplary or missionary is, I argue, a false dichotomy. We will see that both the exemplary and the missionary varieties trace their origins to the same religious and political sources. Their common origin is, in fact, American exceptionalism.8 Thus, I will argue that the supposed distinction between the exemplar and missionary American identity is – for our purposes – illusory. The modern analysis of the United States as exceptional belongs to Marxist theorists. Around the turn of the nineteenth century, Marxist theorists were trying to explain the apparent failure of Marxian socialism in the United States. The most famous example of this is probably Walter Sombart’s Why there is no Socialism in America from 1906.9 By the 1920s and 1930s the Marxists had concluded that the United States proved an “exception” to Marxist class patterns. In fact, until the 1970s, all of the Oxford English Dictionary’s citations on “American exceptionalism” were from Marxist sources.10 The historian Max Lerner, however, was the one who introduced the term American exceptionalism, in his book America as a Civilization from 1957.11 The original proponents of the idea of American exceptionalism were not Marxists, however, or even Alexis de Tocqueville, but rather the Puritans. In classic studies of early American history, the Puritans were portrayed as the originators of the American exemplary identity, a portrait that has stayed remarkably constant over time. But, as we shall see, the Puritans have also been portrayed as the conveyors of a missionary identity. The significance of the early Puritan communities so famed in American folklore is their contribution of a Protestant strain to the nascent national identity as a “chosen” people.12 This religious imagery would also compete with a secular version of exceptionalism defined by economic opportunity and social mobility, ideas that merged with an Enlightenment ideology in the mid- to late eighteenth century, forging a distinct

Challenging the identity dichotomy   29 American identity. The result was a powerful sense of exceptionalism that, while consisting of two complementary aspects (exemplary and missionary), has not led to two distinct foreign policy traditions. Rather, American exceptionalism always inspired the United States to reform the world in its image. In other words, the exemplar part of the identity has been taken too literally. Let us first look at the exemplary variety of the American identity.

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The exemplary identity The exemplary identity developing pre- and post Revolution consisted of three main strains: religious, secular/economic, and political. Religious exceptionalism Although America was not the promised land of the Old Testament, the Puritan settlers of the 1600s seemed to view it that way. Having experienced a “perilous exodus across the seas,” they set out to create an ideal “American Israel” and a “New English Jerusalem” on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. This New World was deemed to be superior to the old country of England, especially after the Restoration.13 Contemporary testimony from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century shows that early settlers in America saw it as a special and exceptional place.14 From the early colonists to modern Americans, the belief that “the United States is an extraordinary nation with a special role to play in human history; not only unique but also superior among nations” has thus been an important part of the American national identity.15 The religious aspect of the colonists is important in order to understand the development of the dominant images of American national identity, as it is mainly this religious strain that has inspired both the exemplary and the missionary versions of exceptionalism. Essentially, the Puritans “inherited and reworked the Hebrew tradition of divine election as consecrated through the covenant with God.”16 They viewed their own exodus to the North American wilderness as part of the Christian millennial story: The Reformation had revealed the true Christians – the Puritans – while at the same time opening up a New World. Surely this could not be a coincidence!17 The Reformation, then, was seen either as a step on the way to Armageddon – when Christ defeats Satan and rules in peace and harmony with the real Christians for a thousand years – or the Battle itself.18 “Far from being just a simple outpost of European civilization,” writes historian Anders Stephanson, “[the New World] was a sacred testing ground of nothing less than world-­historical importance.”19 A sharp distinction was thus made between the true believers – again, the Puritans – and the outsiders. For instance, when smallpox spread among the surrounding Native American population, John Winthrop – then Puritan Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony – hailed it as God’s miracle. Religion and religiosity played an important role in the American colonies. Indeed, Edmund Burke, in a speech to the House of Commons proposing reconciliation with the colonies, noted how the revolutionary Englishmen

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30   A distinct nation is born differed from their Old World cousins in culture and especially in religion. This was also a theme touched upon by French immigrant Hector St. John de Crèvecœur in his Letters from an American Farmer, published in 1782.20 The various settlements within the French, Dutch, and English colonies, such as Winthrop’s community of God’s chosen people in Massachusetts, William Penn’s Pennsylvania, and Lord Baltimore’s Maryland, “exhibited a powerful urge on the part of their authors to reorder some aspects of the existing European world, to reverse some social, political, or economic trends they found worrisome, or to restore some imagined lost and less threatening world,” writes Jack P. Greene.21 As Winthrop wrote in his discourse “A Modell of Christian Charity”: For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-­word through the world.22 Winthrop’s vision for his community was for it to be a strict religious model for England. Greene argues that in seizing upon America as the site for the pursuit of their “idealized versions” of the Old World, these early colonists were both responding to and providing substantial reinforcement of the New World’s emerging identification as a place that “provided an appropriate venue in which to seek Europe’s new beginnings.”23 Thomas Pownall, royal governor of Massachusetts and North Carolina, argued the “peculiar blessings” characterizing life in the British colonies suggested God had marked them out as “a chosen people” with concomitant obligations to posterity and the rest of humanity.24 The New World would show the Old World the true way. Secular exceptionalism Of course, apart from Winthrop’s two-­generation long experiment, they all failed, rather quickly. John Winthrop’s Puritan covenant had been formulated in England, where there were no endless frontiers or boundless opportunities to tempt its adherents.25 Much of the writings of the second generation Puritans after 1660 thus focused on the themes of declension and apostasy, indicating that they themselves thought they had failed in their fathers’ mission.26 Whereas the collective religious projects failed one after another, individuals still found opportunity and prosperity. The observers of the developing colonies would increasingly focus on the opportunity for social mobility as the unique feature of North American existence. As Crèvecœur wrote in his Letters, the British colonies offered conditions in which “the idle may be employed, the useless become useful, and the poor become rich.”27 Adam Smith famously noted in Wealth of Nations that “[t]here is more equality . . . among the English colonists than among the inhabitants of the mother country.” Indeed, in none of the English colonies, Smith wrote, were there any hereditary nobility.28 Richard

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Challenging the identity dichotomy   31 Hakluyt, English writer and promoter of North American settlement, called America a genuinely exceptional place because of its openness and its apparent richness of resources.29 Thus, there developed a secular aspect to the earliest formulations of exceptionalism alongside the religious one, emphasizing the unprecedented level of geographic openness and individual opportunity awaiting adventurers in the New World. America was a place in which the English people, both collectively and individually, could, to an extent that was impossible anywhere in the already “organized, comparatively densely filled, closed, and poverty-­ridden spaces of the Old World,” be masters of their own destinies, fulfill their dreams, and perhaps even make a pretty penny.30 Political exceptionalism With the success of the Revolution, the idea of the newly minted United States as a political model for the Old World was added to the religious aspect contributed by the Puritans, and to the secular aspect of America as a place of exceptional opportunity as expressed by Hakluyt. It was the Revolution that prompted contemporary observers to tout America as a social and political model, argues Greene, “and thereby, always implicitly and explicitly, to claim for it superiority over the Old World.”31 The third major strain apart from the religious and secular ones contributing to an exemplary identity is thus political. “The Revolution made prophetic sense,” its success validating early religious beliefs that the nation indeed was a chosen one with a unique destiny.32 Indeed, with the French Revolution a few decades later, the political Founding of the United States looked like a harbinger for the world’s future. The founding of an independent Republic signaled a move from the “British imperial worldview to a universalistic worldview.”33 When examining the writings of contemporary influential figures such as Thomas Paine, we discover the powerful ideological influence of American exceptionalism, advocating the revolutionary Republic as an exemplar to the world. Paine – a “radical English immigrant” – came to the American colonies in 1774 and played an important role in imagining America, championing the view that American society was superior to that of the Old World.34 Building on already well-­established images of this New World, Paine argued no country in the world provided “so many openings to happiness.”35 Enlightenment views of historical progress blended with religious views, assigning America a place of “the first importance in the unfolding course of human history,” and – here Paine was sounding a familiar theme – arguing that America was discovered just before the Reformation, as if “the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years.”36 The millennial ideology familiar from the writings of the Puritans did not inspire the Revolution (and, indeed, Paine was a critic of established religion), but its images and concepts did come to be grafted onto revolutionary events, as evidenced by Paine’s rhetoric.37 Indeed, William Earl Weeks argues Paine’s

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32   A distinct nation is born Common Sense provided a necessary conceptual leap for the development of American nationalism.38 “Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression,” Paine wrote in a famous passage in Common Sense. “Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart.”39 In Paine’s eyes, America’s Revolution could hardly be exaggerated for its historical significance. Writing in The American Crisis – a series of pro-­Revolutionary pamphlets – he stated, “[h]ad it not been for America, there had been no such thing as freedom left throughout the whole universe.”40 He argued the American Revolution had thrown “a beam of light over the world, which reaches into man” in ways that could never be reversed, inspiring “a general revolution in governments” all over Europe and opening a new system of “extended civilization” making America “the Parent” of the world.41 Indeed, as this last bastion of human freedom, Paine predicted in 1776 the future role of America to be highly significant. A people who had the virtue to “stand up to the most powerful nation in the world” would necessarily have the “wisdom to contrive a perfect and free form of government.” Thus, Paine argued, “[w]ith a blank sheet to write upon,” Americans had it in their “power to begin the world over again.”42 Paine would continue to promote the “American principle of government” after the successful conclusion of the Revolution, an effort culminating in the publication of his two-­ part The Rights of Man in 1791 and 1792. Paine was very optimistic about the influence America could have on Europe, convinced change could be encouraged due to Europe’s assumed dependence on American goods. Indeed, this fortuitous position vis-­à-vis Europe meant that the American colonies “ought form no partial connection with any part of it. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do while, by her dependence on Britain, she is made the make-­weight in the scale of British politics.”43 The idea of this new nation as chosen was not only held by the Puritans and Thomas Paine; it was also an idea adhered to by the Founding Fathers. Indeed, after the Constitutional Convention, Thomas Jefferson suggested the new national seal should show the children of Israel led by a pillar of light from the heavens.44 George Washington proudly declared: “Every step by which [the United States] have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.”45 The Founding Fathers were acutely aware of their world historic experiment. In his first inaugural address in 1789, Washington told his fellow countrymen that the preservation of the “sacred fire of liberty” and the “destiny of the republican model of government” was now entrusted to the hands of the American people.46 Colonel David Humphreys, protégé of Washington, wrote that, “America, after having been concealed for so many ages from the rest of the world, was probably discovered, in the maturity of time, to become the theatre for displaying the illustrious designs of Providence, in its dispensations to the human race.”47 In his second inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson returned to the theme of chosenness, “evoking the providential hand that had led ‘our fathers, as Israel of old,

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Challenging the identity dichotomy   33 from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life.’ ”48 It was somewhat of a miracle, this new nation, a “singular example in the history of mankind,” John Adams observed.49 But a miracle it was not. It was, rather, the result of a willed, creative act by a set of people very much influenced by the age of Enlightenment in which they lived. Having achieved independence in a Revolution seemingly smiled upon by Providence in its unlikely outcome, the thirteen states then had to create a nation and, soon after, a federal state. Expressing universalist ideas and ideals inspired by the Enlightenment, the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution essentially created the American nation on the basis of a few central myths, the most important of which was that of the exceptional nation.50 The process of developing and cementing “America” was further accelerated by the War of 1812, as the “second war of independence” greatly boosted national unity and confidence. “It appears evident that God has been on our side,” exclaimed Methodist preacher Joshua Hartt of Brooklyn. “If God be for us, who can stand against us?”51 By creating a nation on the basis of Enlightenment principles, the ideas behind “America” were universalistic. Creed, not blood? Because of this, it is often said that the creation of the United States of America entails the rejection of the traditional historical understanding of the people.52 American identity has become connected with civic ideas, not ethnic heritage. The Declaration of Independence summoned the eternal rights of man, not a historical right inherited from Christopher Columbus.53 Abbé Sieyès’ explanation of the French Revolution in 1789 also applies to the American one: it had no precedent; therefore, it needed no guidance from history. Rather than seek continuity with some distant ancestors, the French revolutionaries sought radical novelty; to symbolize this drastic break with the past, they adopted a new Republican Calendar that consecrated the establishment of the French Republic in 1792 as year 1.54 This is perhaps what Daniel Bell meant when he wrote that America was an exempt nation that had been freed “from the laws of decadence or the laws of history.” Bell wrote that the reason for this is that America was “born modern” – it was freed from the burden of having to shake entrenched socioeconomic and political structures and did not have to undergo a “wrenching transition to modernity.”55 As Louis Hartz has pointed out, the United States does not have a feudal past.56 America was without past or precedent, but endowed with a great future.57 This idea of a nation based upon ideas is different from the European experience (sans France) where many entities have broken loose from hierarchical political relationships yet do not seem similar to the American founding. One specific example is the ability Norway had, after its break from the Danish union in 1814, to invoke its own distant past and use the sagas of Viking adventures as part of a peculiar Norwegian heritage separating its national identity from the Danish one, however close the cultural, historical, linguistic and indeed political bonds may have been between the two nations.58

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34   A distinct nation is born Thus American identity is therefore said to be one of creed, not blood. One cannot become un-­Norwegian, for example, but one can become un-­American, since being an American is not a matter of birth (theoretically speaking) but of ideational commitment to the notion of American exceptionalism.59 (We see this echoed in critiques of President Obama’s lack of faith in American exceptionalism, as detailed in Chapter 1.) This ideational commitment was eloquently expressed by Abraham Lincoln, when he stated that, no matter the origins of immigrants, by accepting the “moral sentiment” of the Declaration of Independence, they were as much Americans “as though they were the blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration.”60 This is a powerful myth that plays into the sense of American exceptionalism that pervades U.S. politics, but it should be noted that history betrays the myth. The importance of ethnic linkage and the dominance of white, Protestant Anglo-­ Saxon culture in early (and indeed also later) U.S. history are undeniable facts. For instance, the development of an American identity forged in the dramatic experience of its settlers and combined with the providentially blessed Revolution, was in many ways seen as being challenged when the floods of European immigrants arrived at its shores later in the nineteenth century.61 But why would it be challenged? Because, as the New England historians (mostly clergymen) emphasized upon the arrival of German and Irish Catholic immigrants in the 1830s and onward, the true origins of the United States were, of course, Protestant origins.62 In the Republic, the definition of what it meant to be American contained a significant racial component. The original sin of the Constitution’s Three Fifths Compromise was further continued in the early 1800s. President Thomas Jefferson defined African slaves as part of a different nation, who eventually would have to get their own country.63 The enslaved Africans would at some point have to be sent away to a country of their own, Jefferson thought, whereas Native Americans would have to assimilate into the Jeffersonian “empire for liberty” or simply face removal and extinction. The western hinterland constituted a single country, the “future home of one great people.”64 President Jefferson suffered from a “chronic concern” that his fellow countrymen would forget that they were a people, Peter Onuf writes, making Jefferson “a self-­conscious nationalist, ever vigilant in the face of pervasive threats to the new nation’s integrity and security.”65 This conception of American nationhood was “Jefferson’s great invention.”66 By improving upon the old British Empire, the “empire for liberty” provided Jefferson with his framework for an American national identity.67 Of course, the Jeffersonian period is far from the only stage in the development of an American identity that has been racially tinged. While the American identity is self-­consciously civic rather than ethnic, race has been a defining factor in deciding who counts as an American throughout U.S. history, not just in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. In other words, although the sense of identity found in the United States from the beginning was one defined by a pervasive idea of exceptionalism, one must also acknowledge the important role played by race and religion in deciding the rules of membership.68

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Challenging the identity dichotomy   35 Notwithstanding these Old World-like facets of the American identity, the image of the United States as forged in virtuous Enlightenment ideas without any tainted blood tying it to the Old World contributed to the powerful idea of the United States as exceptional. In the piecing together of whom and what the American “Self ” consisted of, early Americans were acutely aware of who the “Other” was – old, corrupt, imperial England specifically, and of course Europe generally. For instance, as Weeks has pointed out, Paine’s writings contributed to a sense of “us” versus “them” – separating the western edge of the Atlantic from what previously had been only one entity: the British Empire.69 That the United States was distinctive from the Old World was a given, as was its inherent superiority in political creed and institutions. Together the Puritans, the settlers, the explorers, the revolutionaries and the Founding Fathers contributed different parts of the developing American national identity. The religious and political Founding combined to create an exceptionalist image, leading to the idea that the United States was a “model” for the rest of the world. By virtue of its existence – like a shining city upon a hill – the United States would show the world the true path to democracy, liberty, and happiness.

The missionary identity The ideas held by the Puritans and the revolutionary colonists of the New World or America as a chosen land have also legitimized, the argument goes, the exact opposite view of America’s role in world history: actively to redeem it. Rather than merely model to the world the right path as an exemplar, the United States was meant to be on an active mission of world-­historic proportions. As John Adams wrote in his diary in 1765, I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.70 Tracing the origins of an American sense of “mission” leads us back to the Puritans and the religious Founding of America, as well as the close connections between the British imperialist and newer American missions. An earlier generation of historians, like Ernest Lee Tuveson, grounded America’s sense of mission in millennialism, arguing that the manner in which the early American colonists understood the Reformation and its significance for world history deeply influenced their views of the emerging nation. As we saw in the previous part of this chapter, the millennial narrative viewed the Reformation as ushering in a sequence of victories for the forces of Good over Evil – including the discovery of America, and culminating in the American Revolution. We also saw that the Puritans did not regard it as coincidental that the New World was discovered just as the battle between Good and Evil picked

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36   A distinct nation is born up speed. Edward McNall Burns argued that this call to greatness for America has “not remained a mere wish-­fulfillment,” but rather “has been regarded as an attainable goal.”71 More recent historical scholarship has specifically challenged the classic portrayal of the Puritans as an isolated and isolating religious community, merely wanting to be an example for Europe. In fact, Deborah Madsen has argued, Winthrop’s Puritans were not “isolationists” or “separatists” but rather “global revolutionaries.”72 The Puritans “errand,” she argues, was to create a “working model” of reformed Christianity “so that ultimately all Europe would imitate New England.”73 In other words, they were out to actively reform the Anglican Church of their mother country. The Puritans were seeking to escape persecution and establish a “New Jerusalem” but they also expected to be able to return to a “reformed Egypt” – to launch a “counteroffensive across the Atlantic” as Robert Kagan puts it.74 In this interpretation, the Puritans were on a mission of world-­ historic importance, namely to reform Europe. Theirs was a mission from God – pursuing his “errand in the wilderness” – not so as to be forgotten by the world but, rather, in order to lead it. The Massachusetts Bay Company was not a “battered remnant of suffering Separatists thrown up on a rocky shore;” Perry Miller has pointed out, rather, “it was an organized task force of Christians, executing a flank attack on the corruptions of Christendom.”75 Nor did other colonies view the two worlds – Old and New – as separate or isolated from one another. Further south, the Anglicans in Virginia viewed that land as an “extension of God’s chosen England.”76 Indeed, the Puritan idea of the chosen land originated rather ironically with the British. The idea amongst the English Puritans of being an “elected people” originally stemmed from a sense of English nationalism. “[T]hrough print and pulpit, its vision of liberty for all Englishmen reached a wide cross-­section of the people, thereby creating a profound sense of national community unknown at the time elsewhere,” Smith writes.77 This sense of being a special people was further expressed in British colonial attitudes of cultural and racial superiority. Thus, it would be fair to say, as Kagan does, that the first American exceptionalism was really “an English exceptionalism; the first American mission an Anglo-­Saxon, Protestant, imperial mission.”78 The British heritage found in ethnic linkage, culture, and language further influenced America’s political development. Lord Bryce, while praising French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville’s astute observations about American democracy in the 1840s, argued that Tocqueville in fact missed how much of American political institutions were really English, and understandable only in this context.79 A case in point: the concept of exceptionalism was originally a European phenomenon that compared the New World to the Old one. This, notes historian Ian Tyrrell, “was based on the Eurocentric notion that Europe set the norm from which other places diverged.”80 This Eurocentric exceptionalism would, in time, come to be turned upside down with the New World viewing the Old with disdain rather than the other way around. Indeed, when Tocqueville wrote his volumes in the 1830s and 1840s, “[America’s] people walked in vain conceit of

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Challenging the identity dichotomy   37 their own greatness and freedom,” wrote Lord Bryce, “and scorned instruction from the effete monarchies of the Old World, which in turn repaid them with contemptuous indifference.”81 The British origins of the United States are important in more respects than the obvious factors such as inherited political institutions and the famed role of the Puritans. In a study on national identity it is important to note the more or less ethnic and linguistic homogeneity that facilitated a transformation from colonies to independent Republic. Notwithstanding the notable religious differences between the new and the old country (and between religious communities within the new country), the first citizens of the Republic were still mostly English, or “Anglo-­Scotch.”82 According to Bryce, this is something Tocqueville missed. The American people were “the English people, modified in some directions by the circumstances of its colonial life and its more popular government, but in essentials the same.”83 The Anglo-­American settlers saw themselves as “the vanguard of an English civilization that was leading humanity into the future,” competing against attempts by the Spaniards and the French to secure their own civilizing missions in North America.84 New England and the Old World was the same world in this line of thinking, spiritually if not geographically. Political mission The political Founding of America contained a deeply missionary aspect, viewing events as divinely inspired. The success of the Revolution and the Constitutional Convention were seen as so improbable by many Founding Fathers that they could only explain it in terms of divine intervention. As John Jay said in 1777, Americans were the first people favored by Providence with the opportunity of rationally choosing their forms of government, and thus, as Benjamin Franklin asserted, Providence itself had called America to a post of honor in the struggle for the dignity and happiness of human nature.85 The missionary variety of American exceptionalism was powerfully present at the founding of the United States, and the Founding Fathers were not shy about their ambitions for this newly created Republic. These Founding Fathers (and, I am sure, many unrecognized Mothers) were certain of the future promise of the United States, charting a course unlike any other known nation, different from the once great Republics of Greece or Rome, as Charles C. Pickney argued during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.86 Foreshadowing the immense future expansion of U.S. land and influence, Alexander Hamilton declared the United States a “Hercules in the cradle.”87 Indeed, the Founding and its significance for the rest of the world only increased in importance over time. Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William H. Seward, characterized the entrance of the United States on to the world scene as “the most important secular event in the history of the human race.”88 And Woodrow Wilson – American exceptionalism personified – argued that the United States was a country that would employ its force “for the

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38   A distinct nation is born elevation of the spirit of the human race.”89 In a typical display of missionary internationalism, Wilson frequently resorted to military interventions in order to help direct people in a more orderly and democratic way. As he said in 1914: “They say Mexicans are not fitted for self-­government and to this I reply that, when properly directed, there is no people not fitted for self-­government.”90 In short, authors have identified the idea of American exceptionalism as the force behind the missionary part of American identity, which results in “U.S. expansion or intervention in the affairs of other nations,” as Trevor McCrisken writes. Adherents to this variety of American exceptionalism also often believe – at the same time – that the United States, unlike other nations, is “incapable of seeking dominion over other peoples in its self-­interest,” which seems a result of a belief in this exceptionalism itself. The United States would project its power abroad in order to help other nations become more like itself since “inside every foreigner there is the potential, even the desire, to be an American.” Thus, writes McCrisken, the missionary strand of American exceptionalism postulates that all the people of the world want to be like Americans, whether they realize it or not.91 This sentiment is strongly present in the nineteenth century version of missionary exceptionalism – manifest destiny. Manifest destiny: American exceptionalism in the nineteenth century One of the clearest examples of a continuous missionary exceptional identity can be seen in the concept of “manifest destiny.” The term, coined in 1845, clearly displays how the Americans viewed the New World beyond the existing U.S. borders through the prism of religious election as the chosen land. This potent story of American manifest destiny would provide the ideational fuel for the dramatic continental expansion successfully pursued by the United States in the nineteenth century. I argue that the way manifest destiny has been viewed in the literature, however, exemplifies the severe problems with the conventional depiction of American identity as either exemplary or missionary and its connection to U.S. foreign policy. Let me explain. In the late antebellum and post bellum United States, American exceptionalism was most evident in the idea of manifest destiny – “a particular (and particularly powerful) nationalism constituting itself not only as prophetic but also universal.”92 Albert K. Weinberg called manifest destiny a “nationalistic theology,” defined as being “in essence the doctrine that one nation has a preeminent social worth, a distinctively lofty mission, and, consequently, unique rights in the application of moral principles.”93 The manifest destiny of the United States, as journalist John O’Sullivan wrote in 1845, was “to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”94 The logic was fairly straightforward: History had a purpose and this “destiny” would manifest itself in specific situations. Providence had clearly designated North America as a stage for demonstrating history’s larger trajectory. Armed with this divine mandate, politicians and publicists justified the territorial expansion of the United States into contiguous areas.95 As was in keeping with the American self-­conception as morally

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Challenging the identity dichotomy   39 superior to the Old World, any such westward expansion could, of course, not be compared to European colonialism. The term manifest destiny did not signify a new era in American history; rather, it was a reproduction of the long-­existent American identity as exceptional. There was a clear sense of racial and cultural superiority that infused mid­nineteenth century manifest destiny, notions derived from the early British settlers’ belief in the superiority of Protestantism and their political institutions. This sense of superiority contributed to the impetus to “civilize” people, the Anglo-­Americans believing that their treatment of the Indians was superior to that of their Spanish and French competitors.96 In a not surprising analysis, Greene has found that when evaluating colonial British America, most contemporary observers did not focus on “its callous treatment of the many ‘others’ who were systematically excluded from its largess.” They did not stress land expropriation from Native Americans nor the deprivation of their freedom and the fruits of the labors of African slaves. Indeed, by substituting European stewardship of land for “Amerindian-­style resource utilization,” the settlers were engaged in a series of what Edmund Burke called “civilizing conquests” that contributed to the development of America.97 As Benjamin Franklin saw it, rum was the means by which “the design of Providence” would remove the “savages” to “make room for the cultivators of the earth.”98 Indeed, Jefferson associated the Indians with the “earliest stages of civilization” and expected them to civilize or perish. Peter Onuf argues that Jefferson’s insistence on the necessity for the Indians to adapt to the progress of civilization offered to them was certainly a “self-­serving logic” that “provided the ideological rationale for an expansive republican empire.” Onuf argues Jefferson was in fact in his own eyes trying to assist the Indians in their own progress.99 Jefferson’s presidential addresses to various Indian tribes in 1808 and 1809 “offered righteous justification for an expansionist territorial policy that would set the stage, within two generations, for Andrew Jackson’s removal policy.”100 It was imperative to the idea of exceptionalism that Indians should become Americans, or they deserved to perish. In becoming Americans, the Indians would “regain the continent that their forefathers had recklessly forfeited,” Jefferson thought.101 The ethnic cleansing of the Native Americans found support in both the Bible (multiply in order to suppress the heathens) and natural law. The notion of vacuum domicilium in natural law holds that those who could cultivate a land had the right to it.102 As Elisabeth d’Houdetot expressed in a letter to Jefferson in 1790: The characteristic difference between your revolution and ours is that, having nothing to destroy, you had nothing to injure, and labouring for a people, few in number, incorrupted, and extended over a large tract of country, you have avoided all the inconvenience of a situation, contrary in every respect. Every step in your revolution was perhaps the effect of virtue, while ours are often faults, and sometimes crimes.103

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40   A distinct nation is born There was no mention of the people standing in the way between the colonists and that “large tract of country.” Manifest destiny was not a new idea appearing in the American imagination in the 1840s; rather, it clearly originated in colonial exceptionalist thought. “As the western frontier expanded and indigenous populations died from disease or were displaced,” Anthony Smith writes, “the belief in a providential and manifest destiny was extended from the chosen people to the land and landscapes of America.”104 Manifest destiny was a historically specific concept, coined in 1845, but its genealogy points directly to American exceptionalism, as the works of historians Weinberg, Tuveson, and Stephanson show. They have all traced the nineteenth century idea of a manifest destiny back to the sense of exceptionalism developed by the early settlers. In Stephanson’s account, the development of manifest destiny was in fact the same as the development of American exceptionalism, arguing that the religious vision of America as a “sacred space providentially selected for divine purposes” found a counterpart in the secular idea of the new nation of liberty as a privileged state for the exhibition of a new world order, a “great ‘experiment’ for the benefit of humanity.”105 Specifically, the roots of manifest destiny are to be found, like the roots of exceptionalism, in the providentialist period in England between 1620 and 1660, the period when the initial Puritan migration to New England took place. We see this in Tuveson’s account, where manifest destiny meant an ideology of millennialism, expressing “God’s plan for universal social salvation through history, the revealed will being interpreted in light of successive world events.”106 In the antebellum period, the promise of manifest destiny culminated most spectacularly in the appropriation of half of Mexico. The Mexican–American War (1846–48) was treated by many Americans as moral vindication of their values in what Weinberg characterizes as “the conception of a religious duty to regenerate the unfortunate people of the enemy country by bringing them into the life-­giving shrine of American democracy.” Thus, the Mexican–American War confirmed the belief that American wars were wars for civilization, not subjugation. The concept of manifest destiny is one of the clearest examples of the perpetuation of American exceptionalism in the national imagination and in its foreign policy, and, as such, should not be treated separately from it. In both Stephanson and Tuveson’s accounts manifest destiny serves much the same function as American exceptionalism. Indeed, earlier historians such as Weinberg, Richard Van Alstyne, and Alexander DeConde saw the Founders’ earlier rhetoric glorifying empire as “premonitions of the ‘manifest destiny’ for continental expansionism and pretensions to hemispheric hegemony – and world power – that characterized later periods of American history.”107 As William Appleman Williams and the “Wisconsin School” of historians argued in the 1950s and onward, there was a clear continuity between the settler colonies’ mission, the developing American continental empire, and the American great power of the twentieth century.108

Challenging the identity dichotomy   41

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Reimagining the nation in the Civil War Expansionism in the nineteenth century is complicated by the Civil War, which is why historians of U.S. foreign relations more often than not avoid the subject.109 While justly remembered for its struggle over slavery and inclusion of black Americans into the annals of citizenship, the Civil War was also a tale of reimagining the American nation. This was done by President Lincoln and his almost “mythical sense of nationalism.”110 The outcome of the Civil War had a profound impact on the strengthening of the national identity. The thirteen colonies had exhibited significant differences in geography, culture, religion, and politics not just with the Old World but also with each other.111 The biggest internal difference in the early history of the Republic was perhaps that between the North and the “semi-­civilized South,” as Bryce put it.112 The North’s victory was duly interpreted as affirming America’s exceptional identity. The Civil War did not destroy American exceptionalism but rather reaffirmed it, since this “judgment on national wickedness” entailed the chosen nation “sacrificing its own sons” leading to the “defeat of the powers of darkness” and the strengthening of the chosen nation through its survival.113 The Civil War thus became part of the evolving narrative of exceptionalism. In proclaiming a national day of fasting on March 30, 1863, President Lincoln observed that the war was “but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins.”114 In this “second American revolution,” progressive principles again won out. John Lothrop Motley, in an address before the New York Historical Society in 1868, argued that America’s place in world history was not just destiny but had now been earned by great sacrifice. Vanquishing the evil of slavery helped the cause of progress, removing the fetters from all mankind.115 In Richard Hofstadter’s words, America was the only nation that began with perfection and aspired to progress, and the Civil War both questioned and cemented American nationalism.116 James Bryce commented on the “intensification of the national (as opposed to State) sentiment consequent to the War of Secession: passion for the national flag; rejection of the dogmas of State sovereignty; right of nullification.”117 To paraphrase President Lincoln, the United States had nobly saved, rather than meanly lost, the “last best hope of earth.”118 The issue of slavery and the inevitable divergence between the North and the South not only affected domestic politics, but also profoundly affected American foreign policy in the mid-­1800s.119 When the Civil War settled the issue of slavery, it also settled the debate over U.S. expansion into new territory, and notions of manifest destiny returned in the late 1890s.120 This time, the discourse took the form of an imperialist Western duty to conquer and uplift “alien” (overseas) territories that would never actually become part of the Union.121 Indeed, President William McKinley told a delegation of Methodist ministers how, during the Spanish–American War of 1898, he went down on his knees to pray for divine guidance on what to do with the Philippines (a newly acquired colony). The answer he received was to keep the islands so that the United States

42   A distinct nation is born

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could “uplift and civilize and Christianize them.”122 William Jennings Bryan and Theodore Roosevelt made similar arguments for the superiority of the nation, encouraging it to take upon itself the “White Man’s Burden” of civilizing backwards peoples.123 As prominent Protestant clergyman Josiah Strong put it in 1893: . . . in this new era mankind is to come more and more under Anglo-­Saxon influence, and that Anglo-­Saxon civilization is more favorable than any other to the spread of those principles whose universal triumph is necessary to that perfection of the race to which it is destined; the entire realization of which will be the kingdom of heaven fully come on earth.124 The Founding Fathers were certainly aware of the lessons of empire and the close connection between war and despotism, but, nevertheless, as Roosevelt put it, “[i]t is only the warlike power of a civilized people that can give peace to the world.”125 Or, as Burns puts it, “[t]he Chosen People have a God-­given right to put to the sword those who would prevent us from extending the sphere of our blessings.”126 Manifest destiny, then, should be understood as the nineteenth century version of American exceptionalism, a continuous idea stemming from the religion and religiosity of the early settlers, picking up secular steam from the political Founding, and coming to serve as the ideational backbone of continental expansionism in the nineteenth century. In fact, as pointed out earlier, tracing the idea leads us back to English imperialists, drawing on a sense of racial and cultural superiority, an unquestioned belief in the superiority of Protestantism and English political institutions. The sense of a right to conquest “backwards” peoples who could benefit from “civilization”127 is a rather recognizable consequence of exceptionalism, be it English imperial exceptionalism in the colonial era or American exceptionalism in the nineteenth and twentieth century. This sense of missionary exceptionalism would eventually carry the United States across the seas, colonize the Philippines, and twice challenge Germany as the European hegemon, a topic we will return to in the next chapters.

The long-­term influence of the Puritans Both varieties of American exceptionalism – whether exemplary or missionary – seem to hinge on their interpretation of the Puritans’ role in developing an early American or New World identity. A critic could ask: “What if they had no influence?” Ever since Perry Miller reinvigorated scholarship on the Puritans in the early twentieth century, there has been debate over what exactly the Puritans thought they were doing.128 Authors such as Richard Gamble and Kagan argue that the Puritans had a much less prominent role in the making of an American identity than is commonly afforded them. And, perhaps because the Puritan era was self-­contained

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Challenging the identity dichotomy   43 and short-­lived, and because the exact nature of their “errand in the wilderness” is debatable, their contribution to an American national identity was insignificant?129 Indeed, as Gamble shows in his book In Search of the City on a Hill, the discourse we now think of as famous – “A Model of Christian Charity” written by Winthrop in 1630 and today known for containing the phrase quoted at the top of this chapter – was not always famous. In fact, Gamble finds, the address was not well known until the twentieth century.130 It was, rather, John F. Kennedy’s “city upon a hill” speech in 1961 that inaugurated the phrase’s ubiquitous quotation in political speeches, and of course Ronald Reagan’s powerful and often used phrase “shining city on a hill” that cemented it in the American national narrative as the defining image of the United States in the world. Indeed, whereas historian Walter McDougall wrote a book arguing that the evidence that the colonists believed that America was a holy land is “so abundant as to be trite,”131 he later issued a mea culpa.132 Based on Gamble’s book tracing the (lack of ) awareness of Winthrop’s “city upon a hill” discourse, McDougall concludes that the discourse itself was immediately forgotten and did not appear in American folklore until Miller dug it up again in his work on the Puritans in the 1930s.133 Besides, McDougall writes, the Puritans were only one of four “cradle cultures,” the others being the Virginia Cavaliers, Pennsylvania Quakers, and Scots-­Irish on the Appalachian frontier as described in David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed.134 In short, the Puritans’ legacy was insignificant. These critiques are technically correct – the Puritans were a small group with a bounded religious mission that indeed failed after a few generations. Certainly, the English colonies in North America were made up of more than just Puritan experiments; they were also made up of other religious groups (Quakers and Anglicans) as well as explorers and profiteers. The rigid theocratic community of the Puritans mandated control, obedience, and self-­restraint, but the expansive North American wilderness – as Kagan has pointed out – inspired freedom, dissent, independence, and the lust for land – in a word, sin.135 And, surely enough, the Puritan communities in New England were eventually absorbed into mainstream colonial society. Its early impact would slowly wane as the influence of the mid-­Atlantic colonies increased. By the early eighteenth century, New England was not a Puritan stronghold but rather a liberal and commercial area. The Chesapeake Bay region was now the main influence on American colonial society; a region characterized “not by isolationism and utopianism, not by cities upon hills and covenants with God, but by aggressive expansionism, acquisitive materialism, and an overarching ideology of civilization that encouraged and justified both.”136 The possibility of becoming rich from overseas trade and western expansion made settlers more interested in “saving dollars than souls.”137 So, one might conclude, the Puritans were inconsequential in the making of an American national imagination.

Not so fast Notwithstanding the Puritans’ declension, arguing for minimal Puritan influence on the development of an American national identity fails to allow for the

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44   A distinct nation is born symbolic influence of “election” and “chosenness” in this identity’s development.138 What the Puritans did for the nascent American identity was to invest it with symbols and significance, early lore and images readily available to future generations constructing a distinctly American identity. The unifying symbol was (religious) exceptionalism, and it fit particularly well with the political exceptionalism that would later come to be expressed through the Revolution. The Puritans were but a small part of the colonies – yes – but their influence far exceeded their numbers. The debate over the Puritan influence over American identity is not really about the Puritans at all. Rather, the story of the Puritan imprint on the American national imagination is the story of what a growing nation does to the idea of its own mythical origins. The issue is not really who the Puritans actually were, or what their own definition of their mission was. The Puritans – rather than small, insignificant, and forgotten – only grew in mythical significance as the American nation grew in size. Arguing that American exceptionalism somehow defines the American identity does not equal arguing that the term exceptional – or the term “city upon a hill” – must be traceable to 1776, or even 1630. It entails arguing that the self-­understanding as exceptional must be traceable. Whereas the terms have come and gone with each historic period (as seen with “manifest destiny”), the self-­identification remains. The critique, then, while technically correct – the Puritans were a small group with a bounded religious mission that indeed failed after a few generations – misses the extent to which the Puritan piece in the identity puzzle has still been of disproportionate size and significance. For example, when French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville observed that “[t] he position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one,” he pointed back to their “strictly Puritanical origin,” as the first factor explaining this exceptionalism.139 Together with his friend Gustav de Beaumont, Tocqueville had traversed the Atlantic in order to study the prison system of the United States. He seems to have strayed from his original mission, however, traveling extensively and taking notes on many issues not immediately related to the U.S. penitentiary system. Tocqueville found himself impressed by this successful democratic upstart so different from what he knew from Europe. He noted what he considered to be admirable qualities of the United States, including lack of a feudal past; social egalitarianism; meritocratic tendencies; individualism; and a focus on rights. He also commented upon the greater religiosity found in the New World as compared to the nations of the Old. These interesting qualities, he thought, were connected to the country’s religious commitment to the “nonconformist,” congregationally organized Protestant sects, which emphasized the individual’s personal relationship with God – in other words, not mediated by the state-­supported, hierarchically organized churches dominant in Europe.140 Tocqueville is beloved by Americans in part because of his general admiration for the United States and is well known to students of American exceptionalism as the person who first applied the term “exceptional” to the United States.

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Challenging the identity dichotomy   45 Of course he did not use it in the manner in which Americans invoke it today. The context in which Tocqueville was writing and comparing the United States to Europe colored his looking glass. As James Bryce pointed out, Tocqueville analyzed American conditions against the backdrop of France. Accordingly, the French inclination to view conditions different from those found in France as somehow being exceptional was ever present, Bryce – the Briton – argued.141 But Tocqueville was not the only writer influenced by the Puritans. Miller’s landmark studies of the Puritans in the early twentieth century traced their influence on nineteenth century American writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville. Miller showed how the Puritan idea of exceptionalism influenced concepts and images used in American literature, contributing to the creation of America as an intellectual entity.142 As Melville wrote in 1850, Israel did not escape bondage from Egypt to follow in her footsteps: [a]nd we Americans are the peculiar, chosen people – the Israel of our time, we bear the ark of liberties of the world.” This means that Americans must remember that, “almost for the first time in the history of the earth, national selfishness is unbounded philanthropy; for we cannot do a good to America, but we give alms to the world.143 Paine best expressed this universalist aspect of American exceptionalism in Common Sense, where he wrote, “[t]he cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind.”144 In fact, the tendency to equate America’s cause with that of the world began even before Paine. English Clergyman Andrew Burnaby, visiting the middle colonies in 1759–60, reported that: An idea strange as it is visionary, has entered into the minds of the generality of mankind, that empire is travelling westward; and every one is looking forward with eager and impatient expectation to that destined moment, when America is to give law to rest of the world.145 The universalist aspect of American exceptionalism, as expressed by Barnaby, Paine, and Melville is highly significant for its impact on later U.S. foreign policy. An earlier example of the Puritan impact on the developing New World identity can be seen a century after the Puritan exodus across the sea, when, during the colonies’ Great Awakening in the 1730s and 1740s, preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards was still utilizing millennial themes. Edwards in fact “extended the idea of mission to the colonial whole of Anglophone ‘America’, ” convinced that the new continent would begin “the most glorious renovation of the world,” and perhaps also – rather optimistically – that the sun would begin to shine from west to east.146 The New England colonists developed a “distinctive and long-­lasting narrative of American identity” which would, in time, come to be combined with the powerful ideology of the Republic’s political Founding.147

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46   A distinct nation is born This ideological combination created a particularly potent story about what kind of country the United States was – and was to be. As Tocqueville wrote in 1835, “The civilization of New England has been like a beacon lit upon mountain tops which, after warming all in its vicinity, casts a glow over the distant horizon.”148 The Puritan trace in the American national imagination is powerful.149 This is why it does not matter so much what the Puritans thought they were doing, or that they failed in doing it. As Gamble shows, it is highly unlikely that the Puritans themselves thought of their city upon a hill as anything more than a bounded religious community. They were concerned with their own experiment, not with any other communities who happened to be traveling to the New World in the 1600s. Nor could they know that there would be a future state on the lands they inhabited. What does matter, however, is how later generations of Americans have interpreted the Puritan errand in the New World wilderness, interpretations that have contributed to a national identity seen as exceptional. The Puritan imprint upon the American national imagination, then, is about an appropriated legacy that became woven into the fabric of American identity despite the modest reach – and arguable failure – of their own experiment.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that the classic Janus-­faced view of American identity as either exemplary or missionary is too clever by half. American history cannot be neatly divided into exemplary Puritans or missionary Founders. Instead, defining American identity simply as “the belief in American exceptionalism” – where “exceptional” connotes moral superiority over the Old World – makes for a more coherent and historically correct conception of identity. While this may sound rather simple, such a conception of American exceptionalism allows for many different strains of exceptionalism to come together, as this chapter has shown that they did early in American history. Religious exceptionalism led to the cultivation of the myth of the promised land. The Puritans have clearly had an important mythical presence in the American imagination. Furthermore, I have intimated two other ways in which the New World was seen as exceptional in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: geographically and economically (in terms of social mobility), as well as politically. By geographic exceptionalism is meant that the territory open for settling created “images of openness, abundance, and individual empowerment” not seen in other places before.150 This was the secular exceptionalism that developed once the religions experiments failed and declension and apostasy came to the fore. As John Locke famously said in his Second treatise on government of 1690, “in the beginning all the World was America.”151 Political exceptionalism refers to the colonists growing accustomed to self-­government, and then forming an entirely new political entity after the Revolution, which was taken to be a “model” for the rest of the world. The American identity was forged in revolution then further developed as the nation grew geographically and ever expanded its population. It was not fixed,

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Challenging the identity dichotomy   47 but under construction. Stephanson argues that American nationalism emerged only after the 1820s, manifesting itself “in the form of a diffuse disposition toward the world, for there was no clear outside to render its identity precise.”152 Building a nation and an accompanying identity is a process, and a slow one at that. In this chapter I have argued, however, that one should look much further back than the 1820s. The focus on the Founding and the early era of the United States is vital not just because it provided the new Republic with ready symbols, myths, and statesmen for the building of a national identity, but also because it laid the premises for the development of an American identity as opposed to a British one. Because the United States decided to break free from England, it was prevented from using its English past as the focus of the usual national project of glorifying one’s heritage, especially since the break-­up was less than amicable.153 This makes the commencement of the American narrative sudden, dramatic, and meaningful. Indeed, Tocqueville remarked on the vehemence with which Americans expressed their dislike of the British in the early parts of the nineteenth century. In Jefferson’s words, the Revolutionary War started as “a family quarrel between us and the English, who were then our brothers.” Americans and English began as a single people, as “our forefathers were Englishmen . . .” But as the English started treating the colonists as slaves, a “betrayal of family ties” inspired the War.154 Nevertheless, America’s past was British and the Americans themselves were largely Britons, which meant that the new United States had to look to the future for a national identity, where nothing but ideas existed. American identity instantly became connected to an idea of exceptionalism, taken from the Puritans and forged in the fires of revolution as opposed to from a secular development of a “community through history.”155 A more specific version of Stephanson’s argument is that of authors such as Tyrrell, who argues that American exceptionalism did not appear until the nineteenth century. Whereas the term “exceptional” used in the American context is commonly traced to Tocqueville in the 1830s – and was really not popularized until 1957 when Max Lerner wrote about “American exceptionalism” – this chapter has shown that the sentiments behind it “predated the creation of a summarizing term.”156 According to Greene’s investigation of early settler documents, it is clear that, in one form or another, a notion of distinctiveness was a significant component in intellectual constructs of America from the beginning.157 With the success of the Revolution came the thinking that the New World could be an example for the Old, argues Greene, serving as a model for the Europeans.158 Although the Puritans had surely already espoused this line of thinking, perhaps what Greene is referring to is America as a political model, in contrast to the Puritan project of being a religious model.159 Joyce Appleby dates the idea to a bit later, the mid 1790s, when the Revolution in France provided the Americans with further proof that their experiment was not simply an anomaly but rather the harbinger of a future political trend.160 Far from being the creation of later historians and social analysts, Greene concludes, “the concept of American exceptionalism with its positive connotations was present at the very creation of America.” By the time the nineteenth century

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48   A distinct nation is born came around the idea of America as an exceptional entity had long been an integral component in the American imagined community.161 This debate points to the importance of process, specifically the process of “imagining the nation,” which will always be an ongoing one. As Emily Rosenberg has written, the imagined community called the American nation is not an essence to be assumed but a “process of construction, made up through changing technologies of inclusion and exclusion, to be analyzed historically.”162 Many different factors came together to found “America.” The new Republic was an improbable combination of religious covenants and Enlightenment political philosophy. The prophetic met the universal – leading to the result that American exceptionalism is a narrative of peculiarity and universality.163 This ideational identity thus contrasted starkly with the one emerging in Europe, which emphasized permanency and continuity, a “glorious past of a homogeneous nation in ancestral lands” cultivating ancient traditions.164 In a way, the motto E Pluribus Unum – out of many, one – fits better than perhaps initially thought. Originally suggesting the unity of a country made up of different colonies or states, it has come to mean today the unity created among a diverse population. Either way, the claim holds: America is diverse, but still one through its strong and unifying idea of American exceptionalism.165 How, exactly, this has affected foreign policy is the topic of the next chapter.

Notes 1 Quoted in Dennis Merril and Thomas G. Paterson, eds., Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, vol. I, To 1920, 6th ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005), p. 31. 2 The depiction has been accepted by older and contemporary authors alike. See for instance Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968) for a classic account; for newer ones, see Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Serge Ricard, “The Exceptionalist Syndrome in U.S. Continental and Overseas Expansion,” in David K. Adams and Cornelis A. van Minnen, eds., Reflections on American Exceptionalism (Staffordshire, England: Keele University Press, 1994); Knud Krakau, “Nationalism in International Law and Practice,” in ibid.; Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right (New York: Hill & Wang, 1995); Walter A. McDougall, Promised land, Crusader State: the American encounter with the world since 1776 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997); Trevor B. McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Trevor B. McCrisken, “Exceptionalism,” in Alexander DeConde, Richard Dean Burns, and Frederik Logevall, eds., Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy Vol. II, 2nd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2002); and Colin Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). 3 Trevor B. McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 9. 4 Adams’ address as Secretary of State to the U.S. House of Representatives (July 4, 1821). 5 See, for instance, Jeffrey W. Legro, Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005).

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Challenging the identity dichotomy   49 6 I am here referring to the question of whether isolationism existed as a foreign policy tradition in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Whether or not the United States was isolationist in the interwar period in the twentieth century is a different – yet related – debate, which I shall discuss in the following chapters. For a discussion of how to define isolationism and whether the United States in fact was isolationist in the interwar period, see Bear Braumoeller, “The Myth of Isolationism,” Foreign Policy Analysis, 6(4), 2010, pp. 349–71. 7 Specifically, I argue that U.S. foreign policy has always been characterized by unilateral internationalism. See chapters 1 and 5 for a definition and elaboration. 8 McCrisken also notes this, see “Exceptionalism,” pp. 64–5. 9 Ian Tyrrell, “American Exceptionalism and Uneven Global Integration: resistance to the global society,” in Bruce Mazlish, Nayan Chanda, and Kenneth Weisbrode, eds., The Paradox of a Global USA (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), p. 65. 10 Mark Liberman, “The Third Life of American Exceptionalism,” Language Log.com (February 23, 2012). URL: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3798. 11 America as a Civilization: Life and Thought in the United States Today (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957). 12 Anthony D. Smith, Chosen Peoples (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 24–5. 13 Ibid, pp.  137–8. Smith differentiates between two kinds of sacred homeland: the promised land – the land of destination; and the ancestral homeland – the land of birth, i.e. the land of destiny versus the land of history. 14 Jack P. Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America: Exceptionalism and Identity From 1492–1800 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993), p. 6. 15 McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam, p. 1. 16 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 7. 17 See, for instance, Sacvan Bercovitch, “The Typology of America’s Mission,” American Quarterly, 30(2), 1978, p. 140. 18 Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, p. 25. 19 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 10. 20 Seymour Martin Lipset, “American Exceptionalism Reaffirmed,” in Byron Shafer, ed., Is America Different? A New Look at American Exceptionalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 4. 21 Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, p. 58. 22 Quoted in Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson, eds. Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Vol. I, 6th ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005), p. 31. It is, first, historically unclear whether Winthrop delivered this speech or merely wrote it. Second, if he did give the speech, it is unclear where he would have done so – aboard the Arbella on the way to the New World; back in England; or somewhere unknown. 23 Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, p. 58. 24 Pownall cited in Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, p. 160. 25 See Perry Miller, “Errand into the Wilderness,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 10(1), 1953, pp. 8, 11. 26 Ibid. 27 J. Hector St. John Crèvecœur, “What is an American?” (Letter III) Letters from an American Farmer, reprinted from the original ed., with a prefatory note by W. P. Trent and an introduction by Ludwig Lewisohn (New York: Fox Duffield, 1904), p. 73; Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, p. 104. 28 Adam Smith, Chapter 7: On Colonies, Part II: “Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies,” in Wealth of Nations (1776). 29 Hakluyt cited in Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, pp. 45–6. 30 Ibid.

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50   A distinct nation is born 31 Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, p. 207. 32 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 13. 33 Kagan, Dangerous Nation, pp. 42–3. 34 See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (New York: Verso, 2006), p. 6 for what Anderson means by an “imagined community.” 35 Cited in Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, p. 134. 36 Thomas Paine, Common Sense, (New York: Peter Eckler Publishing Co, 1918), p. 25. 37 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 13. 38 William Earl Weeks, Building the Continental Empire: American Expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), p. 10. 39 Paine, Common Sense, p. 37. 40 Paine, The American Crisis V (London: James Watson, 1835), p. 61. See also Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, p. 135. 41 Paine cited in Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, pp. 135–8. 42 Paine, Common Sense, p. 57. 43 Paine, Common Sense, p.  24; Walter LaFeber, The American Age: United States foreign policy at home and abroad since 1750 (New York: Norton, 1989) pp. 19–20. 44 LaFeber, American Age, p. 43. 45 Cited in McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam, p. 9. 46 George Washington, First Inaugural Address, New York, Thursday, April 30, 1789. 47 Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, p. 119. 48 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 5. 49 Quoted in Russell B. Nye, This Almost Chosen People (East Lansing. MI: Michigan State University Press, 1966), p. 45. 50 Knud Krakau, ed. The American Nation – National Identity – Nationalism (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997), p. 10. 51 Quoted in Weeks, Building the Continental Empire, p. 31. 52 Anderson, Imagined Communities, pp. 193–4. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, p. 201; Daniel Bell, “The ‘Hegelian Secret’: Civil Society and American Exceptionalism,” in Shafer, ed., Is America Different? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 51. 56 Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1955). While this statement is true, and useful for our purposes, one would be remiss not to comment upon the fact that the existence and legacy of slavery in the United States is an important critical challenge to this story. Indeed, it is important to note that the narrative of American exceptionalism treats race and slavery as “tragic exceptions, and the abolition of the latter was viewed as a partial resolution, encompassed in Lincoln’s idea of a “new birth of freedom” in the Gettysburg Address,” writes historian Ian Tyrrell on his blog. See “What is American Exceptionalism.” URL: http://iantyrrell.wordpress.com/papers-­and-comments/. 57 Hans Kohn, American Nationalism,: An Interpretive Essay (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957), p. 41. 58 Ibid., p. 27. 59 Lipset, “American Exceptionalism Reaffirmed,” p. 7. 60 Quoted in McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam, p. 7. 61 For immigration statistics, see http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/cohn.immigration.us. The years from 1630–1700 averaged 2,200 immigrants per annum; from 1730–1780, 4,325; from 1780–1819, 9,900. From 1832 the immigration rates increased dramatically (yearly average of 71,916, with high percentages coming from Ireland and Germany), whereas they virtually exploded in 1846 (averaging 334,506 until 1854, again with high rates of Irish and Germans). Not until the 1880s did the percentages

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Challenging the identity dichotomy   51 of Central, Eastern, and Southern Europeans climb significantly in the immigration statistics. 62 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 29. 63 Peter Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire. The Language of American Nationhood (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2000), p. 148. 64 Ibid., pp. 13–14. Onuf suggests that Jefferson’s conception of race proceeded from his recognition of distinct national identities – African, British, and American – during the extended Revolutionary crisis. See pp. 158–9. 65 Ibid., p. 13. 66 Ibid., p. 159. 67 Ibid., p. 55. 68 See Rogers M. Smith, Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), and Michael Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987). 69 Weeks, Building the Continental Empire, p. 10. 70 Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, p. 25. 71 Edward McNall Burns, America’s Sense of Mission. Concepts of National Purpose and Destiny (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1957), pp. 30–31. Frederick Merk was more modest, defining the American sense of mission as “idealistic, self-­denying, hopeful of divine favor for national aspirations, though not sure of it.” See Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), p. 261, quoted in Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, pp. 130–31. 72 Deborah Madsen, American Exceptionalism (Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 1998). “Global revolutionaries” is Robert Kagan’s phrase, see Dangerous Nation (New York: Knopf, 2006). 73 Miller, “Errand into the Wilderness,” pp. 8–14. Theodore Dwight Bozeman, “ ‘Errand into the Wilderness’ Reconsidered,” The New England Quarterly, 59(2), 1986, p. 232. The Separatists were non-­conformists, meaning they did not wish to belong to the Church of England. The Puritans would retrospectively become non-­conformists after the Act of Uniformity in 1662, which prescribed the form of public prayers, administration of sacraments, and other rites of the Established Church of England, following all the rites and ceremonies in the Book of Common Prayer. It also required episcopal ordination for all ministers, which was reintroduced after the Puritans had abolished many features of the Church during the Civil War. 74 Kagan, Dangerous Nation, p. 8. 75 Miller, “Errand into the Wilderness,” p. 14. 76 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p.  4. Nevertheless, Stephanson affirms the conventional view of the Pilgrims and the Puritans as exemplary isolationists or “separatists.” See also Miller, “Errand into the Wilderness.” 77 Smith, Chosen Peoples, p. 121. 78 Kagan, Dangerous Nation, p. 12. 79 James Bryce, The Predictions of Hamilton and de Tocqueville (Baltimore: Publication Agency of Johns Hopkins University, 1887), p. 348. 80 Tyrrell, “American Exceptionalism and Uneven Global Integration: Resistance to the Global Society,” p. 66. 81 Bryce, The Predictions of Hamilton and de Tocqueville, p. 357. 82 “. . . save that a few Dutch were left in New York, a few persons of Swedish blood in Delaware, and some isolated German settlements in Pennsylvania,” writes Bryce, p. 331. Of course, here Bryce may have been guilty of a common English failing: to conflate “English” with “British” and ignore Scottish and Irish strands. 83 Ibid., p. 350. 84 Kagan, Dangerous Nation, p. 12; Miller, “Errand into the Wilderness.”

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52   A distinct nation is born   85 Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny. A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935), reprinted in 1963 by Quadrangle Books, Chicago, p. 17.   86 Ibid., p. 50.   87 Tucker and Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty, Preface.   88 Burns, America’s Sense of Mission, pp. 14, 90.   89 Quoted in McCrisken, “Exceptionalism,” in Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, p. 71.   90 Ibid. My italics. Wilson sent U.S. troops into Mexico twice, to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and to Cuba, in addition to maintaining the military “protection” of Nicaragua. Furthermore, he intervened militarily in the Russian civil war twice.   91 McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam, p. 11.   92 James Mendelsohn, “Writing, Criticism and the Imagination of Nation,” in Dale Carter, ed., Marks of Distinction: American Exceptionalism Revisited (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 2001, p. 75; Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. xii.   93 Weinberg, Manifest Destiny, p. 8.   94 Weinberg, Manifest Destiny, p.  122. The phrase appeared in the July issue of the Democratic Review of 1845 in an article on the Texas question.   95 See also Weinberg, Manifest Destiny, esp. chapters 1, 2, and 4, on the issue of contiguous versus non-­contiguous territorial expansion, and the use of the concept of “natural right” to justify expansionism.   96 Dexter Perkins, The American Approach to Foreign Policy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962) revised ed, p. 13.   97 Greene, Intellectual Construction of America, p.  124. See also Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, pp. 13–14; also chapter 1.   98 Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, pp. 11, 13–14.   99 Ibid., pp. 48–9. 100 Ibid. See also Joyce O. Appleby, “Without Resolution: The Jeffersonian Tensions in American Nationalism,” Inaugural Lecture, University of Oxford, April 25, 1991 (Clarendon Press, 1992). 101 Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, p. 51. 102 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 25. 103 Quoted in Joyce Appleby, “Recovering America’s Historic Diversity: Beyond Exceptionalism,” Journal of American History, 79(2), 1992, pp. 420–1. My italics. 104 Smith, Chosen Peoples, p. 138. Here, Smith cites Eric Kaufmann, “Modern Formation, Ethnic Reformation: The Social Sources of the American Nation,” Geopolitics 7(2), 2002. Stephanson’s Manifest Destiny also argues for this link. 105 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 5. 106 Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, p. 92. 107 Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, pp. 57–8. 108 See William Appleman Williams, “The Frontier Thesis and American Foreign Policy,” Pacific Historical Review, 24(4), 1955, pp. 379–95 where Williams argued the United States is “exceptional” in its ability to avoid the status of empire. 109 For example, in telling the story of manifest destiny in the 1800s, Stephanson sets aside “the enormous fact of the civil war,” which, as Robert Kagan shows in four chapters of his book, is a questionable choice. Historiography on American foreign policy during the nineteenth century up till the Civil War has been called the “great American desert.” See Kinley Brauer, “The Great American Desert Revisited,” Diplomatic History, 13(3), 1989. 110 Michael McGerr, “The Price of the New Transnational History,” American Historical Review 98, Oct 1991, p. 1066. 111 See Joyce O. Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2000) for a chronicle of how after the

Challenging the identity dichotomy   53 112 113 114 115

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116 117 118 119

120

Revolution the regional differences persisted, and indeed strengthened through the north/south divide over slavery. Bryce, The Predictions of Hamilton and de Tocqueville, p. 357. Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, p. 192. Burns, America’s Sense of Mission, p. 14; Kohn, American Nationalism, p. 105. John Lothrop Motley, Historic Progress and American Democracy (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1869), p. 69, quoted in Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, p. 162. See Kohn, American Nationalism. Bryce, The Predictions of Hamilton and de Tocqueville, p. 375. Abraham Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862. He was perhaps building on Thomas Jefferson, who had said in 1805 that America was “the world’s best hope.” See Weinberg, Manifest Destiny, p. 40. Kagan, Dangerous Nation; see also Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: American Exceptionalism and Empire, rev. ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003) for a thorough treatment of the effects of sectionalism and the issue of slavery on foreign policy in the 1840s. Weinberg wrote that whereas academics writing close to the passions of the Civil War attributed expansionism to the “glut of the slaveholders” . . . more objective contemporary historians believe that the intensity and extensity of expansionism, while due partly to sectional interests, were caused primarily by nationalistic attitudes resting not merely upon practical interests but also upon the “emotion” of “manifest destiny” and its correlate, the “idealism” of the spirit of democracy. (Manifest Destiny, p. 101).

121 Paul S. Boyer, “Manifest Destiny,” in The Oxford Companion to United States History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) URL: www.encyclopedia.com/ doc/1O119-ManifestDestiny.html. 122 Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People (New York: F. S. Crofts and Co., 1950), p. 520, cited in Burns, America’s Sense of Mission, p. 8. 123 “The White Man’s Burden” was a poem written by Rudyard Kipling originally published in the popular magazine McClure’s in 1899, with the subtitle The United States and the Philippine Islands. 124 Josiah Strong, The New Era, or The Coming Kingdom (New York: the Baker and Taylor Co., 1893), p. 81, cited in Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, p. 138. 125 Burns, America’s Sense of Mission, p. 250. 126 Ibid., p. 257. 127 Kagan, Dangerous Nation, p. 13. 128 Theodore Dwight Bozeman argues that Perry Miller’s original essay on the errand into the wilderness discusses two different kinds of “errands,” one immediate and practical (to reform themselves and keep their church pure), and one unspoken and assumed, that of being a “City Upon a Hill” and provide a model for England. Bozeman is critical of the tendency of later authors to rely uncritically on the conventional wisdom that developed about Miller’s second errand thesis, rather than investigate it and incorporate the meaning of the first errand into their work as well. See, “ ‘Errand into the Wilderness’ Reconsidered.” 129 See Francis T. Butts for a discussion of a different controversy concerning Perry Miller’s influence over our understanding of the Puritans. Butts argues the reaction against Miller’s scholarship – beginning with the social historians of the 1960s who accused Miller of focusing too much on the formal thought of the Puritans and too little on the social and economic aspect of their lives – has largely been leveled at a straw man caricature of Miller and his work. See “The Myth of Perry Miller,” The American Historical Review, 87(3), 1982, pp. 665–94.

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54   A distinct nation is born 130 Richard M. Gamble, In Search of the City on a Hill. The Making and Unmaking of an American Myth (New York: Continuum Books, 2012). 131 Walter A. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State: the American encounter with the world since 1776 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), p. 17. 132 Ibid., “American Exceptionalism . . . Exposed.” Foreign Policy Research Institute (October 2012). URL: www.fpri.org/articles/2012/10/american-­exceptionalismexposed. 133 Gamble, In Search of the City on a Hill. 134 See David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University, 1989). 135 Kagan, Dangerous Nation, p. 10. 136 Ibid. 137 Harold U. Faulkner, Economic History of the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1937) p. 93, quoted in LaFeber, The American Age, p. 10. 138 “Declension” was a term used by Perry Miller in “Errand into the Wilderness.” The term means a “falling away from the high principles and ambitions of the Puritan ‘errand.’ ” See also Madsen, American Exceptionalism, pp. 9–11. 139 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume II, Part I, chapter IX, “The Example of the Americans Does Not Prove That A Democratic People Can Have No Aptitude and No Taste for Science, Literature, Or Art.” Access at: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/toc_indx.html The entire quote is: At the head of the enlightened nations of the Old World the inhabitants of the United States more particularly identified one to which they were closely united by a common origin and by kindred habits. Among this people they found distinguished men of science, able artists, writers of eminence; and they were enabled to enjoy the treasures of the intellect without laboring to amass them. In spite of the ocean that intervenes, I cannot consent to separate America from Europe. I consider the people of the United States as that portion of the English people who are commissioned to explore the forests of the New World, while the rest of the nation, enjoying more leisure and less harassed by the drudgery of life, may devote their energies to thought and enlarge in all directions the empire of mind. The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people, and attempt to survey them at length with their own features. 140 Seymour Martin Lipset, “Still the Exceptional Nation?” The Wilson Quarterly, 24(1), 2000, pp. 31–45. 141 Bryce, The Predictions of Hamilton and de Tocqueville, p.  351. De Tocqueville himself admitted to never writing anything about the United States without thinking of France, as noted by Seymour Martin Lipset, “American Exceptionalism Reaffirmed,” p. 5. 142 Madsen, American Exceptionalism, pp. 9–11.

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Challenging the identity dichotomy   55 143 Herman Melville, White Jacket (New York: Harper, 1850), chapter 36, quoted in Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, pp. 156–7. 144 Paine, Common Sense, p. x. 145 Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, p. 101. 146 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, pp.  11–13. Edwards was, however, moving from a focus on cataclysmic events to more secular and individual processes of improvement. 147 Madsen, American Exceptionalism, p. 9. 148 Quoted in Gamble, In Search of the City upon a Hill, p. 67. 149 The focus by historians on British colonists on a civilizing mission and religiously missionary Puritans does not take away from the one community that was genuinely looking to isolate itself from the Old World. The Pilgrims of the Mayflower, led by William Bradford, came over in 1620 after having already left England for the Netherlands. Having broken with the Anglican Church, the Pilgrims originally left England because they found life had become impossible for Separatists, as they were called at the time. After a period in the Netherlands, they boarded the famed Mayflower and made their way to the New World, content never to look back. The Pilgrims arriving in Plymouth in 1620 may be categorized as “isolationists,” but not Winthrop’s Puritans, who arrived a decade later during the Great Migration. See Kagan, p.  8; Madsen American Exceptionalism, p.  16. According to Madsen, Winthrop’s fleet was made up of “non-­Separating Congregationalists.” Bradford’s Separatists indeed intended to make a permanent and lasting colony in the New World “rather than a temporary refuge from the difficulties and persecutions they had endured in Europe.” The Separatists had no intention of becoming a model for Europe. They were, rather, “isolating” themselves from it. 150 Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, p. 207. 151 John Locke, Second Treatise on Government (Indiana: C.B. Macpherson, 1690/1980). 152 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 28. 153 Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, p. 21. 154 Ibid. 155 See Anderson, Imagined Communities. 156 Byron E. Shafer, ed., Is America Different, p. 1. 157 Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America, p.  200; Ian Tyrrell, “American Exceptionalism in an Age of International History,” American Historical Review vol. 96 no. 4 (October 1991), p. 1035. 158 Greene, Intellectual Construction of America, p. 207. 159 Although that was also a political project, as Perry Miller has argued. See Miller, “Errand into the Wilderness.” 160 Joyce Appleby, “Recovering America’s Historic Diversity: Beyond Exceptionalism,” Journal of American History, 79(2), 1992, p. 422. 161 Greene, Intellectual Construction of America, pp. 6–7. 162 Emily Rosenberg, “A Call to Revolution: A roundtable on early U.S. foreign relations,” Diplomatic History, 22(1), 1998, p. 69. 163 This is of course true of all exceptionalist narratives. 164 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 28. 165 Gunnar Myrdal, and many others, commented on this apparent paradox of Americans: they were a diverse lot yet one could easily identify a “strong unity” and a “basic homogeneity and stability in its valuations.” Myrdal quoted in Vanessa B. Beasley, You, the People. American National Identity in Presidential Rhetoric (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2004), p. 25. See also Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma; the Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944).

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3 Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy

Annuit Coeptis; Novus ordo Seclorum “God has blessed this undertaking; a new order for the ages.” (The Great Seal adopted by Congress in 1782)

Introduction: old and new paradigms For quite some time, the paradigm in the study of American foreign policy was that the United States was founded as a country aiming to isolate itself from the world, cutting off any ties to potentially corrupting influences emanating from the Old World. As Thomas Paine wrote, the American colonies “ought form no partial connection with any part of [Europe]. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions.”1 Classic diplomatic historians like Walter LaFeber argued that Paine’s view would come to dominate “U.S. foreign policy over much of the next two hundred years.”2 As shown in the previous chapter this policy of isolationism was linked to a sense of exemplary exceptionalism. To illustrate: Classic paradigm, part I National Identity Exemplary

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Foreign Policy Tradition Isolationist/aloof

The classic paradigm of early U.S. foreign policy argued that the United States emerged onto the international scene quite late in the game, with the sudden expulsion of the Spanish empire from the U.S. sphere of influence with the Spanish–American War of 1898. Along the way, the United States had also – somehow – acquired colonies in Asia. This imperial “aberration” at the turn of the century – as the prominent diplomatic historian Samuel Flagg Bemis called it3 – marked the transition from isolationism to internationalism in U.S. foreign policy, a tradition cemented in Woodrow Wilson’s quest to make the world “safe for democracy.”4

Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   57

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This supposedly more recent internationalist foreign policy tradition would also be traced back to the American sense of exceptionalism – this time a missionary kind of exceptionalism. Some historians argued that the United States had cycled between internationalism and isolationism throughout its history, whereas others argued that the United States was first isolationist, then internationalist. This was, in short, the old isolationist/internationalist dichotomous paradigm of diplomatic history, one that was also utilized by political scientists writing about U.S. foreign policy.5 To illustrate: Classic paradigm, part II National Identity Missionary

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Foreign Policy Tradition Internationalism

This classic story of U.S. foreign policy contains a number of problematic assumptions. How does a country simply stumble onto a continental (and, subsequently, an overseas) empire and, eventually, world power status? Was the continental expansion in the nineteenth century perhaps of significance not just for those studying domestic frontier history, but also to those studying U.S. foreign policy? How does one square the depiction of an isolated and isolationist nation with that of a rising power, eventually becoming one of two superpowers in the world? Paradoxically, much of the scholarship depicting early U.S. foreign policy as isolationist became influential just as it became outdated – between 1960 and 1990 – especially in textbooks and fields other than history of U.S. foreign relations, such as political science. The revision of the old paradigm (as presented above) within the field of history of U.S. foreign relations started as early as the mid-­twentieth century, when the so-­called revisionist historians of the Wisconsin School, led by William Appleman Williams, began to challenge the classic story of isolationism. Turning the old paradigm on its head, the revisionist historians argued that the United States was actively participating in international affairs from its inception, and that it never aimed to isolate itself from the world. Rather, the United States had always been expansionist and much less innocent than previously assumed by proponents of a moral exceptionalism on the part of the United States – meaning that the United States was somehow morally superior to its colonial cousins across the Atlantic.6 Williams argued for a specific understanding of American history where moralistic and ideological elements became integrated with the fundamentally secular and economic nature of the “Open Door Policy,” serving to create a particular American kind of expansionism that aimed at “the marketplace of the mind and the polls as well as of the pocketbook.”7 But one does not need to adhere to the Wisconsin School’s economic interpretation of U.S. history to acknowledge the new paradigm’s insights. These revisionist historians pointed out that America’s very Founding was a significant international event with

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58   A distinct nation is born implications for the European balance of power and especially the inveterate rivalry between Britain and France. The continental expansion during the nineteenth century and the ideology behind it – the study of manifest destiny formerly falling under western or settler/frontier history – was in fact the United States building an empire. As we saw in the previous chapter, there are simultaneously old and new paradigms competing with each other in the study of U.S. foreign policy. The old paradigm, still dominant in political science, was the thesis of a periodic vacillation between isolationism and internationalism, whereas the new paradigm, generally accepted in the study of U.S. foreign relations, views U.S. foreign relations as inherently internationalist with some scholars also viewing it as expansionist. The old paradigm portrayed the early history of the Republic as isolated from the world (an era of “free security” for the United States where it did not have to concern itself with the foreign world). The new paradigm describes it as embroiled in world politics.8 The history of westward expansion and the era of manifest destiny, which in the old paradigm were treated as topics of domestic policy, are now acknowledged as part of the history of American foreign relations, although here there is more work to be done.9 In fact, the advent of the “empire” literature, which has gone through cycles of scholarship (including the Wisconsin School or revisionist school associated with Appleman Williams, the body of literature reacting to the end of the cold war and the latest reaction to the George W. Bush administration’s adventures),10 documents the United States as a “Hercules in the cradle” that actively pursued “empire,” not an aloof country walling off the foreign world.11 Today this internationalist and expansionist view of American history makes up the new paradigm in the study of U.S. foreign relations. In this paradigm, continental expansion counts as acts of foreign, not domestic, policy.12 The dismissal of isolationism as a real foreign policy tradition is now the rule rather than the exception amongst historians of U.S. foreign relations, regardless of theoretical subfield. In fact, it is now commonplace for historians of U.S. foreign relations to connect the issue of expansion and expansionism in the nineteenth century to an overall U.S. foreign policy tradition, linking early U.S. foreign policy to its twentieth century foreign policy.13 To illustrate: New paradigm National Identity Missionary

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Foreign Policy Tradition Internationalist/interventionist

The fact that contemporary historians do not think early U.S. foreign policy was isolationist at all presents a challenge to those studying U.S. foreign policy

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   59 because the old paradigm still reigns supreme. This is especially true in political science and in textbooks.14 Some authors recognize that the term isolationism has fallen out of favor, but still use replacement terms like “aloof,” “reticent” or “separateness” to describe eighteenth and nineteenth century U.S. foreign policy.15 This only serves to add fuel to the confused fire, and is not analytically helpful – or correct, for that matter. But what does this new paradigm mean? What exactly does an internationalist foreign policy entail? Can we divide U.S. foreign policy history into different periods and categories of internationalism (multilateral/unilateral)? What role does the American view of itself as exceptional have in the new paradigm? Furthermore, how are the paradigms presented in the works of historians, political scientists, and textbook writers? This chapter will first present and critique the old paradigm coupling isolationism and internationalism in either a cyclical or periodic fashion, showing why it was abandoned within the field of history. We shall see that the new paradigm is still struggling to supplant the old one, as the old trope of isolationism is enjoying a rather long goodbye in history and political science alike. I will argue that replacement terms such as ‘separateness’ or ‘aloof ’ are in fact ill fitted to the new understanding of American foreign policy. I will show why the interaction of American exceptionalism and U.S. foreign policy can be seen not in two Janus-­faced variations (exemplary/isolationist and missionary/internationalist) but more simply as the exceptional nature of American identity contributing to steady continental and overseas expansion. To illustrate: National Identity → Foreign Policy Tradition Missionary → Internationalist/interventionist

Case studies General expansion

I will put forth the argument that the term unilateral internationalism fittingly customizes the general term “internationalism” to the American historical foreign policy record, encompassing terms and policies such as “no permanent alliances,” “nonentanglement,” the Monroe Doctrine, and expansionism. The general quest on the part of the United States to lead – rather than follow – has been a lodestar in its approach to international relations. This is very much connected to American exceptionalism. Unilateral internationalism was not isolationism, nor separatism – rather, U.S. policymakers sought to prevent outside influence from reaching the American continent, so as to be able to keep the American continent and U.S. foreign policy under U.S. direction. The New World had nothing to learn from the Old. In short unilateral internationalism better describes the broad historical trends of American foreign policy, and makes us better able to understand the seminal events in American foreign policy in the twentieth century, which is the topic of the next section of the book.

60   A distinct nation is born

The classic paradigm: the isolationist/internationalist dichotomy

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It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements . . . (George Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796) . . . peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none . . . These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. (Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address, 1801) “By popular theory,” Edward McNall Burns wrote in 1957, “the history of the foreign policy of the United States falls into two periods – a period of isolation from 1776 to 1898 and a period of intervention in world affairs from 1898 to the present.”16 Classic diplomatic historians such as Dexter Perkins argued that the Declaration of Independence and the Revolution constituted “an act of isolation, a cutting of the ties with the Old World, the deed of a society which felt itself different from those which existed on the other side of the Atlantic . . .”17 In fact, Burns argued, the isolationism of the Founding Fathers was probably more deeply embedded than had been acknowledged, because they thought, expressed in the words of George Mason, that “nature having separated us, by an immense ocean, from the European nations, the less we have to do with their quarrels or politics, the better.”18 Ernest Lee Tuveson wrote that Thomas Jefferson and those who like him thought the “young republic should be a haven of goodness” were “the most isolationist.”19 This isolationism was said, as seen in the previous chapter, to stem from the idea of American exceptionalism – a moral, geographic, and political exceptionalism that the New World had developed in contrast to the Old. The old paradigm of exemplary isolationism argued that: (1) the Founders advocated a policy of isolation from Europe; (2) the United States was able to continue this policy and stay isolated from great power politics due to the era of “free security” that the United States enjoyed at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries;20 (3) the animating idea behind the policy of isolation was the exemplary kind of exceptionalism; (4) nineteenth-­century expansion was a part of this exemplary isolationism; and (5) exemplary exceptionalism cycled throughout American history, interchanging with its mirror image: missionary internationalism. By the end of this chapter, I hope the reader will conclude that none of these points are in fact correct.

Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   61

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Defining isolationism The word “isolationist” was listed for the first time in the 1901 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (without noting any significance for American politics), and was not listed in American dictionaries until 1922.21 According to Manfred Jonas, the first known application of it to U.S. foreign policy was by Edward Price Bell, the London correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, in 1922. Bell noted that the United States was moving from “isolation into partnership” citing the U.S. entry into World War I. The 1933 edition of the OED listed no political usage of the term before April 21, 1921, when it appeared in the Glasgow Herald.22 The term “isolationist” only became widely used as late as post-­World War I, and then mostly as an accusation employed by supporters of the League of Nations against its opponents.23 The term was not used much until Albert K. Weinberg’s book Manifest Destiny (1935). American policy during the interwar years came to be described as isolationist and anomalous, requiring explanation and analysis, something that became a common endeavor after World War II.24 Indeed, “isolationist” seems to have a history of being used as a slur by pro-­interventionists, especially after Pearl Harbor, as Walter McDougall writes.25 According to Selig Adler, however, the term can in fact be traced back to as early as the 1850s, when American proponents of Europe’s democratic revolutions dubbed their opponents “isolationists.”26 The political implication of the term was given new emphasis when, in 1896, the Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfred Laurier referred to England’s “splendid isolation.” This phrase, shortened to “isolationism,” then became a designation for the twin policies of neutrality and non-­intervention. In Adler’s opinion, the Founding Fathers and their heirs regarded isolationism as a “positive policy designed to insure American freedom of action, to prevent foreign subversion, and to enable us to take advantage of Europe’s distress in order to round out our own boundaries,” underscoring that American isolationism was not social, cultural, or economic, but rather distinctly political-­military. Thus, isolationism coupled a determination to “stay out of foreign wars with an unwavering refusal to enter into alliances.”27 Weinberg, on the other hand, equated isolationism with non-­entanglement, thus defining it more as a negative policy.28 To Weinberg, the non-­entanglement of the Founding Fathers expressed a theory of the national interest that held that “all vital interests, and especially peace, flourish best when detached, in so far as possible through maintaining freedom of action, from the fate of the interests of the others.” Later, with John Quincy Adams’ famous speech against searching abroad for monsters to destroy, the principle also became a “theory of national duty.” It maintained that the United States could save the world only if it remained free to save itself – in other words, building on the traditional thesis of exemplary exceptionalism.29 But both Adler’s and Weinberg’s definitions seem to miss the point of isolationism – which is not to take advantage of Europe’s distress in order to “round

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62   A distinct nation is born out one’s borders,” to safeguard maneuverability, or to pursue general policies of neutrality and non-­intervention. Rather, it is to isolate one’s state from the affairs of others. This is a much stricter definition of the term than how classic historians used it. Isolationism entails, first, the voluntary abstention from a policy area – political, economic, or security-­related – over which a state is capable of exerting control. One can decide to be politically isolationist, economically isolationist, or isolationist in security policy. It is by voluntarily abstaining from exerting some kind of influence that one becomes isolationist, not by refraining from action where no action is possible, as Bear Braumoeller notes in his excellent conceptual discussion of isolationism.30 In the American case it has become commonplace to emphasize only security-­related isolationism, which already tells us something about the limited nature of the thesis of isolationism. But beyond simple voluntary abstention, isolationism means something even more severe. The second aspect of isolationism, I argue, entails the radical cutting of ties, the restricting of intercourse, and the sheltering/hiding (depending on one’s view) one’s citizens from the influence of other nations. Historical examples of such a policy of isolationism would be, for example, Japan, which was isolationist for two centuries under the Tokugawa shogunate. Japan at this time permitted only a few foreign traders to enter its territory and banned travel to other countries on pain of death. Other historical examples include Bhutan in the decades preceding 1960, China under the later Ming Dynasty, and Burma from 1963 to 1965.31 North Korea today would also seem to display some prominent isolationist features, but as Braumoeller argues, this is a common source of confusion. North Korea is not so much isolationist as that the international community isolates it. Thus, not even the secluded state of North Korea meets the criteria for a purely isolationist policy. The current Merriam Webster Dictionary defines isolationism as “a policy of national isolation by abstention from alliances and other international political and economic relations.”32 This means that while a wholesale policy of neutrality or non-­intervention would be a prime candidate for an isolationist foreign policy tradition, it is also possible to employ a specific policy of neutrality (such as the United States did under President George Washington in 1793) or of non-­ intervention (such as the United States did in the first part of World War I) at certain times in history while pursuing an overarching internationalist foreign policy. As Braumoeller, David Lake and Jeffrey Legro have all pointed out, a policy of non-­intervention or neutrality is indeterminate – it could be caused by isolationism or it could be caused by unilateralism.33 The old definitions, in other words, are unsatisfactory. Internationalism, on the other hand, is taken to mean the opposite of isolationism: voluntarily taking part in an area of international politics over which a state is capable of exerting control; engaging in political, cultural, economic and security politics across national borders. One can pursue unilateral or multilateral

Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   63 internationalism. Chapter 6 will discuss and define multilateralism. My argument is that the United States has pursued a policy of unilateral internationalism throughout its history.

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The Founders as isolationists? Let us then survey the argument that posits the Founders as proponents of a foreign policy of isolationism. Notwithstanding the initial alliance with France to gain independence, isolationism was said to be the strategy of choice of a new and – it was often assumed by classic historians – idealistic Republic. This is a description that builds on the view of the United States as having the moral high ground in rejecting “traditional diplomacy and power politics,” as Felix Gilbert wrote in his classic treatise To the Farewell Address.34 The Founding Fathers were reportedly intending to usher in a new era in international diplomacy, as traditional diplomacy would “fall at the first blowing of the trumpets of liberty.”35 Bradford Perkins similarly argued that the Founding Fathers were too idealistic and naïve to engage in European power politics, and Gilbert’s analysis of George Washington’s Farewell Address argued that the idealistic Founding Fathers viewed power politics as alien to them.36 Gilbert concluded that the United States existed under conditions in which its “foreign policy could become a policy of isolation.”37 What Gilbert meant, however, was political isolation from Europe. And this was not necessarily a product of idealism. The United States did not have to engage in balance-­of-power diplomacy in the mode of eighteenth century Europe because after the Napoleonic Wars it benefited from the great powers diverting their gaze from the American continent. Along with the fortuitous weakening of Spain, this meant that the United States existed in a relatively benign international system, undercutting the need to court great power allies. The only great power to fear was the one in the north (Great Britain). Nonetheless, in this classic paradigm of isolationism, historians saw Washington’s Farewell Address and Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural as the definitive formulation of early American thinking on foreign policy, updated to a nineteenth century context by the Monroe Doctrine.38 Washington’s Farewell Address made neutrality and non-­intervention “national fixures,” and Jefferson’s First Inaugural further “embedded isolationism in the public mind.”39 In the old paradigm, then, the Farewell Address, Jefferson’s First Inaugural, and the Monroe Doctrine formulated a coherent isolationist foreign policy for the United States. Such a policy was possible because, as C. Vann Woodward wrote, the United States enjoyed “free security” and free land, enabling the national myth of “America as an innocent nation in a wicked world,” able to obtain freely and innocently that which other nations sought by the sword.40 The idea of “free security” naturally went along with an assumption that the United States was an isolated and isolating, as opposed to an expanding and expansionist, nation.41 Certainly, the geographical distance between the New and the Old Worlds that Alexis de Tocqueville noted in the nineteenth century served to underline

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64   A distinct nation is born the feeling of isolation on the part of the colonists. But the simple fact of geographic distance could not be the cause of isolationism. According to the old paradigm, it was the feeling of being exceptional that really separated the Old and the New Worlds. As Stanley Hoffman wrote, “[t]he legacy of America’s past is a heritage of separation,” not only a physical separation between the New World and the traditional centers of world politics, but a “self-­conscious moral distance.”42 Moral and geographical exceptionalism was certainly a potent mix. Woodrow Wilson utilized them as explanations for America’s superior position in international relations. America was lucky in that it did not have to fear “from any quarter our independence or the integrity of our territory,” Wilson said, and other nations could be sure that America’s Christian identity would lead it on the path of “righteousness . . . derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture.”43 But geographical isolation did not inspire isolationism. The fact of geographical isolation and a foreign policy of isolationism are not one and the same, a distinction that the new paradigm underscores.44

Westward expansionism as isolationism: a logical fallacy As would become apparent, the classic isolationist paradigm contained an inherent contradiction. One could see why – “foreign” expansion onto the lands of Mexico, France, Spain, and Indian tribes does not fit neatly into an established exemplarist–isolationist narrative of nineteenth century American history. Indeed, manifest destiny was simultaneously considered to be an example of the missionary part of American history. There was thus an obvious tension between describing nineteenth century American history as fitting within the exemplary/ isolationist paradigm, while also describing it as expansionist, missionary, and pursuing the manifest destiny of the Republic. The scholarship on manifest destiny and the issue of territorial expansion is in fact illustrative of the transition from the old to the new paradigm in early American foreign relations. On the one hand, the old paradigm argued that the United States had expanded dramatically during the nineteenth century, yet had – on the other hand – been isolationist.45 How could both be true? The Spanish–American War of 1898 would have to be classified as rather uncharacteristic behavior for a Republic that supposedly idealized isolationism. Only by assuming that nineteenth century continental expansion was somehow part of domestic history, as opposed to acts of foreign policy, could U.S. foreign policy be characterized as isolationist until the 1890s, when the United States supposedly out of the blue experienced a period of imperial “aberration” contrary to its assumed nature as exceptionally peaceful and isolated.46 This kind of contradictory behavior was explained rather creatively: “our isolationist barricade only had one wall,” Adler wrote. Americans only shut the eastern door, “for Americans marched out of their house in other directions.” Indeed, “United States history is replete with exploits, successful and abortive,

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   65 against the territories of our southern, western, and even northern, neighbors.” Adler thus concluded that isolationism accelerated rather than inhibited continental expansionism, “for, in the beginning, we wanted to drive Europe out of North America. This impulse created a restlessness that drove Americans westward to San Francisco and in due course beyond the Golden Gate to Honolulu and Manila.”47 Hans Kohn, who in his analysis had no problem combining the fact of an American “agrarian empire” with this empire’s isolationism, provides another example of this analytical contradiction.48 The expansionism in the nineteenth century was referred to in the classic literature as an organic process of “natural events” that were “blameless” from the American side.49 This was intimately connected to the idea of manifest destiny. As chronicled in the previous chapter, Morning Star editor John O’Sullivan – originator of the term “manifest destiny” – argued that Texas had been “absorbed” into the Union in an “inevitable fulfillment of the general law which is rolling our population westward.”50 These “natural events” were “blameless” because “America’s incorporation of all adjacent lands was the virtually inevitable fulfillment of a moral mission delegated to the nation by Providence itself.”51 Dexter Perkins described continental expansion as a “biological” process “carried on with less violence than often goes on with such activities” as there “were no resentful minorities, in important numbers . . .”52 In other words, this analysis was colored by the authors’ belief in American exceptionalism, buying into the idea of a “manifest destiny” for the United States rather than maintaining an analytical distance from the object that they were studying. What this meant is that some historians of foreign relations “inscribed the discourses of manifest destiny into the deep structures of their investigations,” as Emily Rosenberg argues. In other words, by assuming westward expansion as a natural development for the United States these historians internalized the myth of manifest destiny rather than critically assessed it.53 Recognition of the relationship between frontier expansion and foreign policy became increasingly common in the mid-­twentieth century, but it would take quite a while before either subfield in history incorporated this insight into their work. As Rosenberg argues, “these processes of conquest are still often masked by the disciplinary structures that place ‘frontier’ history as a subdivision of ‘domestic’ rather than of ‘international’ history.”54 Whereas older historical works generally categorized continental expansion in the 1800s as domestic rather than foreign policy, the era of manifest destiny was also one defined by the missionary rather than exemplary version of the American national identity. Thus, nineteenth century “domestic” expansion on the American frontier was supposed to fit with the narrative of isolationism, whereas twentieth century overseas expansion would be classified as missionary and internationalist. The argument of “exemplary expansion” only holds, however, if we assume that the acquisition of new continental territory, previously not within one’s territorial borders, somehow falls within the realm of domestic, as opposed to foreign, policy. To illustrate:

66   A distinct nation is born Conventional literature

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National Identity → Exemplary → Missionary →

Foreign Policy Tradition Isolationist/aloof Internationalist/interventionist

Case studies Continental expansion Overseas expansion

Essentially, I argue, the old thesis of continental expansionism as “isolationist” rested on a Eurocentric view of American foreign policy, a perspective that viewed U.S. international relations as primarily facing toward the Atlantic Ocean. Granted, one could argue that any tradition of isolationism was purely directed at the European great powers. In other words, only Atlantic foreign policy counted as foreign policy.55 But this logic contains two tensions. First, it does not take into account the fact that these very same great powers had colonial possessions in the Americas and the Caribbean and thus coveting these territories was, in fact, a way of meddling in European affairs. France controlled the St. Lawrence River region through eastern Canada and down the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River.56 Spain also controlled Florida and the Caribbean, as well as the Southwest and California (until Mexican independence) and the Louisiana territory (until the 1800 Treaty of San Ildefonso with France). Second, such an argument would then have to incorporate expansion and expansionism into a narrative about an exemplary and isolated country/people not seeking imperial possessions in the manner of the European powers. Never mind the awkward fit this makes for cases such as the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, the Mexican–American War, and the continued obsession with Cuba and Canada. In fact, nineteenth century continental expansion and expansionism was intimately related to the building of great power status – as current history literature points out – and should thus not be seen in isolation from the United States’ later imperial adventures. When seen in the light of the steady expansion and strong expansionist ideology espoused by Americans and their leaders since the Founding Fathers, one is loath to view the War of 1898 as merely an “imperial aberration.” Cyclical confusion Indeed, not only classic literature, but also current scholarship straddles the expansionism–isolationism issue rather uncomfortably. Some authors utilize – often without questioning – the twin traditions of isolationism and internationalism in U.S. foreign policy by categorizing manifest destiny as part of an isolationist (or aloof ) tradition in U.S. foreign policy, whereas others reject isolationism and classify manifest destiny as highly internationalist.57 There is also disagreement on whether exemplary isolationism or missionary internationalism has been the dominant foreign policy tradition. McCrisken concludes that the Mexican–American War and mid-­century expansionism signified that the “missionary strand of exceptionalism was becoming the dominant form.”58 Michael Hunt and McCrisken both argue that the missionary strand has been the

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   67 dominant gene and the exemplary strand has been the “dissenting” one, which is contrary to Tuveson’s and Stephanson’s conclusions.59 Confirming a cyclical view of U.S. history, Tuveson argued that America’s mission was divided into “two really antagonistic forms.” There was the exemplary Eden, whose foreign policy manifestation would be, for example, that expressed by Grover Cleveland and the anti-­imperialists around the turn of the century.60 This was contrasted with the “new Israel” where “empire” is actively pursued, and where what is good for America is good for mankind.61 As was typical for the old paradigm, Tuveson argued for a cyclical dynamic where “isolationist withdrawal” followed interventions in the world, because they would “expose the chosen people to the temptations of the Israel of old.”62 In the inevitable public disappointment following each war, “loud demands for complete withdrawal” could be heard.63 Tuveson called this “millennialist nationalism.” As is (still) common for conventional scholarship in the field (and does not help the confusion), Tuveson on the one hand saw isolationism as the result of the exemplary, millennialist identity, yet also identified a connection between millennialist thinking and Wilsonian foreign policy, arguing Wilson’s quest was very much affected by the millennialism in American Protestantism.64 This foreign policy tradition of “active messianism,” as he labeled it, was a less powerful tradition than “isolationist withdrawal”; it was a “recessive gene” that would only become dominant in the right situation. In Tuveson’s account, then, separating missionary from exemplary impulses in foreign policy seems to serve little function, as they mostly overlap. Similarly, Stephanson argues that the vision of a mission in world history has been constant throughout American history, but that it has led to two quite different ways of being towards the outside world. The first was to unfold as an exemplary state separate from the corrupt and fallen world, letting others emulate it as best they can. The second, attributed to Woodrow Wilson, was to push the world along by means of regenerative intervention. Stephanson’s book Manifest Destiny characterizes the dominant U.S. policy as separation from the world, despite the expansion from thirteen colonies on the eastern seaboard to the entire North American continent (save for Canada, though not for lack of trying).65 Stanley Hoffmann wrote of “the Wilsonian syndrome,” characterized by “oscillation from quietism to activism,” making for a “hectic–static approach to international relations.”66 Henry Kissinger argued in Diplomacy for a dualism between isolationism and globalism in U.S. foreign policy.67 Frank L. Klingberg argued that American foreign policy would cycle between “extroversion” and “introversion” as a result of generational mood traits.68

The lingering myth of isolationism The new paradigm has discarded the idea of isolationism, but the literature still reproduces the dichotomy of isolationism/internationalism by substituting separateness or aloofness for isolationism – or, in other cases, authors still use the

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68   A distinct nation is born term isolationism.69 Indeed, Lawrence Kaplan wrote in 1987 that Jefferson’s phrase “entangling alliance” counseled isolationism. Bradford Perkins argued in The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations (1993) that the Founding Fathers were devoted to isolationism from the outset despite certain compromises, such as the initial alliance with France.70 In 1998, H. W. Brands wrote that U.S. foreign policy comes in either an exemplarist or an interventionist version.71 Indeed, old paradigms in history seem to die particularly hard in political science. The term isolationism is still used to characterize older periods of U.S. foreign policy,72 or it has simply been translated into “aloofness.” Aloofness/ separation is still assumed by political scientists despite the steady expansionism the empire literature documents.73 In 1998, political scientist Fareed Zakaria based his well-­received book on U.S. foreign policy on the assumption – and to him, the puzzle – that the United States “hewed to a relatively isolationist line” after the Civil War, arguing the United States underperformed as a great power.74 John G. Ruggie writes that ever since George Washington expressed aversion to “entangling alliances” in his farewell address (which, in fact, he did not do; rather, it was Thomas Jefferson who used that phrase much later), the United States has enjoyed its position as far removed from the power politics of the European great powers.75 Indeed, echoing Samuel Flagg Bemis, Ruggie refers to the U.S. colonial possessions acquired during the Spanish–American War as “a brief imperial fling.”76 Charles Krauthammer, in his seminal essay “The Unipolar Moment,” presented isolationism as “the logical, God-­given foreign policy of the United States.”77 Charles Kupchan writes of the United States’ “self-­imposed isolation” in its early years (which he contrasts with the “radical internationalist departure since 1941”)78; Stewart Patrick argues that, for most of the nineteenth century, “the dominant strain in U.S. security policy remained isolationism with a unilateral thrust.”79 As a rule, he argues, the United States kept political engagement with other nations to a minimum, but “closer to home, the United States moved first toward continental domination – creating Jefferson’s ‘empire of liberty’ and then regional hegemony.”80 Here, Patrick is arguing that hegemony in the western hemisphere is compatible with isolationism, an argument that seems more than a little Eurocentric. John J. Mearsheimer writes that “the United States had strong isolationist tendencies until World War II.”81 Jonathan Monten bases his 2005 article on the roots of the Bush doctrine on the assumption that the United States vacillates between “exemplarism” and “vindicationism.”82 The latest edition of the Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy (2002), argues that the exemplary identity is reflected in foreign policy ideas such as the “city upon a hill,” nonentangling alliances, “anti-­imperialism,” “isolationism,” and “Fortress America.”83 It further states that the current consensus in the field is that the early years of U.S. foreign policy were dominated by the exemplary strand of exceptionalism whereas the missionary strand of exceptionalism conclusively won out in the foreign policy debate only after the attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.84 Indeed, most accounts of U.S. foreign policy since 1941 (which is often

Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   69 a point of departure for textbooks on U.S. foreign policy) rely on the spoken or unspoken assumption that the United States was isolationist or aloof up until the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

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The new paradigm of U.S. foreign relations Notwithstanding the lingering effects of the old paradigm, there is a new paradigm in the study of American foreign relations, which generally argues that: (1) the Founding Fathers were not isolationists and were aiming to prevent foreign influence in the Americas, and not U.S. influence around the world, i.e., they were advocating unilateralism, not isolationism;85 (2) the Farewell Address was not a timeless political testament counseling isolationism but the result of a policy fight between the pro-­British Federalists and the pro-­French Democratic-­ Republicans, proving the new Republic’s early embroilment in world affairs; and (3) the continental and overseas empire acquired during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are proof of the inherent internationalist orientation on the part of the United States. The Founding Fathers as internationalists The idea of the Founding Fathers as idealistic revolutionaries shunning European power politics is an attrative one; indeed it is an idea that plays on the assumed exceptionalism of the new Republic. Unfortunately, it is incorrect. “Revolutionary Americans did not aspire to isolation,” Peter and Nicholas Onuf write, “but rather to closer integration in the European world.”86 Indeed, one of the more important consequences of the Declaration of Independence was to enable the colonies to enter into alliances as a sovereign power. The thirteen states would need the formal assistance of other European nations to help win the Revolutionary War, and as such were dependent upon playing one European power against another. In essence, the revolutionaries had to make the European balance of power work to their advantage. James Madison was certainly aware of this: It was to the principle of the rivalry between France and England, Madison said, that “we owe perhaps our liberty.”87 The American Revolution had a profound impact on the international system. “As a result of the French alliance, the revolt of a few American colonists touched off a world war, a war in which the major antagonists were France and Great Britain,” Alexander DeConde has written.88 The traditional debate over whether the Founding Fathers were idealists or realists is not the main concern here. The point, Onuf writes, is that the revolutionaries: did not seek to isolate themselves from Europe, nor were they eager to participate – without powerful allies and on radically unequal terms – in the anarchic struggle of all against all that was supposed to be the natural state of nations.

70   A distinct nation is born Suffice it to say, as Perkins argues, that ideals and self-­interests mingled in the minds of the Founders,89 and that today they are often seen as advocates of an American empire, not of isolationism.90

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The farewell address and its legacy By the end of the nineteenth century, historians and diplomats alike considered Washington’s Farewell Address “the classic statement of American isolationism.”91 As the United States emerged as a world power, however, more internationally minded historians argued the opposite. But the address was rather general and vague, and so the argument continued: was Washington mainly addressing domestic politics or international politics? Was he addressing his contemporaries or later generations? Was he articulating a limited or broad policy? Today, the general consensus is that rather than instruct isolationism, Washington was instructing the new nation to avoid international intercourse on radically unequal terms.92 The document is a more complex work than the phrase it is remembered for (“entangling alliance”), a phrase which Washington never even uttered – that was Jefferson, of course.93 Published in newspapers on September 19, 1796 it was significantly influenced by Alexander Hamilton – since he had, in fact, written it. The address reacted to several important events during Washington’s tenure as President, which had developed into a partisan battle between the emerging Federalists – Washington and Hamilton’s party – generally sympathetic to England, and the pro-­French Democratic Republicans, represented by Jefferson and James Madison.94 DeConde has argued for the importance of this domestic struggle between the Democratic–Republicans and the Federalists, writing that most of the valedictory was concerned with the need for national unity.95 The address was most likely a reaction both to the issue of the French Revolution and its effects on American politics, and to the political conflict that emerged after the Jay Treaty became public.96 The attempts of the French minister to Philadelphia, Pierre Adet, both to block the Jay Treaty and to get Jefferson elected president in 1796 were viewed as hostile acts by Washington and Hamilton. It would not be unreasonable to assume that Washington’s Address was partly aiming at preventing the victory of Jefferson and his dangerous pro-­ French doctrines.97 Washington feared that a President Jefferson would abandon the Jay Treaty and establish a permanent alliance with revolutionary France. Indeed, when Washington asked when the address ought to be published, Hamilton replied, “[t]wo months before the time for the meeting of the electors. This will be sufficient.”98 Thus, when Washington turned his attention to foreign policy, his warning against permanent alliances and “inveterate antipathy” toward other nations was arguably a warning against a permanent alliance with France (the only country the United States had an alliance with) and counseling people to abandon their antipathy towards Britain. And so, he stated, “[i]t is our true policy to steer clear of any permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, as far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it.”99

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   71 Hamilton and Washington thus warned against “foreign influences” and nurturing a “habitual hatred or habitual fondness” toward another nation, as that would make Americans in some ways “a slave.” Avoiding becoming a “slave” to any European power now would allow American power to grow to a point where the United States could avoid international intercourse on radically unequal terms in the future. This was not isolationism, but unilateral internationalism. Neither Washington nor Jefferson regarded themselves as advocates of a policy of isolation. According to Manfred Jonas, both men actually sought to “increase American contacts with the outside world.”100 Hamilton advocated steering clear of European affairs so the United States could achieve hegemony on its own continent, distinguishing between four political and geographical “parts” of the world: Europe, Africa, Asia, and America. The United States should not have permanent alliances across these parts but rather “aim at an ascendant in the system of American affairs,” Hamilton wrote in Federalist 11, a sentiment he also expressed in the Farewell Address he wrote for Washington. Gilbert argues this was weaker and more subtle in the Farewell Address because “Washington hardly would have liked this open announcement of an aggressive imperialist program” in his address.101 Nor were there ideational reasons for an isolationist foreign policy. In fact, the ardent internationalist foreign policy of the Revolution, coupled with Washington’s allowance for the necessity of “temporary alliances in extraordinary emergency,” makes it plausible that the Founding Fathers did not oppose alliances as a matter of principle. It seems implausible that this was because Americans understood something different by the word “alliance” than others, as Felix Gilbert has argued.102 Indeed, in July 1787 William Grayson proposed forming an alliance with European powers “to maintain a permanent naval force that would guard the Mediterranean for peaceful shipping.”103 What we see, rather, is an unwillingness to be a junior partner, an aversion to the risk of losing sovereignty. As LaFeber aptly describes the Farewell Address and its foreign legacy, it counseled freedom of action above all else.104 This is not to deny the presence of a strain of thought idealizing isolation. Thomas Paine, for example, did argue for isolation and international peace founded on commerce. Unfortunately for Paine, the very first foreign policy act of the Continental Congress went against him: forming an alliance with France.105 What we can take away from the Farewell Address, rather than isolationism, is unilateralism. The aim of both Washington and Jefferson was to safeguard the independence of a new and weak nation by avoiding, whenever possible, involvement in the military and political affairs of the European great powers while at the same time encouraging commercial relations.106 But both Founding Fathers were fully aware that economic and political matters could not be separated as neatly as their phraseology suggested, and “neither can be regarded in any meaningful way as an isolationist. Together with many of the other Founders, they merely followed the logic of the American revolution and its consequences.”107

72   A distinct nation is born

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In fact, John Quincy Adams and William H. Seward were two subsequently prominent secretaries of state who did not view Washington’s Farewell Address as counseling isolationism. Commenting on the Address, Seward remarked: It may well be said that Washington did not enjoin us [to follow a program of noninvolvement] as a perpetual policy. On the contrary, he inculcated [noninvolvement] as the policy to be pursued until the Union of the States, which is only another form of expressing the integrity of the nation, should be established, its resources should be developed, and its strength, adequate to the chances of national life, should be matured and perfected.108 This point of view was echoed in biographies of Washington written by Woodrow Wilson and Henry Cabot Lodge at the end of the century, both in the vanguard of the growing expansionist movement of the 1890s, and both portraying Washington as an expansionist. Of course, one should be attentive to historical context and opportunistic interpretations. In fact, the debate over who had Washington on their side raged for two years after the Spanish–American War of 1898, with both sides claiming Washington to be their champion. In 1898, former Secretary of State Richard Olney argued that Washington had in fact never counseled against any action in the national interest, including involvement in international affairs at the appropriate time.109 Burton Ira Kaufman’s conclusion is that Washington’s Farewell Address has been distorted through history. The Address was a statement of empire, but Washington, who was in fact an “apostle of empire,” was for a long time misrepresented as an “architect of isolationism.”110 No entangling alliances So what, then, does the phrase “entangling alliances” mean? It was, of course, Jefferson – and not Washington – who formulated the famous phrase. Building upon Paine’s Common Sense and Washington’s Farewell Address, Jefferson counseled the Founding Fathers’ foreign policy consensus: avoid alliances now (bound to be detrimental to a relatively weak United States) and grow stronger so as to be able to participate in international intercourse on better terms in the future. Indeed, Jefferson had rather lofty aspirations for the American Republic. Writing to his Secretary of State, James Madison, in 1801, he envisioned virtually unlimited American expansion: However our present situation may restrain us within our own limits, it is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits, and cover the whole northern, if not southern continent . . .111 Upon leaving office in 1809, he told Madison – now his successor – that with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the future acquisitions of the Floridas, Cuba,

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   73 and, of course, Canada, the United States would be “such an empire for liberty as [the world] has never surveyed since the creation; and I am convinced no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-­government.”112 Jefferson’s successor dutifully organized a coup in West Florida upon which the plotters “asked” for U.S. annexation (formally becoming a part of the Union in 1811); went to war against Great Britain in 1812 (with the aim of gaining Canada for the purposes of pressuring Britain);113 and, upon the failed attempt to gain East Florida, declared with Congress that henceforth no transfers of New World territory between foreign powers would be tolerated. This “nontransfer principle” later became part of the Monroe Doctrine.114 Nor were Jefferson’s impressive plans for America limited to the Western Hemisphere. In the early 1800s, when American shipping was under siege by the Barbary Pirates, he proposed building a naval squadron to be on permanent station in the Mediterranean as well as the creation of an international league for the permanent policing of the Mediterranean, with the United States playing a lead role.115 The Founders’ views on alliances and internationalism, then, seem rather more concerned with (1) preserving U.S. unilateral maneuverability; and (2) avoiding European influence over the American continent, than with an idealistic attachment to isolationism. Indeed, in 1823 Jefferson’s advice to President Monroe was to accept British Foreign Secretary George Canning’s invitation to joint action with Great Britain against the threat posed to Latin America by the Holy Alliance, on the grounds that it would favorably affect the European balance of power. Whereas Jefferson reasserted that the “first and fundamental maxim [of the United States] should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe” and the second maxim, “never to suffer Europe to meddle with cis-­ Atlantic affairs,” he nevertheless concluded that “the war in which the present proposition might engage us, should that be its consequence, is not her war, but ours,” and that if “we can affect a division in the body of European powers, and draw over to our side its most powerful member, surely we should do it.”116 John Quincy Adams, on the other hand, counseled against it, not on the grounds of isolationism, but on the grounds that it would prevent the United States from extending its own sphere of influence in the future (over such coveted areas as Texas and Cuba, for instance).117

American exceptionalism and continental expansion In 1935, Weinberg sought to explain how the United States had developed from an “infant republic occupying the seaboard of a little known continent to a vast world power with overseas possessions.” Weinberg’s answer was that this expansion had been accompanied by an expansionist ideology, expressing a “dogma of supreme self-­assurance and ambition – that America’s incorporation of all adjacent lands was the virtually inevitable fulfillment of a moral mission delegated to the nation by Providence itself.”118 The revisionist diplomatic historians who emerged in the 1960s – William A. Williams, Walter LaFeber, and

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74   A distinct nation is born Lloyd Gardner, among others – would pick up on Weinberg’s theme of expansion and expansionism, albeit giving it a more explicit economic theme. These authors stressed the primacy of domestic social and economic structures in explaining the American rise to power. America was settled, Williams pointed out, when mercantilism was the dominant political–economic force in England. Central to the mercantilist viewpoint was the idea that the government had the obligation to promote the general welfare and common good of corporate society; this was to be achieved by delegating authority to individuals or groups whom the state would aid and protect. Furthermore, mercantilism taught that the world’s resources were finite and limited. Therefore, the only way a nation could be sure of providing for the corporate good was self-­sufficiently to control the world’s wealth. Thus, the American colonials were mercantilists, and they viewed expansion as necessary to assure the nation’s needs would be fulfilled. In Williams’ opinion, Washington’s Farewell Address was “a mercantilist manifesto for an unchallengeable empire.”119 Rather than seeing distinct periods or cycles, then, Williams argued that the near obsession with the thesis of isolationism as a description of the interwar period in the twentieth century had served to obscure the overall consistent nature of U.S. foreign policy: expansion and growth toward great power status. Whereas nineteenth century continental expansion used to be seen as manifest destiny and essentially a domestic matter, expansionism would increasingly come to be questioned, and the concept of manifest destiny critically assessed – rather than assumed – by historians. This is not to say that there were no critics contesting the slogan of manifest destiny, especially as it pertained to expansion. Although most agreed that the United States had in fact been endowed with a sacred mission, some argued that expansion would pervert, not promote, that mission. This was not because of a tradition of foreign policy isolationism, but rather, was closely related to the issue of whether or not slavery was to be allowed in the newly acquired territories.120 Once one recognizes that expanding into territory not your own must count as acts of foreign policy (not domestic policy), it also becomes clear that such activities cannot be subsumed under a category of exemplary isolationism, but must count as a missionary internationalist foreign policy. Manifest destiny is, in fact, both an example of the continuing interpretation of the American exceptionalist identity as well as an example of how this sense of exceptionalism led to a very active internationalist foreign policy. Disciplinary divisions Thus, one of the big changes in the field of frontier history with direct implications for those studying the history of U.S. foreign policy has been the “reckoning with the fact that that what we called, for so long, ‘westward expansion,’ could also fit in the categories of colonialism and imperialism,” Western historian Patricia Nelson Limerick writes. Limerick did not know about Williams’ work when she did her own work in Western American history, because, as she

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   75 says, “I was a Western American historian and Williams was a diplomatic historian . . .”121 One of the central weaknesses of the old paradigm of Western history and diplomatic history occurred from a failure to question the assumption, subscribed to by many American historians and certainly by textbook writers, that the United States took up the practice of imperialism only in the 1890s, after having stayed remarkably innocent of the practices of dominance found among European nations.122 The curious notion – that expansion across contiguous land somehow “didn’t count” and that a nation had to extend its powers across an ocean before the terms “colonialism” or “imperialism’ could come into play – Limerick writes, “governed the periodization, the very definition, of American involvement in Empire.”123 Today, the theme of expanding U.S. power is the narrative motif of most textbooks currently used in courses on U.S. foreign relations.124 Although they usually begin with the imperial surge overseas at the end of the nineteenth century, it is now quite common to tie late nineteenth-­century overseas expansion to early nineteenth-­century territorial expansion, rejecting the thesis of Bemis that U.S. imperialism (in the 1890s) was an “aberration” in American history.125 Nineteenth-­century expansionism should be categorized as inherently part of U.S. foreign policy for several reasons. First, territorial acquisition was a diplomatic act (either between Native tribes and the United States or other states and the United States). The treaty-­making power accorded to the President and the Senate at the Constitutional Convention was not simply meant for overseas countries; it was also meant to govern relations with American-­Indian tribes, as the tribes were usually considered separate nations by the whites.126 The settlers did not encounter a vacant east coast lacking in “resentful minorities.” They did not move across an empty continent. Rather, “a central theme of American diplomatic history must be the clash between the European settlers and the Native Americans between 1620 and 1890,” a clash that nearly exterminated the Indian tribes, consisting of between 8.5 and 10 million people in 1492.127 And, indeed, recent scholarship deals more explicitly with the fact that both in Virginia and New England the expansion led to violent clashes with Native American tribes.128 The Pequot, the Wampanoag, the Narragansett, and the Nipmuck in the North and the Susquehanna in the South were the original victims of English expansionist settlers.129 Second, the animating ideology behind expansion – manifest destiny, “Anglo­Saxon civilizing mission,” or, simply “missionary” – which ever term one wants to use, was internationalist at its core.130 The settlers and colonists were spreading English civilization, in active competition with the efforts of the French and the Spanish imperialists.

Continuities: from the Monroe Doctrine to the war of 1898 Connecting nineteenth-­century territorial expansion to later overseas expansion allows for a perspective on U.S. foreign policy that accentuates the continuities,

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76   A distinct nation is born rather than the breaks, in U.S. foreign policy. The Monroe Doctrine, for example, rather than being a statement of isolationism, was an early statement of hemispheric dominance, of “aiming at an ascendant in the affairs of the Americas,” in Alexander Hamilton words. Otto von Bismarck called the doctrine an “insolent dogma” and a “species of arrogance peculiarly American and inexcusable.”131 Throughout his life, the author of the doctrine, John Quincy Adams, believed American expansion derived its legitimacy from the imperatives of the Old Testament: “Nature, the providential configuration of space on earth, existed to be appropriated and improved upon for the glorification of God.”132 He advocated the acquisition of Cuba and the Floridas, arguing that the “finger of nature” (presumably paraphrasing the Old Testament’s “finger of God”) pointed towards these territories. After the conclusion of the Adams-­Onís Treaty of 1819, which allowed the United States to claim the coast of the Pacific Ocean (due to concessions from Spain), Adams wrote in his diary that Europe must be “familiar with the idea of considering our proper dominion to be the continent of North America.”133 The Monroe Doctrine thus extended the imperial sphere of the United States to the entire Western Hemisphere, not simply the northern part of it. By 1824, the United States, under the auspices of Secretary of State Adams, had secured the Floridas, obtained access to the Pacific, and greatly reduced the prospect of European intervention in the Western hemisphere. The American empire was already in existence, only rivaled in size by Russia.134 Whereas it is tempting to treat the Civil War as a break between two distinct periods of U.S. foreign policy (which it was, in terms of the expansion of slavery), Thomas Hietala argues that the real long-­range significance of the 1840s transcends the sectionalism of 1848–1877.135 Rather than presenting the 1840s only as the first major step toward secession and war, historians could also couple the expansionists of the late Jacksonian period with the expansionists of the 1890s. In fact, he argues, the expansionists of the 1840s would have viewed the acquisition of an overseas empire in 1898 as a more likely outcome of their own efforts than the Civil War.136 Antebellum internationalism There certainly were some rather striking similarities between these two expansionist decades. President John Tyler closely followed developments in Hawaii during his term and declared that the United States would look unfavorably upon any European interference there; he also dispatched a House representative from Massachusetts, Caleb Cushing, to China to “stick an American foot into what would be termed the Open Door fifty years later.”137 During James K. Polk’s administration (immediately following Tyler’s), Senator Robert J. Walker of Mississippi advocated an inter-­oceanic canal across Central America, foreshadowing Rutherford B. Hayes’ position in 1880 when he declared that an inter-­ oceanic canal would be a part of the American coastline. In the 1840s, Tyler, Polk, and others advocated a more robust naval policy due to the growing U.S. international trade, as would Alfred Thayer Mahan and Henry Cabot Lodge in

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   77 the 1890s. Encouraged by O’Sullivan and Douglas, President Polk and Senator Walker also decided that Cuba should be added to the American domain, but Spain of course rejected all propositions to buy it. William Henry Seward had the specific misfortune of being Secretary of State during the Civil War. “How sadly domestic disturbances of ours demoralize the National ambition,” he wrote in 1865.138 This “National ambition” was for Seward to recast the territorial U.S. empire into a “commercial, yet destinarian, vision.” Inspired by J. Q. Adams, who had played the largest role in territorial gains except for Jefferson or Polk, Seward advocated that the United States become the future great commercial power on earth, fueled by oceanic trade (the only kind of empire that was “incorruptible”). Commerce would take the place of war, New York would become the center of finance in the world, and Asia would have to be fought over with the other great powers.139 In other words, when policymakers such as McKinley, John Hay, and Theodore Roosevelt at the turn of the century moved beyond continentalism to advocate a global empire for the United States, the transition was not as dramatic as the old paradigm assumed. In retrospect, the objectives of the expansionists of the 1890s closely resembled those of their predecessors in the 1840s. Each group: had hoped to diffuse a domestic malaise through expansionism and war; each sought to enhance the country’s commercial position, especially in Asia; and each set out to show the European powers that the United States could and would employ force to secure its interests.140 In other words, had the sectional crisis, the Civil War, and Reconstruction not directed American attention inward so extensively from 1848–1877, it is not unlikely that the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848 rather than the Spanish– American War of 1898 would be acknowledged as the starting point of the United States as a great power.141

Building an American empire? Novus ordo Seclorum Referring to U.S. expansion in the nineteenth century as an exercise in empire building is the trend currently found in many writings by scholars of early American foreign relations.142 As early as the 1781 Articles of Confederation, the future aspirations were clear: The Articles reserved a place for Canada in the new state.143 Historical debates on a U.S. empire usually start with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, significant because it created the Northwest Territory as the first organized territory of the United States, and established the precedent by which the United States would expand westward across North America by the admission of new states, rather than by the expansion of existing states. The territorial settlement toward the Pacific was the United States’ “first empire,” in this perspective, completed just after 1850.144 Jefferson’s Enlightenment vision of a benign imperial order “would be fulfilled with the union’s

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78   A distinct nation is born progressive expansion,” Onuf writes.145 The subsequent offshore acquisitions across the Pacific can be said to have made up the “second empire,” ranging from the acquisition of the midway islands and other smaller Pacific islands to the acquisition of Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone. This was the time when Seward’s ideas finally came to fruition, espoused in the “Large Policy” advocated by Roosevelt and Lodge, which aimed at possessing a large navy, owning and controlling an Isthmian canal, holding naval bases in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and being a contender for naval and commercial superiority in the Pacific Ocean and the Far East. The imperialists of the 1890s were “unconscious Sewardites,” Ernest Paolino writes, “their theories ideological glosses on his text.”146 The empire literature argues that the United States built a transcontinental territorial empire in less than half a century, achieving supremacy in the Western Hemisphere, and laying the foundations for a twentieth century empire – the third, and current, U.S. empire.147 This expansion was aided by the idea of American exceptionalism, since it was fueled by the conviction that U.S. foreign policy “is not tainted with evil or self-­serving motives.”148 Americans, rather, “are exceptions to the moral infirmities that plague the rest of humankind, because our ideals are pure.” The “three empires” thus all share in the narrative of American exceptionalism.149 This perspective of continuity challenges the perspective of an “isolationist” or aloof U.S. foreign policy up till the Spanish–American War of 1898, where the war is seen as the start of an American “empire” rather than its culmination. The empire literature argues there is little reason to categorize 1898 as a “break” in the history of U.S. foreign policy at all. Henry Cabot Lodge might agree. As he noted in the debate over what to do about the Philippines during the Spanish– American War, empire was nothing new to the United States – it had been practicing it for over one hundred years. Novus ordo Seclorum It is important to keep in mind, however, that at the time of the American Revolution the connotations of “empire” were not as ominous as they often are today. The revolutionaries had themselves revolted against defective imperial governance – “a corrupt and grasping administration that was determined to enrich the metropolis while beggaring its distant provinces” – embracing an “improved, republicanized version of the imperial ideal in projecting the prosperity and freedom of their expanding union of states.”150 Any negative associations with “empire” had thus been purged through the Revolution and the breaking of ties with the British corrupt version of it. By vindicating their independence, then, the revolutionaries would vindicate the “imperial idea, the great legacy of antiquity and the great hope of progressive and enlightened peoples everywhere.”151 There was, according to Robert Tucker and David Hendrickson, a “widespread consciousness among the Founding Fathers that they were the architects of a great empire . . .”152

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   79 In this new paradigm, the Founding of the United States of America was not an act of isolation, then, but rather the inauguration of a Novus ordo Seclorum – a new order for the ages. In 1774, Royal American Magazine wrote that Americans found it plausible that one day “the knee of empires and splendid kingdoms” would bow to America’s greatness; “the spirit of freedom” exemplified by the colonies would spread from “pole to pole” and then America would “be the glory and the astonishment of the whole earth.”153 As Burns puts it, it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that “America became an empire before she became a state.”154 Empire, in fact, provided the conceptual framework for an “emerging consciousness of American nationality,” Onuf writes. It did so by making the same fundamental issues that had driven provincial patriots to independence seem compelling to subsequent generations. Faced with continuing controversy over the claims of center and periphery in an expanding republican empire, Americans saw themselves “reenacting the Revolution itself at every moment of crisis.” The memory of the Revolution taught young patriots to question the patriotism of their opponents and to mobilize against them.155 From the inception of the Republic, then, American leaders expressed lofty visions for this future empire of the Americas. Expansionism was an integral part of the building of this empire, and, as previously mentioned, is intimately connected to the rejection of an isolationist/internationalist dichotomy. The fact that the Americans did not see themselves as invaders, aggressors, or occupiers does not invalidate this thesis, since most expansive people – such as the Greeks and the Romans, for instance – tend not to do so. This new paradigm, however, is simultaneously competing with the old one. Walter Russell Mead, for example, states that there are two basic views among students of U.S. foreign policy today. One school sees a distinct break between an early American tradition of reticence and modesty on the international stage and a later and more “problematic” era of assertiveness and expansionism (with the year 1898 seen as dividing the two ages). The new school, according to Mead, connects important features of twentieth-­century U.S. foreign policy (expansionism, assertiveness, imperial ambition) with American history dating back to the colonial era.156 Thus, although the concept of isolationism has been discarded, the foreign policy dichotomy separating an early tradition of “reticence” or “modesty” from a later tradition of assertive internationalism is still employed by some.

Unilateral internationalism Discarding the old paradigm of an isolationist foreign policy tradition and accepting the internationalist one still leaves us with questions, however. One might still argue that there was a significant break in the execution of U.S. internationalism after the Spanish–American War, or World War I, or World War II, perhaps to such a degree that one should speak of different kinds of internationalism. As we shall see in the next chapters, many authors separate a unilateral

80   A distinct nation is born from a multilateral period in U.S. foreign policy. In contrast, I argue that the United States has been pursuing unilateral internationalism since the very beginning of the Republic, and that it did not abandon this overarching strategy after either of the two world wars.

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Permissive factors There were certainly many idiosyncratic factors that came together to inspire the United States’ fundamentally unilateral manner of approaching international politics. Its remoteness from the great powers of the time, its latent vastness, and its looming power increased the feasibility of unilateralism and the deterrence of the great powers. And, for a while, the notion in the scholarship that the United States had enjoyed “free security” led to the idea that, “[t]hreatened neither with invasion or loss of territory, the U.S. could operate rather freely and uncommitted.”157 Although today it is commonplace to comment upon the fact that the early United States was, in fact, not sheltered from war and threat, it did, after the Napoleonic Wars, enjoy the fortuitous consequences of the fact that the security interests of Britain and the United States were at many points in the nineteenth century largely congruent (such as a European continental balance of power, and maintaining freedom of the seas), as a British–American war could only benefit France and Russia.158 But the Founders were seeking to achieve unilateral maneuverability in a world ruled by the European great powers, which meant they had to entangle themselves whether they wanted to or not. Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation was arguably an “anti”-French measure for evading America’s obligations under the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, thereby helping the British cause. That was, after all, the grounds on which Jefferson and Madison denounced it.159 As explained above, continental expansion entailed meddling in European business, as much of the continent was claimed or contested by other powers. While it did not engage in any formal alliances, other than the initial one with France in order to gain independence, the United States did engage quite actively in international politics. A better description of early U.S. foreign policy than isolationist, then, is that it was pursuing “its international interests unilaterally without making long-­term commitments or entering formal alliances.”160

Ideational origins of unilateralism By the time of the Civil War, the United States had established itself as a mighty empire of the West. The moral mission behind this unilateral internationalist expansion was in the nineteenth century labeled manifest destiny. This doctrine, stating that the United States possessed “preeminent social worth, a distinctively lofty mission, and consequently unique rights in the application of moral principles,” would justify an impressive expansion of the American state.161 In the

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   81 eighteenth century, of course, this was the idea of exceptionalism, and the “unique rights” mentioned above were the principles inherent in unilateralism. In fact, Jefferson thought that there was, in effect, a different code of natural law governing the two worlds, Old and New: “I strongly suspect that our geographical peculiarities may call for a different code of natural law to govern relations with other nations from that which the conditions of Europe have given rise to there.”162 The ideology permitting Americans to see their own nation’s rights as outweighing those of another was exceptionalism: that special mission of championing freedom and liberty on behalf of all mankind, transmitted from the “patriotic clergy who first propagated the idea of an ‘American Israel’,” to the Founding Fathers. America was, in Jefferson’s phrase of 1805, “the world’s best hope.”163 The Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy states that America’s sense of mission is represented in the ideas of “manifest destiny,” “imperialism,” “internationalism,” “leader of the free world,” and the “new world order.”164 Interestingly, manifest destiny is acknowledged to be a later version of American exceptionalism.165 Indeed, the era of manifest destiny was proof that the “missionary” strand of exceptionalism was becoming the dominant one, the Encyclopedia writes.166 A strong belief in missionary exceptionalism goes naturally with unilateralism in foreign policy: An exceptional nation cannot be expected to follow the rules of the non-­exceptional nations. Indeed, Hietala has argued that in attacking European aggrandizement and differentiating it from their own, “Americans drew upon their strong sense of exceptionalism and combined it with an increasingly strident and chauvinistic definition of their national destiny,” establishing different rules for the two worlds.167 The vulnerability of the United States’ rivals was taken as proof of the decadence of Old World empires, whereas America’s success was proof of “Anglo-­Americans’ innate genius for self-­rule and their ability to couple individual liberty with empire . . .”168 Internationalism prior to 1898 But why does it not make sense to separate the pre-­1898 or pre-­1917 period from what comes after? Was not the United States more internationalist henceforth? Such a periodization ignores, I argue: (1) the continental expansion previously discussed; and (2) the active foreign policy of the emerging power both anteand postbellum. Although the Civil War did turn attention inward for the United States (notwithstanding the foreign policy dealings of the Confederacy, trying to use “King Cotton” to entice Britain into an alliance), it quickly regained its postbellum foothold on the international scene. In 1884 it joined the International Red Cross and participated in the Berlin Conference that was intended to solve problems in the Congo. It hosted its first international conference, the Washington Conference on Samoa, in 1887, and in 1889 the first Pan-­American Conference.169 Notably, the U.S. naval build-­up preceded the Spanish–American War. At the time of the Samoan controversy from 1889 to 1890, the U.S. Navy was

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82   A distinct nation is born the 6th largest in the world (122,000 tons), after Great Britain (802,000), France (515,000), Russia (246,000), Italy (203,000), and Germany (188,000). Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy proposed a vast plan of construction, partly influenced by Alfred Thayer Mahan’s 1890 book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History.170 In 1900 the U.S. Navy moved from 6th to 4th, ahead of Germany. In 1907 the United States was in second place, but was surpassed again by Germany in 1911.171 Indeed, the Spanish–American War, rather than being the “great aberration” in U.S. foreign policy, should be characterized as the “great culmination,” as Paolino argues.172 U.S. internationalist and expansionist foreign policy did not start with the Spanish–American War, but neither did it end with it. There was no cyclical withdrawal from the world after the imperial adventure in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The Spanish–American war was followed by the enunciation of the Open Door policy; participation in the First International Peace Conference at The Hague in 1899 (and the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 1899, to which the United States was a party and supporter); and then in 1900 the United States actually contributed 5,000 troops to an international expeditionary force that put down the Boxer Rebellion in China.173 In 1902, Teddy Roosevelt facilitated arbitration in Venezuela after Great Britain, Germany, and Italy had brought down its dictator, Cipriano Castro; in 1903, Roosevelt orchestrated Panama’s independence from Colombia, recognizing the new country in return for territory on which to built the American-­controlled trans-­isthmian canal; in 1904, the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine established America’s right to intervene in any country in the Americas (inaugurating two decades of interventions in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Mexico). In 1905, Roosevelt mediated the peace treaty between Russia and Japan, an effort that won him the Nobel Peace Prize. Indeed, in his 1910 Nobel Peace Prize Address he would call on the great powers to form a League of Peace, foreshadowing Woodrow Wilson and others’ calls for similar organizations a few years later.174 In 1906, the Senate ratified the Algeciras Agreement (an international agreement on Morocco) and in 1908 it ratified the Hague Convention, establishing the rights of neutrals and noncombatants – both of which were “clearly entangling in nature,” according to Manfred Jonas. The Senate simply added the proviso that agreeing to them was “without purpose to depart from the traditional American foreign policy.”175 To be clear, “anti-­intervention” arguments have been voiced at various points in American history – for instance by the anti-­imperialists in the 1890s. However, such voices have consistently been drowned out and have lost out in the political realm, meaning that while they have been present they have not been very influential. It is perfectly fair to acknowledge anti-­interventionist sentiments in American history, but to craft a long-­standing isolationist foreign policy tradition out of this is, I argue, wholly incorrect. The argument that 1898 somehow represented a “break” in U.S. foreign policy history also seems highly debatable.176 The tendency to divide American foreign policy into two periods – before and after the Spanish–American War – is perhaps understandable, but it is

Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   83 misleading. It creates the impression of a break with the past, of a new United States of America after the Spanish–American War, ready to take on the mantle of a great power. As this chapter has shown, however, in no way was the United States isolationist, aloof, or separate in its foreign policy up until this point.

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Conclusion The American mission was never isolationist, and it was never meant to be an exemplar in the sense of being unreachable, high up on a hill. When the United States went to war with Britain in 1812, for instance, Federalist New England protested, with the Boston Gazette lamenting the shedding of American “blood for Bonaparte,” as it was in effect helping France to fight the Napoleonic wars. The nation was, quite simply, in its early years “neither isolated nor isolationist,” which sums up the current academic paradigm.177 Some new scholarship seems merely to have substituted “separateness” or “aloof ” for isolationism, however, and still endorses the view of American foreign policy history as dichotomous: isolationist or “separate” before the Spanish–American War, or the World Wars, definitively “internationalist” or “integrationist” after World War II.178 But not only is there a serious lag in matching terms (separate) with the new historiographic consensus (the United States was never isolationist) the term isolationism itself refuses to die. Indeed, in the 1990s there was again a debate over whether the United States would return to isolationism due to the lack of any perceived external threat to national security after the end of the cold war, a topic to which I will return in the penultimate chapter, where we shall see that the specter of isolationism lives on in scholarly works and is still accepted as common wisdom.179 The United States, as seen in this chapter, did not wait for its great power status to “aim at an ascendant in the system of American affairs.” Rather, it wasted no time in promptly stretching across a vast continent as well as across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.180 “Taming the frontier,” pursuing manifest destiny, promoting commerce, advancing the Anglo-­Saxon Protestant civilization, picking up the “White Man’s Burden,” pursuing the “liberation and salvation of the world,” making the world “safe for democracy,” and, finally, leading the “Free World” were all acts of unilateral internationalism, inspired by a strong sense of exceptionalism. Last, if the story were simply that the United States only became “internationalist” once it had reached a certain level of relative material power, then a search for the ideational origins behind U.S. foreign policy would not be fruitful. Assertions of American exceptionalism would be “mere rhetoric” – a callous attempt at post-­hoc justification for territorial expansion and power hunger. We know, however, that the exceptionalist identity of the United States exceeded its power for at least the first century of its existence. Indeed, in the nineteenth century ordinary white Americans “ignored the actual insignificance of their nation’s political existence, and propelled their republic into the vanguard of the march of progress.”181 On the eve of the Civil War, Walt Whitman called the United

84   A distinct nation is born States “the custodian of the future of humanity,” and predicted that the nation would reach “forty to fifty great states” long before the second centennial of her independence, “among them Canada and Cuba.”182 The United States never acquired either but it did acquire significant swathes of territory, first on the North American continent, then overseas. This impressive expansion was, as the debate surrounding manifest destiny shows, fueled by the explosive ideas inherent in American exceptionalism.

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Notes   1 Thomas Paine, Common Sense (New York: Peter Eckler Publishing Co, 1918), p. 24.   2 Walter LaFeber, The American Age. United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad since 1750 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989), p.  19. See also Felix Gilbert, To the Farewell Address (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 43.   3 Samuel Flagg Bemis called the Philippine acquisition an aberration, as Dexter Perkins notes in his book, The American Approach to Foreign Policy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962) revised edition, p. 20. As Walter LaFeber points out, this explanation was insufficient for several reasons: it neither explained the events nor developed a framework (other than “historical accident”) that allows us to understand them. See Walter LaFeber, “American Imperialism: The Worst Chapter in Almost Any Book: Comments,” American Historical Review 83(3), 1978, p.  669; James A. Field, “American Imperialism: The Worst Chapter in Almost Any Book,” American Historical Review, 83(3), 1978, pp. 644–83. Field criticizes revisionist historians for exaggerating American imperialism at the end of the nineteenth century, arguing it was less a consolidated movement and intentional policy than haphazard reactions and events. Field also critiques the line of argument attempted by, for instance, Thomas Hietala and Ernest Paolino in connecting pre-­Civil War expansion with 1890s imperialism.   4 Complicating this story is the debate over whether the United States was “isolationist” during the interwar period. For more on this discussion, see Chapter 5, where I argue against this thesis in favor of a more nuanced analysis of the interwar period. In brief, the 1920s were a very active, internationalist decade for the United States, led by Republicans Charles Evan Hughes and Henry Stimson, whereas the United States pursued a staunchly nationalist policy after the Great Depression. As Chapter 7 will argue, this nationalist and protectionist policy was abandoned little by little and the United States was committed to the Allied cause as of the fall of France in June 1940. While the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 made it easy for Franklin D. Roosevelt to enter the war on an official footing, the United States had been – for all intents and purposes – a belligerent for some time before this event. In other words, the attack on Pearl Harbor did not cause a “turn-­around” from isolationism to internationalism.   5 For classic accounts endorsing the “isolationist” paradigm, see Hans Kohn, American Nationalism. An Interpretive Essay (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957), p.  23; Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1962); Perkins, The American Approach to Foreign Policy; Stanley Hoffmann, Gulliver’s Troubles, Or the Setting of American Foreign Policy (New York: McGraw­Hill Book Company, 1968). For newer accounts, see Frank L. Klingberg, Cyclical Trends in American Foreign Policy Moods (Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1983); Lawrence S. Kaplan, Entangling Alliances with None: American foreign policy in the age of Jefferson (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1987); Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994); John Gerard

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   85 Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue?” International Security, 21(4), 1997, pp.  89–125; Trevor B. McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam: U.S. Foreign Policy since 1974 (New York: Malgrave Macmillan, 2003); Stanley Hoffmann, “The High and the Mighty,” in The American Prospect (January 13, 2003).   6 William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Foreign Policy (Cleveland, OH: World Pub. Co., 1959).   7 William Appleman Williams, “The Open Door Policy: Economic Expansion and the Remaking of Societies,” in Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson, eds., Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Vol.  I: To 1920 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005), p. 9.   8 See Alexander DeConde, Entangling Alliance. Politics and Diplomacy under George Washington (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1958) for a classic work that discusses both the intense international involvement of the early Republic (and of course especially the French alliance) along with the domestic factors that influenced how the United States reacted to international events. More recent works include Peter and Nicholas G. Onuf, Federal Union, Modern World: The Law of Nations in an Age of Revolution, 1776–1814 (Madison, WI: Madison House, 1993); William Earl Weeks, Building the Continental Empire. American Expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996); Peter S. Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire: The Language of American Nationhood (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2000); J. C. A. Stagg, Borderlines in Borderlands: James Madison and the Spanish– American Frontier, 1776–1821 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009); Manfred Jonas, “Isolationism,” in Alexander DeConde, Richard Dean Burns and Frederik Logevall, eds., Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, Vol. II, 2nd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2002); Walter A. McDougall, Promised land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World since 1776 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997).   9 Emily Rosenberg, “A Call to Revolution: A roundtable on early U.S. foreign relations,” Diplomatic History, 22(1), 1998, pp. 63–70. For works that do acknowledge expansion as foreign policy, see next footnote on “empire literature.” See also Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny. A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935), reprinted in 1963 by Quadrangle Books, Chicago; and Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right (New York: Hill & Wang, 1995). 10 On the United States as the post-­World War II empire, see among many others Geir Lundestad, The American Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, The Imperial Temptation: The New World Order and America’s Purpose (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1992); Andrew Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002); Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004); Charles S. Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006); On the United States as a historically expansionist nation, see among many others Weinberg, Manifest Destiny; Richard W. Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965); Ernest N. Paolino, The Foundations of the American Empire. William Henry Seward and U.S. Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973); Marc Egnal, A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the American Revolution (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988); Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: American Exceptionalism and Empire, rev. ed., (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003; Robert Kagan, Dangerous Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006); along with a series of classic books by William A. Williams, Walter LaFeber, and Thomas McCormick.

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86   A distinct nation is born 11 The quote is Alexander Hamilton’s. Cited in Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (New York, Oxford University Press, 1990), Preface. 12 David S. Painter, “Making Connections,” Reviews in American History, 21(2), 1993, pp. 267–72. 13 Early works that made this connection, in addition to Williams, include Weinberg, Manifest destiny; Norman Graebner, Empire on the Pacific: A Study in American Continental Expansion (New York: Ronald Press Company, 1955); Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire. Later works include Paolino, The Foundations of the American Empire; Hietala, Manifest Design; Michael H. Hunt, The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007; Walter Nugent, Habits of Empire. A History of American Expansion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008). In the past decade, it has also become commonplace to talk of “U.S. foreign relations” rather than diplomatic history, because – as Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson argue – diplomatic history mainly refers to negotiations or communications between states, whereas “foreign relations” encompasses the “myriad of ways in which peoples, cultures, economics, national governments, nongovernmental organizations, regional associations, and international institutions interact.” See Merrill and Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, p. xiv. 14 Kissinger, Diplomacy; Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue?” McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam; Hoffmann, “The High and the Mighty”; Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power. The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998); Jonathan Monten, “The Roots of the Bush Doctrine,” International Security, 29(4), 2005, pp. 112–56; Stewart M. Patrick, The Best Laid Plans: The Origins of American Multilateralism and the Dawn of the Cold War (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009). For textbooks, see for instance Bradford Perkins, “The American Prism,” in Merril and Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Relations; or Daniel Deudney and Jeffrey Meiser, “American Exceptionalism,” in Michael Cox and Doug Stokes, eds., U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 15 Jeffrey Legro, in his book Rethinking the World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005) rejects the term “isolationism” but still uses the term “separateness” which serves much the same function in terms of breaking up U.S. foreign policy history into a dichotomy. Bruce W. Jentleson’s textbook exemplifies this analytical ambivalence when it acknowledges, on the one hand, in a section titled “Isolationism vs Internationalism,” that “the United States was never really fully isolationist”; on the other hand, it then goes on to use the term nonetheless, defining it as “staying out of the various wars Europe fought in the nineteenth century.” See Jentleson, ed. American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century 3rd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2007), pp. 62–4. 16 Edward McNall Burns, America’s Sense of Mission. Concepts of National Purpose and Destiny (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1957), p. 277. 17 Perkins, The American Approach to Foreign Policy, pp. 2; 136–55. 18 Burns, America’s Sense of Mission, p. 277. 19 Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. viii. My italics. 20 The term “free security” stems from C. Vann Woodward, who espoused the view that the United States was able to develop in a relatively benign international environment. Shielded by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and guarded by the Royal Navy, war was seen as a deviation from the peaceful norm by Americans. This was said to breed a strategic culture particular to the United States, where European power politics was dismissed as un-­American. “Free security” was connected to “free land” – the idea that, compared to other countries, the United States was able to obtain “free land” for

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   87 a relatively low cost. “The handful of men who made up the regular army during the nineteenth century were not employed in patrolling frontiers against foreign invasion, but chiefly in coping with a domestic police problem posed by the Indians.” See C. Vann Woodward, “The Age of Reinterpretation,” The American Historical Review, 66(1), 1960, p. 4. My italics. 21 The term “isolationist” seems to have appeared around the turn of the century, referring to those who prefer a policy of “political isolation” – a debate spurred by the Spanish–American War, of course. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State), pp. 39–40. 22 See Jonas, “Isolationism,” in Alexander DeConde et al. eds., Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, Vol. II. 23 According to Inis Claude, “serious students” of American foreign policy know that “isolationism” was never a true phenomenon. Indeed, the word “isolationism” did not come into general use until the 1930s. Whereas one can find references to “isolation” in historical documents, this was only stating a geographical fact. Inis L. Claude, “The Credibility of Institutions, Policies and Leadership,” in American Approaches to World Affairs, Kenneth W. Thompson, ed., 4th ed. (New York: University Press of America, 1986), p. 4. McDougall, Promised Land, p. 39. 24 Jonas, “Isolationism,” p. 337. 25 McDougall, Promised Land, pp. 39–40. 26 Selig Adler, The Isolationist Impulse. It’s Twentieth Century Reaction (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1957/1974), pp. 11, 28. 27 Ibid., p. 28. 28 Albert K. Weinberg, “The Historical Meaning of the Doctrine of Isolation,” American Political Science Review, 34(3), 1940, pp. 539–47. 29 Ibid., p. 542. 30 Bear F. Braumoeller, “The Myth of American Isolationism,” Foreign Policy Analysis, 6(4), 2010, pp. 349–71. 31 Ibid., p. 353. 32 URL: www.merriam-­webster.com/dictionary/isolationism. 33 Braumoeller, “The Myth of American Isolationism,” p. 354. See also David A. Lake, Entangling Relations: American Foreign Policy In Its Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Jeffrey W. Legro, “Whence American Internationalism” International Organization, 54(2), 2000, pp. 253–89. 34 Gilbert, To the Farewell Address, p. 89. Gilbert also noted how this view transformed through experience, how even though Americans disliked traditional diplomacy and power politics, they came to realize these were not structures that would “fall at the first blowing of the trumpets of liberty.” 35 Ibid., p. 135. 36 Bradford Perkins, “Creation of the Republican Empire,” in Warren Cohen, ed. The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, Vol. I (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 23. There is, of course, a debate over whether or not the Founders were “idealists” or “realists.” For instance, historians such as Norman Graebner, Alexander DeConde, and James Hutson argue that the Founders were far from naifs seeking to implement the ideals of the philosophes; rather, they were realists acting according to self-­interest and power. See, for instance, Lawrence S. Kaplan, “Review: Paranoia and American Revolutionary Diplomacy,” Reviews in American History, 9(2), 1981, pp.  166–71. What is significant, however, is that regardless of where one stood on the realist/idealist debate, the conclusion of the classic historians was the same: The Founders were isolationists. 37 Gilbert, To the Farewell Address, p. 135. Felix Gilbert argues that the “Political Testament” of the Farewell Address was partly due to the accidents of history (and perhaps because it was the first statement on the principles of American foreign policy).

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88   A distinct nation is born 38 Adler writes that James Monroe “freshened and restated” the “theory of isolationism” with the Monroe Doctrine, while at the same time arguing that it became, in the course of time, “an object of exaggerated isolationist veneration.” See Adler, The Isolationist Impulse, p. 12. 39 Ibid., p. 11. 40 Vann Woodward, “The Age of Reinterpretation,” p. 7. 41 For authors rejecting the thesis of “free security” and showing how the United States was, rather, embroiled in international affairs and great power rivalries, see, for example, J. C. A. Stagg, Mr. Madison’s war: politics, diplomacy, and warfare in the early American republic, 1783–1830 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983); Peter Onuf and Nicholas Onuf, Federal Union,; Stagg, Borderlines in Borderlands. 42 Hoffmann, Gulliver’s Troubles, pp. 94–5. 43 Quoted in Joan Hoff, A Faustian Foreign Policy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 4. 44 McDougall, Promised Land. 45 Cushing Strout, for example, in The American Image of the Old World (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), pp. ix–x, 14–18 argued that the American foreign policy traditions were simultaneously isolationism, republican expansion, and the setting of an example of freedom for others, says McDougall, Promised Land, on page 7. 46 Samuel Flagg Bemis called the Philippine acquisition an aberration, as Dexter Perkins notes in, The American Approach to Foreign Policy, p. 20. 47 Adler, The Isolationist Impulse, p. 20. 48 Kohn, American Nationalism, pp. 22–3. 49 In his short-­lived paper the Morning Star, John O’Sullivan proclaimed, on December 27, 1845 “the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole continent which providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self government.” The term was then picked up in the debate over Oregon. Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 42. 50 Ibid., p. 44. 51 Weinberg, Manifest Destiny., p.  2. Weinberg considers American expansion across the continent as an “ism” – an ideology exemplified by manifest destiny. 52 Perkins, The American Approach to Foreign Policy, p. 13. 53 Rosenberg, “A Call to Revolution.” She lauds Stephanson’s Manifest Destiny and William Earl Week’s Building the Continental Empire because they look westward and critique the concept of manifest destiny, but they use little of the scholarship on “frontiers” by the “new” western historians, Rosenberg says. She concludes that unless Manifest Destiny is to be assumed, rather than interrogated, westwards expansion and borderlands history must be construed as international, rather than as purely domestic, history. See pp. 66–7. 54 Ibid. Rosenberg critiques Bradford Perkins’s contribution to the four-­volume Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, for example, for ignoring diplomacy with any nations that were not European, discussing America’s western boundaries almost completely as a byproduct of diplomacy with Europe. For a literature review of studies of the “great American desert” (as the study of U.S. foreign policy during the era of manifest destiny up till the Civil War has been called), see Kinley Brauer, “The Great American Desert Revisited,” Diplomatic History, 13(3), 1989, pp. 395–416. 55 As Lawrence Kaplan did to modify his thesis of isolationism. 56 After the Seven Years’ War, France ceded most of the the Louisiana Territory east of the Mississippi River to Great Britain, and that west of the River to Spain. France retained the area around New Orleans. 57 Tuveson and Stephanson confirm the dichotomy, for example, whereas Kagan, McDougall, Herring, Hunt, and Hietala reject the notion that nineteenth century expansion could be classified as separateness or isolationist.

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   89 58 McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam, p. 68. 59 Michael Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), p.  45; McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam, p. 9. 60 Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, p. 131. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid., p. 213. 63 Ibid., p.  214. “The apocalyptic struggle was eventually to be seen as assuming new forms in the fight against slavery, in the campaign to ‘make the world safe for democracy,’ as well as in the seizure of new territories, in the New World, from the grasp of Antichrist.” See p. 24. 64 Ibid., p. 118. 65 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, Introduction p. xii. 66 Stanley Hoffmann in Gulliver’s Troubles, quoted in Claude, “The Credibility of Institutions, Policies and Leadership,” p. 3. It should be said, however, that “quietism” is not necessarily isolationism, although it does serve to dichotomize U.S. foreign policy in the manner I describe in this book. 67 As stated by McDougall, Promised Land, p. 7. See Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 29ff. 68 Klingberg, Cyclical Trends in American Foreign Policy Moods. He argues the United States was introvert in 1776–1798; 1824–1844; 1871–1891; and 1918–1940, while being extrovert in between. “Extroversion” is defined as “a nation’s willingness to bring its influence to bear upon other nations, to exert direct positive measures (specially military or diplomatic); “introversion” as “an unwillingness to exert much direct pressure upon other nations, and a desire to concentrate upon internal problems, while conducting normal economic, diplomatic, and cultural relations.” p. 8. 69 Contemporary authors who explicitly reject the term “isolationism” are McDougall, Promised Land; Kagan, Dangerous Nation; Rajan Menon, The End of Alliances (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Jeffrey Legro, in his book Rethinking the World rejects the term “isolationism” but still uses the term “separateness” which serves much the same function in terms of breaking up U.S. foreign policy history into a dichotomy. 70 Perkins, The Creation of a Republican Empire, p. 15. 71 H.W. Brands, “Exemplary versus Interventionist America” in Robert Hutching, ed. At the End of the American Century (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 31–2. 72 McDougall, Promised Land, pp.  39–40. There are certain notable exceptions within political science, however, such as Legro’s Rethinking the World, which explicitly rejects the term “isolationism.” 73 See for example, Zakaria, From Wealth to Power; Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue.” 74 Zakaria, From Wealth to Power, p. 5. This assumption no doubt owes something to views such as Selig Adler’s, who argued that isolationism actually enjoyed “increased vitality during the interlude of comparative tranquility between the downfall of Emperor Napoleon I and the war against Emperor William II of Germany.” See Adler, The Isolationist Impulse, p. 12. My italics. 75 Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue?” p. 89. 76 Ibid., p. 94. 77 Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs, 70(1), p.  27. Of course, Krauthammer was critiquing isolationism, but nonetheless acknowledging it as a powerful U.S. foreign policy tradition. 78 Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-­First Century (New York: Knopf, 2003), p. 162. 79 Stewart M. Patrick, The Best Laid Plans: The Origins of American Multilateralism and the Dawn of the Cold War (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), p. 5.

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90   A distinct nation is born 80 Ibid. 81 “Imperial by Design.” National Interest 111 (January/February), p. 18. 82 Monten, “The Roots of the Bush Doctrine.” 83 McCrisken, “Exceptionalism,” in DeConde et al. eds., Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, p. 63. 84 McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam, p. 14; “Exceptionalism,” in DeConde et al. eds., Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy. 85 Stewart M. Patrick sums up this new consensus on unilateralism in his book, The Best Laid Plans. See chapter 1, “From Washington to Wilson.” He defines unilateralism as “avoiding foreign entanglements abroad and preserving untrammeled sovereignty at home.” Patrick does, however, not completely dismiss isolationism, and argues that the “dominant strain in U.S. national security policy remained isolationism with a unilateral thrust.” See p. 5. Patrick further argues that, by the end of the nineteenth century, three schools of thought on foreign policy existed: Theodore Roosevelt’s great power internationalism (calling on the United States to uphold the global balance of power while maintaining its freedom of action; Wilsonian liberal internationalism (multilateralism); and isolationism (rejecting the great power vocation entirely, recommending detachment from the world). Each of these traditions employed the language of American exceptionalism to support their views, he argues. See pp. 1–2. 86 Onuf and Onuf, Federal Union, p. 98; Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, p. 60. 87 Gilbert, Farewell Address, p. 89; Onuf and Onuf, Federal Union, p. 117. To achieve France’s allegiance, the Americans had to rework their “Model Treaty” from a commercial into a political and military alliance. The Treaty of Alliance of 1778 promised islands in the West Indies to France, and the Floridas to its ally, Spain. The United States also had to pledge to remain France’s partner “forever.” See LaFeber, American Age, pp. 22–3. 88 DeConde, Entangling Alliance, p. 8. 89 Perkins, The Creation of a Republican Empire, p. 15. For an example of a political science version of this argument of ideas constituting interests, see the constructivist argument presented by Mlada Bukovansky, “American identity and neutral rights from independence to the War of 1812,” International Organization, 51, pp. 209–43. 90 See, for example, Hunt, The American Ascendancy; Walter Hixon, The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007). 91 Burton Ira Kaufman, Washington’s Farewell Address: The View from the 20th Century (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969), p. 8. 92 “That Washington’s Farewell Address was a statement of independence rather than isolationism remains the accepted interpretation in most works on the Federalist era,” writes Kaufman, ibid., p. 111. How historians and politicians have treated the address is of significance due to Washington’s stature as an almost mythical figure among the early Founding Americans. Washington’s words were taken as law, and “[i]t was constantly used to justify a policy of total abstention from world affairs.” There is also the issue of appraising Washington as a president – was he a visionary, a puppet of Hamilton, a common man with little depth, etc. Ibid., pp. 8–10. 93 Indeed, John G. Ruggie – by no means the only political scientist guilty of this – assumes Washington warned against “entangling alliances” as opposed to “permanent alliances.” See “The Past as Prologue,” p. 90. 94 Hamilton advocated a pro-­British policy because he thought this was the best way of fostering U.S. trade and fiscal interests. 95 See DeConde, Entangling Alliance. 96 The Jay Treaty was signed on November 19, 1794 by representatives of the United States and Great Britain, and sought to settle outstanding issues between the two countries that had been left unresolved since American independence. The treaty was unpopular with the American public.

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   91   97 Robert Ellis Jones, “Washington’s Farwell Address and Its Applications,” in Kaufman, Washington’s Farewell Address.   98 Alexander DeConde, “Washington’s Farwell, the French Alliance, and the Election of 1796,” in Kaufman, Washington’s Farewell Address, p. 121.   99 See Washington’s Farewell Address, available at: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_ century/washing.asp. 100 Jonas, “Isolationism,” p. 338. Manfred Jonas points to Washington’s neutrality act of 1794 (incorporating his Proclamation of Neutrality from 1793 and the subsequent Rules Governing Belligerents) as noteworthy because U.S. neutrality was in obvious tension with its alliance with France. France chose not to invoke the alliance in the 1790s, however, letting American neutrality go unchallenged. Jonas argues this allowed it to develop into a tradition reasserted in every major international conflict until World War II. How exactly he would characterize this “tradition” is unclear, as he argues against “isolationism.” See also George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 1. 101 Gilbert, To the Farewell Address, p. 133. See also Federalist 11, available at: http:// press-­pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch7s13.html. 102 Indeed, the purpose of the Declaration was to encourage European powers to ally with the United States. Whereas John Adams believed that French aid could be gained “for nothing” and some historians have argued the United States at first tried to enter into a purely commercial treaty with France, Kagan argues most contemporaries were ardent advocates of a Franco-­American military alliance. Gilbert, To the Farewell Address, pp. 44–9; Kagan, Dangerous Nation, pp. 57–8. 103 Kagan, Dangerous Nation, p.  62, citing Frederick W. Marks III, Independence on Trial. Foreign affairs and the making of the Constitution (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1973), p. 4. 104 LaFeber, The American Age, p. 48. My italics. 105 Kagan, Dangerous Nation, pp. 63–4. Paine had argued that the Revolution could be won without foreign alliances. 106 Jonas, “Isolationism,” p. 339; Hunt, The American Ascendancy. 107 Jonas, “Isolationism,” p. 339. 108 Kaufman, Washington’s Farewell Address, p. 31. 109 Ibid., p. 32. 110 Ibid., p. 179. 111 Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 24 November 1801, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Libscomb, 20 vols. (Washington, DC, 1903) X, p.  296, quoted in LaFeber, The American Age, p. 51. 112 For a discussion on Jefferson’s “empire for liberty” see Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, pp. 2, 7. Quoted in LaFeber, The American Age, pp. 57–8. 113 J. C. A. Stagg argues that the War of 1812 was “the sum total” of the foreign policy problems the new Republic had experienced with Great Britain since the Peace of Paris in 1783. President Madison’s goal, according to Stagg, was to invade and occupy Canada in order to use her commercial power as a source of pressure against hated British policies such as impressments on the high seas and illegal blockades. See Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War, chapter 1. 114 LaFeber, The American Age, pp. 59–60. 115 Kagan, Dangerous Nation, p.  98. “Jefferson’s plan died when the British government expressed its strong, and predictable disapproval, and the American Congress proved unwilling to pay for even one new frigate.” However, the troubles did not abate, and in 1801 Jefferson sent a squadron of three frigates and a schooner to Tripoli as the beginning of a four-­year long naval campaign. The military campaign was accompanied by a very proactive diplomatic effort. 116 Jonas, “Isolationism,” p. 339.

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92   A distinct nation is born 117 Weeks, Building the Continental Empire, p. 56. 118 Weinberg, Manifest Destiny, pp. 1–2. Weinberg would explicitly disagree with his later revisionist colleagues, arguing that “No one fact, either economic, or social, or even political, can account for [American expansion]. Perhaps a national idealism – call it manifest destiny or what you will – has had more to do with this expansion movement than anything else.” See p. 3. 119 Kaufman, Washington’s Farewell Address, p. 114. 120 Opposition to expansion did not equate isolationism. John Quincy Adams, for instance, when negotiating the Transcontinental Treaty, settled for a southwestern border at the Sabine River, effectively excluding a vast portion of what would later become Texas. Whereas he publicly argued that Spain would not have conceded more, this claim was later proved false, much to his embarrassment, as Kagan writes. In actuality, his private opinion was not to let Texas into the Union without a guarantee of excluding slavery, something he was not alone in feeling. President Monroe (a slaveholder), Andrew Jackson and Martin van Buren all agreed Texas amounted to political poison during their presidencies. See Kagan, Dangerous Nation, pp. 200–201. 121 Patricia Nelson Limerick, “Dilemmas in Forgiveness: William Appleman Williams and Western American History,” Diplomatic History, 25, 2001, p. 293. 122 Ibid., p. 295. 123 Ibid., p. 296. 124 See Stephen G. Rabe, “Hunt and the Historians,” H-­Diplo Roundtables Vol. VIII, No. 17, 2007. URL: www.h-­net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/AmericanAscendancy-­ Rabe.pdf For an example of a textbook that explicitly takes up this theme, see Merrill and Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Relations. 125 For instance, Thomas Hietala, Manifest Design and Ernest N. Paolino, The Foundations of the American Empire; William Earl Weeks, John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1992); Weeks, Building the Continental Empire. 126 LaFeber, The American Age, p. 32; Herring, From Colony to Superpower, pp. 41–5. 127 LaFeber, The American Age, p. 10. LaFeber points out that the settlers learnt from their clashes with the Indian tribes that they had to break with the European tradition of a professional army, giving instead weapons to all able-­bodied male settlers. Thus was the militia tradition born, a system forming “the backbone for the American military” and producing tactics which shaped U.S. military strategy in wars from the Revolution through the interventions in the Caribbean–Central American region in the 1920s (p. 11). This contrasts with accounts such as that of Weinberg, who concluded that fortunately, American expansionism “was of a character which can be viewed with minimal moralistic prepossession. In the pages of history there is relatively little of the tragedy which, though it induces reformist emotion, interferes with correct interpretation of human motives.” Apart from some objections from Filipinos and Haitians, Weinberg wrote, American expansion “is perhaps the most cheerful record of such perilous ambitions one can find.” See Manifest Destiny, p. 8. 128 Walter Russell Mead, in his review of George C. Herring’s From Colony to Superpower in Foreign Affairs, argues that this historic neglect of the United States’ relations with Native American peoples has been due to both a “general historical amnesia and a Eurocentric view of U.S. foreign policy.” Furthermore, this neglect impinges on our understanding of how Americans would deal with the rest of the world, as their approach to the outside world first appeared in their dealings with the native peoples of North America. See “A Hegemon’s Coming of Age,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2009. Another book that deals with the issue of United States– Indian relations to a greater extent than average is Kagan’s Dangerous Nation. 129 Kagan, Dangerous Nation, p. 11. The Chesapeake Bay area was settled by the Virginia Company, whose “adventurers” immediately undertook expansion up the James, Rappahannock, and York rivers, encountering the Indian tribes.

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   93 130 The term “Anglo-­Saxon civilizing mission” is Kagan’s, p. 12. 131 McDougall, Promised Land, p.  57. William Earl Weeks argues that the Doctrine, often perceived as a hollow threat in its early years, was followed by a statement by Secretary of State Adams to Imperial Russia that the United States would contest any new colonial establishments on the northwest coast. In fact, Weeks argues, the Monroe Doctrine was “less a hollow threat to the European powers than a formal statement to Congress of a policy already in place.” See Weeks, John Quincy Adams, p. 177. 132 Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, p. 59. 133 Weeks, Building a Continental Empire, p. 52. According to Weeks, the Transcontinental Treaty, as it was also called, was the origin of America’s global empire because it was the first step toward an overseas empire in Asia (in terms of acquiring ports on the Pacific coast). See John Quincy Adams, p. 178. 134 With Andrew Jackson’s presidency, however, Adams started thinking of expansion as evil, since the union had changed towards a slave power. The sectional issue had important implications for both American foreign policy and its domestic politics. According to William Earl Weeks, Adams’ second career post-­presidency in the House of Representatives was a repudiation of the achievements of his first career, as he evolved from a staunch nationalist to a fiery sectionalist, encouraging the break-­up of the Union. See Weeks, John Quincy Adams, p. 5. 135 Hietala, Manifest Design, p. 209. 136 Ibid., p. 210. 137 Ibid., p. 211. 138 Paolino, The Foundations of the American Empire, p. 207. 139 Ibid.; Weeks also argues that the legacy of Adams’ statecraft could be seen in Seward (whom he called Adams’ “protégé”) and also John Hay’s policies. See John Quincy Adams, p. 179. 140 Hietala, Manifest Design, p. 212. 141 Ibid. 142 Nugent, Habits of Empire, p.  xiv. For a discussion of what empire entails, see Charles S. Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). Although Maier hedges on whether or not the United States can be categorized as an empire as yet, he makes the valuable point that the distinction between hegemon and imperial power is a fragile one: “At best, hegemony seems potential empire, not just a high-­minded renunciation of intervention,” p. 63. For a thorough discussion of what hegemony entails, see Bruce Cronin, “The Paradox of Hegemony: America’s Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nations,” European Journal of International Relations, 7(1), 2001, pp. 103–30. Michael H. Hunt argues that the United States has been an empire for a long time and in several guises, beginning as a continental empire (a form of settler colonialism already in existence at the time of national independence); turning to formal overseas empire at the end of the nineteenth century; thereafter practicing informal empire in large areas of Central America and the Caribbean, maritime East Asia, western Asia, and arguably even western Europe in the early Cold War. See “Empire, Hegemony, and the U.S. Policy Mess,” (May 21, 2007) History News Network. URL: http://hnn.us/articles/37486.html 143 Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of our Times (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 12. Westad refers to nineteenth century expansion as a “rather concrete imperialist program.” 144 Nugent, Habits of Empire, p. xiv. 145 Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, p. 53. 146 Seward, The Foundations of the American Empire, p. 211. 147 Weeks, Building the Continental Empire, p. x. Nugent calls the third – and current – American imperial phase the “global empire.”

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154 155 156 157

158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170

171 172 173

Nugent, Habits of Empire, p. xiv. Ibid. Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, p. 58. Ibid., p. 59. Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. viii. Royal American Magazine 1 (1774): 10, quoted in Jack P. Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America: Exceptionalism and Identity From 1492–1800 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993, p. 164. Burns, America’s Mission, p. 259. Weeks even argues the federal union was set up in order to create an empire (along with ensuring the security of the states). See William Earl Weeks, Building the Continental Empire, p. ix. Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire, p. 76. Walter Russell Mead, “Review: Habits of Empire,” Foreign Affairs (November/ December 2008). See Vann Woodward, “The Age of Reinterpretation.” The quote is from Manfred Jonas, “Isolationism,” in DeConde et al. eds., Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, p.  340. Providing an example of the belated updating of historiographical consensus within political science, Ruggie’s article “The Past as Prologue” from 1997 repeats the argument that the United States was “removed from the continuous jostling of European power politics,” protected by the oceans on either side, and surrounded by weak neighbors. See Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue,” p. 89. Gilbert, To the Farewell Address; McDougall, Promised Land, p. 42. Obviously, this was not true for the War of 1812, or for the Civil War. DeConde, Entangling Alliance; Jonas, “Isolationism,” p. 339. Ibid., p. 340. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny, p. 8. Ibid., p. 29. Ibid., pp. 38–40. McCrisken, “American Exceptionalism,” p. 63. Stephanson, Manifest Destiny. McCrisken, “American Exceptionalism,” p. 68. Hietala, Manifest Design, p. 177. Ibid., pp. 177–8. For a history of “internationalism” in the United States since 1890, see Warren F. Kuehl, Seeking World Order: The United States and International Organization to 1920 (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969). Jean-­Baptiste Duroselle, From Wilson to Roosevelt: Foreign Policy of the United States, 1913–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), pp.  10–11. Duroselle writes that Mahan influenced Tracy before the publication of the book itself, which, after the fact, brought him the admiration of Lodge, then a member of the Naval Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, as well as Theodore Roosevelt. Indeed, as early as 1890 Roosevelt wrote to Mahan to congratulate him. More importantly, he put Mahan’s ideas into practice, first rather modestly as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (an appointment he had received in 1897 due to his friendship with Lodge), then on “a grand scale” as President from 1901 to 1909. Ibid. The 1907–1909 voyage of the U.S. Fleet to the Pacific was ordered by Theodore Roosevelt after consulting with Mahan, and Roosevelt also advised his senators and representatives in an official message to read Mahan’s works. Paolino, The Foundations of the American Empire, p. 212. Jonas, “Isolationism,” pp. 340–41; Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World. America’s Vision for Human Rights (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2005), p. 61.

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Challenging the foreign policy dichotomy   95 174 John Milton Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the fight for the League of Nations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 11. Roosevelt’s Nobel lecture was held on May 5, 1910. URL: http://nobelprize. org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1906/roosevelt-­lecture.html. 175 Jonas, “Isolationism,” p. 341. 176 Westad, The Global Cold War, pp. 14–15. Westad argues it would be wrong to see the American occupation of Hawaii (1897) and the occupation of the Philippines and Cuba in the wake of the Spanish–American War (1898) as “too radical a departure in U.S. foreign relations,” as American involvement in East Asia both politically and commercially dated back to the 1840s (it was U.S. naval vessels that after all forced Western trade on Japan in 1854) and U.S. involvement in the Caribbean was nothing new. 177 Jonas, “Isolationism,” p. 340. 178 See note 10. 179 Paul Johnson, “The Myth of American Isolationism – Reinterpreting the Past,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 1995. 180 Hamilton quoted in Gilbert, Farewell Address, p. 133; see also Federalist 11. 181 Joyce Appleby, “Recovering America’s Historic Diversity: Beyond Exceptionalism,” Journal of American History, 79(2), 1992, p. 424. 182 McCrisken, American Exceptionalism, p. 7.

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Part II

A mission to lead the world

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4 Rethinking the “turn-around” theory

Introduction One of the most important assumptions in the study of U.S. foreign policy is that of the “turn-­around.” Most accounts of modern U.S. foreign policy assume “the events of the Second World War brought about a revolution in American attitudes.”1 Political scientists, economists, and historians generally agree that the United States failed to shape international politics in the interwar period because of its rejection of membership of the League of Nations, but that the United States fundamentally changed with World War II, discarding its earlier tradition of “aloofness,” “isolationism” or “separateness” in favor of multilateral internationalism.2 This “turn-­around” thesis is based on several assumptions about the nature of U.S. foreign policy. The first is that what the United States turned away from was an earlier foreign policy tradition of “separateness” or “isolationism,” as chronicled in the previous chapter. The second assumption is that the United States had historically vacillated between its urge to be isolated from world politics and an urge to participate (as exemplified by its leadership role with the League of Nations negotiations in Paris in 1919 and subsequent rejection of the Treaty of Versailles), and that it took World War II to finally settle this internal dispute.3 The third and final assumption is that the institutional order building that took place under U.S. auspices in the 1940s signaled a profound domestic turn-­around in U.S. foreign policy towards an entirely new tradition of multilateral internationalism. These assumptions are so common in writings on U.S. foreign policy that they are often not questioned. For those familiar with studies of U.S. foreign policy, these theories, as presented below, will be nothing new. I hope, however, that my critique of them will contribute to a renewed debate on U.S. foreign policy traditions. The chapter will show that rather than rehash the old isolationism vs internationalism dichotomy the discussion should be over whether the United States “turned” from unilateral internationalism to multilateral internationalism. The first part of this chapter will present and critique the conventional theories of a “turn-­around” from isolationism/aloofness to internationalism as well as those arguing for a “turn-­around” from unilateralism to multilateralism. In order to do

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so, it is necessary to agree on what “multilateral” means, which will be discussed in the latter part of the chapter. I argue that the thesis of an American foreign policy turn-­around in the early twentieth century overplays both the historic separateness or isolationism prior to the 1940s and the multilateral commitment made during those years. I argue that the turn-­around thesis should be treated as a more limited argument of U.S. commitment to a specific international order over which it exerted considerable control, rather than positing a fundamental change in the American outlook on how to engage with the world.

The turn-­around thesis: identity and its assumptions in the study of U.S. foreign policy How have political scientists and historians portrayed the turn-­around thesis, and what theoretical assumptions have they employed? I will first present the turn-­ around thesis as employed by realist theories within political science, and secondly I will lay out the turn-­around thesis as used by constructivists and liberals in political science. Last, I will show how historians have approached this subject.

Political science Realism Realist theories of U.S. foreign policy in general and the turn-­around specifically can be divided into two camps: the classical and the modern. Both have relatively straightforward explanations for why the United States would employ what they deem to be multilateral internationalism after World War II, which have subsequently been criticized by constructivist and liberal theorists. For classical realists at the time, the emergence of the United States as a postwar superpower in 1945 signaled the necessary intellectual victory for the future success of U.S. foreign policy.4 It was, in short, the long-­awaited repudiation of what George Kennan disapprovingly called the “legalistic–moralistic” tradition in U.S. foreign policy history, commonly associated with Woodrow Wilson.5 Kennan and Hans Morgenthau’s simultaneous publications in the early 1950s started a great postwar debate on “moralism” versus “the national interest.”6 Kennan derided President Wilson for “the colossal conceit of thinking that you could suddenly make international life over into what you believed to be your own image,”7 whereas Morgenthau strongly condemned the influence of morality and ideals on U.S. foreign policy, particularly what he called both the “chosen people” and the “manifest destiny” forms of exceptionalism.8 In Robert Osgood’s analysis, the explanation for America’s unstable and vacillating past was its obsession with moral crusades and its lack of understanding of a realistic national interest.9 He lamented that the United States’ rise to great power status had not necessitated a reconfiguration of its moral tradition. Rather, Americans

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Rethinking the “turn-around” theory   101 were encouraged to believe that reality was adaptable to their ideals, which was precisely their problem.10 Only when U.S. policymakers grasped the value of national self-­interest, and that self-­interest’s connection with a European balance-­of-power, would the United States finally settle on a realistic kind of internationalism. This was precisely what World War II and the emergence of the cold war had done to the American foreign policy debate, the classical realists thought. The commitment to multilateral institutions was seen as instrumental, and as a way of balancing against the Soviet Union. Initially pleased with this new development, they lauded the foreign policy of the Harry S. Truman administration. From 1953 until his death, however, Morgenthau “witnessed a succession of foreign policies out of line with his teachings.”11 Whereas he had provided a realist model that U.S. foreign policies could follow, actual U.S. foreign policy failed to conform to this realist model most of the time.12 The classical realists’ intellectual victory over what they labeled American “idealism” thus seemed rather short-­lived, as Morgenthau, Kennan and realist scholar-­practitioner Henry Kissinger would regularly criticize the fact that the United States still consistently rejected realism for what they derisively called Wilsonianism.13 For the neorealists of the late 1970s, the issue of ideas and idealism was rendered irrelevant, as the sources of international politics were to be found in the international system, not within states.14 The story of the postwar order was simply that the United States was balancing against the other great power left standing after the war: the Soviet Union. The changing distribution of material capabilities after the world war caused the emergence of a bipolar international structure, essentially dooming the United States and the Soviet Union to mutual animosity. This theory had little to say about the ideology or foreign policy traditions of either the United States or Russia, as the father of neorealism, Kenneth Waltz, ruled out the subject of foreign policy due to its complexity.15 Any idealistic or ideational reasoning on the part of policymakers would have to be deemed “mere rhetoric.” Neorealism and its two subsequent offshoots, defensive and offensive realism, were soon found wanting in terms of their ability to incorporate domestic and ideational variables into their theories.16 Therefore, neorealism (as well as defensive and offensive realism) was subsequently challenged by “neoclassical” realism, which essentially aims at bringing foreign policy back in to neorealist analysis. While keeping certain neorealist assumptions about the international system, it also looks to domestic factors in order to explain a state’s international behavior.17 In one of the better known neoclassical theories of U.S. foreign policy, Fareed Zakaria argues that the United States underperformed as a great power in the latter part of the nineteenth century, going through a period of “imperial understretch” in that it failed to convert its potential power (economic as well as military) into real, material power.18 Zakaria argues that it is puzzling that the United States did not expand more and sooner, and his theory explains this puzzle by the lack of the state power necessary to harvest U.S. national power. Thus, this period in U.S. foreign

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102   A mission to lead the world policy was marked by a “persistent reluctance to involve itself abroad.”19 Zakaria argues that the United States was aloof where it could have been internationalist because of its weak state structure. This leads to the curious analysis whereby conquering parts of Mexico, pushing out France, Great Britain and Spain, decimating a native population and asserting hemispheric control through the Monroe Doctrine was not internationalist in the neoclassical realist analysis of eighteenth century U.S. politics. Neoclassical realists view the structural explanation for U.S. internationalism in 1945 as incomplete, since there were several strategies available to the United States in addition to containment – such as agreeing to mutual spheres of influence with the Soviet Union, or non-­entanglement.20 Neoclassical realist theories of U.S. foreign policy seem to diverge somewhat on which domestic factor was decisive after World War II, however, as some argue that containment was chosen because it was in accordance with American liberal assumptions, whereas others argue that Open Door expansionism was decisive.21 Neorealism was not meant to explain how domestic competition to interpret international forces and events is resolved, however.22 The subsequent attempts to ameliorate this by defensive, offensive, and neoclassical variations of neorealism have been vulnerable to the criticism that in order to “fix” this aspect of neorealism, they have had to “smuggle in” variables that are in fact constructivist or liberal in nature.23 Constructivism and liberalism John G. Ruggie, Jeffrey Legro, and G. John Ikenberry have put forth constructivist and liberal theories of the American “turn-­around” that utilize domestic level ideational factors.24 Jeffrey Legro has challenged realists with what he calls the puzzle of the World War I American case: Why would the United States refuse to take on the role as hegemon of the international political system in 1919 yet freely enter this role in 1945?25 This is a challenge particularly aimed at realist scholars, because, whereas the relative power of the United States in the international system did not change much in these two case studies, its foreign policies did, Legro argues. The answer, he says, is domestic ideas. Because there was no domestic agreement on a new foreign policy orthodoxy in 1919, the United States reverted to “separation” from Europe as the default option: “When a setback is anticipated by the existing orthodoxy, that mentality is not challenged but is sustained by the setback,” Legro writes. Thus, despite U.S. victory in World War I and the incentives it had to shape international relations “based on its dominant power position, U.S. ‘disillusionment’ (i.e. unmet expectations) with the intervention in the war led to America’s return to nonentanglement.”26 According to Legro, the old U.S. foreign policy tradition was “unilateralism” or “separatism,” which he defines as “an aloof, go-­italone orientation that attempted to distance the United States from many of the institutions and norms of the dominant European international society.”27

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Rethinking the “turn-around” theory   103 After World War II, however, the United States became internationalist or “integrationist,” which Legro defines as “greater engagement with international society – especially political–military involvement with the European great powers that had created the international system of the twentieth century.”28 After World War II, then, there was not only collapse of the old foreign policy idea but also consolidation of a new one. This is a clever constructivist answer to a realist puzzle: Relative power did not change, ideas did. Further, according to realist theory, the only reason the United States would bind itself to a postwar institutional order would be if it served its material interests, and once this benefit is deemed less than it costs, the United States will abandon such a commitment. G. John Ikenberry and John G. Ruggie have both put forward challenges to this realist logic that utilize cultural and ideational variables on the domestic American level.29 Their theories differ somewhat, but they both argue that the American commitment to multilateral internationalism is durable, as opposed to an instrumental commitment induced by the cold war, and they share the following assumptions about the nature of U.S. foreign policy. The first assumption is that the U.S. commitment to multilateral internationalism is connected to its liberal, political tradition in an important and fundamental manner. A multilateral vision of world order is in fact “singularly compatible with America’s collective self-­conception as a nation,” argues Ruggie; indeed this vision “taps into the very idea of America.”30 Focusing on institutional and philosophical characteristics of the early American Republic, such as its government structure (federalism), its written documents espousing an Enlightenment philosophy (the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights), and its Republican form, their argument links the liberal or Enlightenment Founding with support for a liberal international order. From this perspective, multilateralism is “the internationalization of the liberal conception of the rule of law.”31 Multilateralism is as American as apple pie. More specifically, Ruggie and Ikenberry both assume that American multi-­ ethnic nationalism in effect causes or helps cause multilateralism.32 Ikenberry argues that American civic nationalism reinforces the idea that the rule of law is the best source of legitimacy and political inclusion, and that this tradition provides “background support” for a multilateral foreign policy.33 Ruggie argues that there is a relatively direct link between the character of American civic nationalism and multilateral world order principles, because “the mechanism of accommodating differences of ethos, race, and religion among Americans” is in keeping with the concept of “civic, as opposed to organic, nationhood.”34 This is why they conclude that the end of the cold war did not signal the end of the U.S. commitment to multilateral internationalism. The international power configuration changed, but America’s commitment to internationalism did not. In sum, the U.S. turn-­around towards multilateral internationalism is permanent because it is rooted in the American identity, not the international configuration of power.

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History

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A New Deal for the World? The historian Robert Divine’s classic book Second Chance argued the turn-­ around to internationalism could be explained by the successful efforts of elite activists and pressure groups in generating public support for the United Nations.35 As Elizabeth Borgwardt later pointed out, however, there were also numerous pressure groups campaigning for the League of Nations during World War I, rendering this explanation by itself insufficient. According to Borgwardt, the missing piece of the explanatory puzzle is the cumulative impact of the Depression, the New Deal, and the war itself, on the generation of Americans reaching adulthood in the 1940s.36 Borgwardt’s book A New Deal for the World emphasizes the impact of wider developments in American society – particularly the New Deal response to the Great Depression and the “transformative effect of America’s wartime experiences.”37 For policymakers, she argues, the lessons of the New Deal response were twofold: first, that “there was a connection between individual security and the stability and security of the wider polity,” and second, “that government had ‘an affirmative responsibility’ to help individuals achieve that security.” After World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, these lessons were readily extrapolated to the international level by aides in the executive branch as well as by State, War, and Treasury Department planners – many of whom had served as New Deal administrators themselves.38 Thus, what was new about the multilateralist developments of the 1940s and what made them possible was their “congruence with the life experiences of many ordinary Americans.” This was not so much exposure to the atrocities of imperial Japan or Nazi Germany, but rather to the ravages of the Great Depression “and to the perceived success of society-­wide programs in dealing with this huge, transnational, and seemingly intractable financial crisis.” In Borgwardt’s opinion, this was “the difference that made a difference in U.S. foreign policy in the wake of the Second World War.”39 Borgwardt’s book is very much influenced by political scientist Anne-­Marie Slaughter’s argument that the American response to the war and its postwar planning was essentially extrapolating the New Deal onto the international scene.40 The characteristics of multilateralism are also the characteristics of the liberal conception of a polity, Slaughter argues, and the United States projected these principles onto the world as “a macrocosm of the New Deal regulatory state.”41 The argument offered by Slaughter and Borgwardt is a more specific version of that set forth by Ruggie and Ikenberry, since they argue that the United States’ adoption of multilateralism reflected its Founding principles as a liberal and multi-­ethnic community. Thus, these liberal and constructivist arguments have in common an emphasis on the link between the United States’ liberal founding and multi-­ethnic nationalism and its commitment to multilateralism after World War II, a link I dispute below.

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The effect of the cold war In Geir Lundestad’s opinion, it was the Soviet threat that, after 1945, proved most decisive in encouraging close trans-­Atlantic cooperation.42 Similarly Arthur Schlesinger has argued that, “It is to Joseph Stalin that Americans owe the 40-year suppression of the isolationist impulse.”43 Since the United States set up an international order in cooperation with – and not in opposition to – the Soviet Union during the war, however, the international postwar structure itself cannot simply have been the product of realist power calculations stemming from the beginning of the cold war. Discussing the emergence of the cold war and the commitments made by the United States after the cold war started is beyond the scope of this book, but, as will be shown in Chapter 6 and as is also frequently noted by historians and liberal theorists alike, the United States constructed most of the international order prior to the cold war.44 Ikenberry thus puts forth a nuanced argument when he distinguishes between the “containment order,” which he argues was a response to the Soviet threat, and the “Bretton Woods order” which was not a response to the cold war (since this started before the cold war and continued after it ended). The containment order was articulated in the Truman Doctrine of March 12, 1947 and entailed balance-­of-power, nuclear deterrence, and political and ideological competition.45 The liberal economic order, as articulated in a speech six days before the Truman Doctrine at Baylor University in Texas, consisted of “economic openness, political reciprocity, and multilateral management of an American-­led liberal political order.”46 Because the beginning of the cold war is beyond the scope of this book, the main focus of Chapter 6 (the World War II case study) will be on the Bretton Woods or “liberal constitutional” order that the United States set up, but I will also briefly discuss the containment order in terms of the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

American exceptionalism and unilateralism: challenging the turn-­around thesis Notwithstanding the status of the turn-­around as an article of faith in political science, its assumptions are very much open to questioning. I will first critique the realist theories, then the constructivist/liberal theories, followed by the theory put forth by Borgwardt, before I end the section by presenting my own argument, which is based on the conclusions about the historical trajectory of U.S. foreign policy drawn from the previous two chapters.

Political science Realism Although neorealism successfully managed to push classical realism out of political science departments for a long time,47 neorealism did not in any way attempt

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106   A mission to lead the world to resolve the debate between “moralism/idealism” and “realism” which classical realists had brought to the fore.48 Thus, despite their losing the theoretical fight, it is still possible that the classical realists held important insights about U.S. foreign policy. I argue, however, that the debate between “realists,” such as E. H. Carr, Morgenthau, Osgood, and Kennan, and “moralists” or “idealists,” such as the Wilsonians was based on a fallacy. As we shall see in the next chapter, the classical realists’ dichotomy was much too simple. For example, Henry Cabot Lodge was not the “realist” to Woodrow Wilson the “idealist.”49 Rather, they were both idealists in the sense of both being strongly influenced by American exceptionalism.50 They both saw the United States as holding a unique position in international affairs due to its exceptional political system and they both argued this made the United States singularly suited to a leadership position.51 They both advocated a “vigorous” foreign policy for their country. They differed, however, on how this international leadership role was to be executed. Whereas Wilson advocated a general League, Lodge was in favor of an alliance between the United States, Great Britain, and France. Both saw in the future of the United States an international leadership role, but their strategies differed. In the end, Wilson was unable to assuage Lodge’s fears of losing too much sovereignty to this new organization. Lodge was advocating unilateral internationalism, Wilson multilateral internationalism. Neither was advocating “aloofness” or non-­entanglement. But what of World War II? It seems fairly straightforward that the realists have a point when they argue that the United States was balancing the Soviet Union after the war, and that this accounts for its commitment to an internationalist, albeit U.S.-led order. Historians along with liberal and constructivist political scientists have pointed out, however, that the United States planned its postwar institutional order before the cold war started.52 If the United States wanted to balance against the Soviet Union, why would it build an order that included the Soviet Union? Furthermore, why would it build an order that in fact overtly depended on great power unity?53 More fundamental, however, is Legro’s puzzle of why the United States did not take advantage of its relative power status in 1919 to mold the international system according to its preferences.54 In fact, the general realist exasperation with U.S. foreign policy is a clear sign that the United States consistently ignores the material facts upon which realist international relations theories are based, or – rather – that these systemic constraints are filtered through an influential ideational prism. This ideational prism – which I argue is American exceptionalism – is an essential part of understanding and explaining U.S. foreign policy. Despite attempts by practitioners and theorists alike, realists have been relegated to chastising the strong sense of exceptionalism that the American body politic embodies. In a lament familiar to realists, Osgood, in his classic work Ideals and Self-­Interest in America’s Foreign Relations, regrets how Americans at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were “encouraged to believe that the realities [of international politics] were perfectly consistent with their ideals . . .”55 The constant lament on

Rethinking the “turn-around” theory   107 the part of realists – classical as well as neo – that the United States is not heeding realist logic is the best possible evidence that realist theories in general do a poor job of explaining U.S. foreign policy.56 In short, arguing that the United States should follow realist logic and arguing that the United States does follow realist logic are two different things. Ironically, realists have turned out to be rather unrealistic about domestic U.S. politics and the role ideas play.57

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Constructivism and liberalism In light of the poor realist record in explaining U.S. foreign policy, the constructivist and liberal theories hold out more promise. As described earlier, Ruggie and Ikenberry have explicitly taken into account the U.S. liberal tradition and civic nationalism in order to locate the sources of its international commitment post-­World War II.58 Despite this, Ikenberry’s and Ruggie’s analyses of the multilateral turn-­around actually hinge on some questionable assumptions about an American national identity, and this part of their argument is underdeveloped, undertheorized, and – on close scrutiny – unconvincing. The most fundamental problem with their argument applies equally to their point about the liberal tradition and to that about civic nationalism: they are both constants in American history, and thus cannot by themselves explain changes in U.S. foreign policy such as the “turn-­around.” The United States has always been a federal Republic based on an Enlightenment constitution.59 This did not, however, inspire multilateral internationalism from the inception of the Republic.60 The argument that the liberal tradition leads to multilateral internationalism seems to rely on a rather vague definition of liberalism, and in the end the logic is circular: a liberal democratic tradition supports multilateral internationalism because multilateral internationalism is liberal and democratic.61 The focus, rather, should be on the ideas behind the domestic as well as the international institutions, not merely the institutions qua institutions or civic nationalism qua civic nationalism. The fact that there were multiple nationalities present at the American Founding – Englishmen, Dutch, and Germans, not to mention slaves and Native Americans – seems not immediately relevant to a multilateral foreign policy over a century later.62 Rather, what seems relevant about the Founding is what ideas they had about their adopted country; in other words, what kind of identity developed in the United States. The American project was an ideational one and it was self-­consciously exceptional, as chronicled in the previous chapters. The American political project saw itself as unique in world history, and it heralded a concomitant unique role for the United States in international politics. This idea of exceptionalism was, I argue, the chief reason behind the urge to export the American democratic design, and the chief reason for the predominantly unilateral foreign policy strategy that the United States would come to pursue. The Americans had figured out the best way to organize society, and, thus, the rest of the world needed to follow. The only way to bring about American international commitment, then, was to let it organize international politics according to its own

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108   A mission to lead the world preferences. The case study in the next chapter on Wilson and the fight over the League of Nations teaches us exactly that. This is also the essential lesson of World War II and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vision for a world order, as we shall see in Chapter 6.63 Legro’s theory addresses the problems of stasis associated with Ruggie’s and Ikenberry’s assumptions by explicitly offering a theory of ideational change. As a contribution to constructivist theory, it is very impressive. Legro does make some assumptions in his American case study, however, which are unhelpful in understanding U.S. foreign policy in this context. First, he contrasts pre-­World War II “unilateralism” with post-­World War II “internationalism” – two postures that are not contradictory.64 Unilateral behavior could be “internationalist” or it could be “isolationist” depending on one’s level of international activity, all the while keeping one’s formal commitments to a minimum.65 Thus, internationalism should be contrasted with isolationism; and unilateralism with multilateralism. Legro labels U.S. foreign policy before World War II as “unilateralist” because the United States eschewed political and military commitments towards Europe while favoring economic and cultural relations. Contrasting this with a later internationalism, however, suggests that the historic continental, hemispheric, and overseas expansion that the United States undertook in the nineteenth century was not internationalist. It also ignores internationalist activities in the political and military arena during the interwar years such as the Washington naval treaties, the managing of security policy through economic leadership in Europe with the Dawes and Young Plan, the Locarno Treaty, and close cooperation with the League during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.66 It is correct, however, that the United States was not interested in any multilateral engagements infringing too much upon its sovereignty, always “guarding its freedom of action,” in the words of the then U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Frank B. Kellogg.67 Legro concludes that the United States exhibited “continuity” after World War I because “American aversion to commitments on security apparently changed little after the war was over.”68 Yet, as the case study following this section will show, “aversion” is far from the correct description. Most American senators were favorably inclined toward the United States entering the League of Nations, and public opinion was significantly biased towards this as well.69 There was a consensus on “what” (American international engagement), but not on “how” (whether to enter into the League with or without reservations). In fact, despite the so-­called Irreconcilables’ fervid attempts at connecting blanket opposition to the League with the most hallowed traditions of American foreign policy thought – Washington’s admonition against “permanent alliances” and Jefferson’s warning against “entangling alliances” – they attracted a remarkably small following. Had the prevailing mood in the United States really been “isolationist” or “aloof ” the Irreconcilables would have been leading this majority movement. Instead, they were outnumbered and outvoted by various stripes of pro-­League internationalists. Thus, concluding that the United States affirmed a tradition of aloofness when it in the end did not become a member of the League

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Rethinking the “turn-around” theory   109 of Nations seems to gloss over one important fact: a majority of senators wanted to enter the League. Indeed, Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt wanted a bilateral/trilateral security treaty with France/Britain, which, had this happened, would have constituted the first peacetime alliance for the United States, long before NATO.70 Finally, the assumption underlying the puzzle Legro presented to the realists – why the United States would assume the role of hegemon in 1945 but not in 1919 – assumes that the League of Nations and the United Nations were comparable institutions in terms of potential demands on U.S. sovereignty. The implication of the puzzle is that rejecting the Covenant of the League can legitimately be viewed as the polar opposite of ratifying the Charter of the United Nations. This is not correct. In fact, as we will see, the UN was not so much a collective security arrangement as a concert of power, a modified version of Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Policemen” scheme, and thus not a direct heir of the League.71 Congress ultimately failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles because it would make the United States a nation like all other nations, rather than the “leader of the free world,” as Franklin D. Roosevelt made the United States in the post-­WWII system. The second postwar order was thus not a vindication of Wilsonian multilateral internationalism, but rather of Lodgian unilateral internationalism: it allowed the United States to set the parameters for cooperation, making the second postwar order an American international system.

History The issue at stake is not whether the United States went from isolationist to internationalist, then, but rather whether or not the United States turned from unilateralism to multilateralism, rendering Divine’s argument somewhat irrelevant. Whereas Borgwardt’s critique of Divine’s argument is a good one, her own and Slaughter’s arguments also suffer from weaknesses, proving the importance of nuanced use of the concept of internationalism as well as the concept of national identity in understanding U.S. foreign policy. First, because Borgwardt assumes that public support was the crucial variable in explaining the turn-­around to internationalism in the 1940s versus public support for isolationism in 1919 and 1920, she has difficulty integrating the fact that there was majority public support for the League of Nations in 1919 into her argument. The problem, as explained in the next chapter, was not public opinion but rather the Senate. Indeed, the Republican foreign policies of the 1920s can, and should, be characterized as “internationalist.” The actual question then becomes “why no ratification in the Senate in 1919 and 1920?” The answer in this book is: “Because Woodrow Wilson denied the skeptical senators the reservations and unilateral assurances that FDR and Truman would offer in 1944 and 1945.” This will be further discussed in the next two chapters. Second, Borgwardt and Slaughter both convincingly argue for the influence of domestic institutions and ideas on the postwar planning for the international order. But they do not explain why a “New Deal for the world” would mean

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110   A mission to lead the world anything more than economic multilateralism. It seems entirely plausible that the experiences rendered by the Great Depression would induce closer economic cooperation than existed previously among states. The United States’ rise to the status of economic hegemon during the course of the war also meant it stood to gain the most from facilitating the expansion of international trade. But following the logic of the turn-­around thesis itself, their arguments do not seem sufficient to account for the “deep multilateralism” in the security and political issue areas, as opposed to solely in the economic issue area, that the turn-­around thesis posits. Last, Borgwardt’s argument encounters a further problem in that she argues the “New Deal for the world” that the United States promoted was really about human rights, something the U.S. human rights record on treaty ratification simply cannot support. Her own account of the Nuremberg trials and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) shows the extent to which the United States was concerned with carving out unilateral maneuverability for itself in the area of human rights and international law.72 The United States may have sought to create a “New Deal for the world,” but it was to be a world ruled by American principles, which were certainly not binding on the United States itself. It did so in order to make sure that the United States would change the world, without there being any danger of the world changing the United States. Indeed, when Ikenberry argues that the “reluctant character of American hegemony, rooted in its legacy of isolationism and exceptionalism, lowered the fears of imperial-­style domination,” he is trying to explain why the western states would let themselves be dominated by the United States.73 But that is not the puzzle. The western states were not worried about domination by the United States; they were worried about abandonment. The puzzle is why the United States would accept reduced sovereignty and circumscribed freedom of action. The answer: In setting up the parameters of cooperation, it minimized these constraints.74 Revisionist historians and neorealist political scientists alike may argue that “legitimacy” was code for justifying American power; “prosperity” meant the imposition of free market ideology; and “order” meant accepting American hegemony.75 The argument presented here is that the question is not whether the United States was “pursuing its national interest” in setting up these institutions, which would be an obvious statement, but that the question is rather how these interests were defined. I argue we cannot understand the structure of the postwar international order or the American intentions behind it if we do not adequately appreciate the extent to which U.S. policymakers were seeking to safeguard American exceptionalism and unilateral maneuverability in pursuing this new world order. What then of the turn-­around? Nothing I have said so far negates the possibility of a turn-­around; it simply changes the explanation from one where the United States turns away from the habit of vacillating between aloofness and internationalism to one where the United States turns away from a constant tradition of unilateral internationalism towards one of multilateral internationalism. I argue, however, that notwithstanding the flurry of multilateral activity on the

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Rethinking the “turn-around” theory   111 international level during and after World War II, the American domestic level foreign policy revolution has been exaggerated. The turn-­around thesis often describes both the increased level of multilateral cooperation on the international level and a domestic foreign policy transformation on the part of the United States. Unquestionably, there were important differences on both the domestic and the international levels between the 1930s and the 1940s, especially in terms of formal American security commitments. Perhaps conflating somewhat the new developments in the international system with domestic developments in American foreign policy, Ikenberry, Ruggie, and Legro exaggerate the American commitment to multilateralism.76 I argue it is problematic to equate an international multilateral order with an American-­led hierarchical order. Essentially, the thesis of an American foreign policy turn-­ around overplays both the historic aloofness prior to the 1940s and the multilateral commitment made during those years. Ruggie argues that only efforts that combined multilateralism with exceptionalist values would have a chance of garnering public support in the United States for internationalist policies.77 This argument, however, rests on the faulty assumption that the United States was not historically internationalist and that it would thus take some massive rhetorical effort (utilizing American exceptionalism) to mobilize public support for such internationalism, and furthermore, that this effort would be multilateral. I argue that it should be possible to acknowledge the international reorganization of economic, political, and security relations headed by the United States on the one hand, while also acknowledging that the United States always took care to safeguard its exceptionalism through unilateral maneuverability on the other. The real debate should center not on whether the United States was ever truly isolationist and why it became internationalist; rather, it should center on whether the United States underwent a transformation from unilateral internationalism before World War II to multilateral internationalism during the war. To conclude this discussion: The United States did not “join” an international multilateral order after World War II. It created an order that would allow for the kind of influence and freedom of action it needed. This order was multilateral in the sense that it involved three or more states at the international level, but at the same time it allowed for much unilateral maneuverability for the United States. It did not entail a domestic-­level ideational transformation to fundamental multilateralism, as liberals and constructivists posit.78

The many meanings of multilateral Settling a dispute on whether the United States turned from a tradition of unilateral internationalism to multilateral internationalism with World War II is really only possible to do if one agrees on a definition of “multilateral.” Multilateralism is a ubiquitous term in political science literature, and one would think it unproblematic to define. As it turns out, however, while the term is rather easy to define with regards to economic multilateralism, it is somewhat more difficult

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112   A mission to lead the world when it comes to a satisfactory definition of political and security-­related multilateralism. The debate goes to the heart of what multilateralism is – is it a procedural activity, or a norm that signals deeper identity commitments on the part of the states engaging in this norm? As the previous chapters have argued, the debate over the legitimacy of a “turn-­around” thesis of U.S. foreign policy hinges not on whether the United States turned from isolationism to internationalism, but rather on whether the United States turned from unilateral internationalism to multilateral internationalism. As my discussion will show, the United States did not turn to multilateral internationalism, properly defined.

Definitions Nominal vs. substantive multilateralism “What is distinctive about multilateralism is not merely that it coordinates national policies in groups of three or more states,” argues John G. Ruggie, because this would mean mere nominal multilateralism. Rather, substantive multilateralism coordinates national policies “on the basis of certain principles of ordering relations among those states.”79 These principles are indivisibility, generalized rules of conduct, and diffuse reciprocity.80 Indivisibility among the members of a collective refers to the range of behavior in question. Material things (such as railway lines) and immaterial things (such as peace) can be indivisible. Generalized rules of conduct simply mean that agreed rules apply to all members. This can be contrasted with interactions based on ad hoc bargaining or straightforward power politics. Thus, multilateralism entails some reduction in policy autonomy, since the choices and actions of the participating states are constrained by the agreed rules and principles.81 Diffuse reciprocity refers to the expectation that members will receive roughly equal benefits over time (as opposed to immediate quid pro quo). Based on these principles, it is clear that – as Ruggie himself points out – “multilateralism is a highly demanding institutional form” and should be differentiated from bilateralism and imperialism. Imperialism is also an institution that organizes relations among three or more states, but it does so by “denying the sovereignty of the subject states.”82 Levels of international order Building on this, G. John Ikenberry argues that multilateralism can be categorized based on what level of international order it operates: system multilateralism, ordering or foundational multilateralism, and contract multilateralism: i  System multilateralism The Westphalian state system is multilateral at its most basic level, Ikenberry states, because it organizes the units according to norms of sovereignty, formal

Rethinking the “turn-around” theory   113 equality, and legal–diplomatic practice. At this level there has been constant system multilateralism in international relations since the seventeenth century.83

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ii  Ordering multilateralism Multilateralism can also refer to the political–economic organization of regional or international orders. For instance, Ruggie names three institutional domains of interstate relations that can be multilateral: (1) international orders (such as an economic order or a security order); (2) international regimes (typically applying to a sector of an order); and (3) international organizations (the physical or institutional manifestation of orders and regimes).84 iii  Contract multilateralism Multilateralism also refers to specific intergovernmental treaties and agreements, i.e. “contracts” among states. Ikenberry argues that the George W. Bush administration’s challenge to multilateralism mainly existed at this level because of its rejection of treaties (particularly in the areas of arms control and proliferation of nuclear weapons). Thus, Ikenberry argues that while the Bush administration’s challenge to multilateralism was regrettable in the eyes of its allies, it was not a fundamental challenge to the concept of multilateralism. At the contract level, it should be fairly straightforward to determine whether a state is multilateral or not: did the state, after committing to a treaty, then ratify and comply with it? If yes, then its behavior was multilateral at the contract level. Multilateral foreign policies Lastly, David Skidmore has a two-­part definition of multilateralist foreign policies that helps us get at the substantial definition of multilateralism. He states that a multilateralist foreign policy involves two crucial commitments on the part of cooperating states: (1) to invest in the creation and maintenance of international institutions that serve to facilitate coordination. This has to do with the inputs necessary to sustain international institutions. Institutional investment can take three principal forms: participating in the negotiations to establish multilateral procedures; provision of resources (contributions of money, soldiers, information, expertise etc.); and rhetorical support (public backing of the norms, principals, and goals of particular institutions).85 (2) To comply with the rules, norms, principles, and decision-­making processes of these institutions on an equal basis with other states. This dimension of multilateralism has to do with institutional outputs—how institutions affect state behavior. Compliance involves not only the narrow question of whether a state is in violation of specific commitments but also whether a state seeks waivers, exemptions, veto or weighted voting privileges, or other prerogatives that allow it to more easily evade actual multilateral constraints. Thus, Skidmore argues that a state that subjects itself more fully to constraint is more genuinely multilateralist than one that consistently takes advantage of loopholes.

114   A mission to lead the world Skidmore’s definition is interesting because it gets to the principles associated with multilateral behavior rather than simply describe nominal multilateralism, which is not a “demanding institutional form.” As Ruggie himself argues, there is a difference between a “nominal” and a “qualitative” definition of multilateralism: a nominal definition would connote multinational cooperation, whereas a qualitative definition would connote multilateral cooperation.86

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Multilateralism across issue areas The issue of multilateralism is further complicated, however, by the complexities presented by applying one standard definition across issue areas. Multilateralism is perhaps easiest to define in economic affairs, where one can look at the rules agreed upon at Bretton Woods. As codified in the International Monetary Fund’s Articles of Agreement, monetary multilateralism traditionally has meant “the convertibility of national currencies on a non-­discriminatory basis and rejection of the currency blocs and competitive devaluations that characterized the interwar period.”87 As stated in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), trade multilateralism has meant “application of the most-­favored-nation principle on a non-­discriminatory basis.”88 In the political sphere, multilateralism is embodied in the universally accepted obligations contained in the UN Charter, the provisions of international treaties, and customary international law. Given the somewhat schizophrenic character of the Charter’s attitude toward the state, however, unilateralism is both absolutely prohibited (Article 25: obligation to carry out the decisions of the Security Council) and absolutely protected (Article 51: inherent right to self-­defense; Article 2: sovereign equality and sanctity of domestic jurisdiction).89 Sarah Kreps argues that whereas multilateralism can be straightforwardly defined in economics or in areas such as human rights treaties, there is in fact no good definition of multilateral military interventions.90 For instance, while Ruggie’s qualitative definition of multilateralism improves upon Robert Keohane’s nominal definition (“multilateralism entails the coordination of practices among three or more states”), it is in fact overly restrictive in the security realm, because it concedes too much power to formal institutional frameworks such as the United Nations in deciding what counts as multilateral or not.91 During the cold war, for example, the United States (or any of the permanent members) would often avoid the UN Security Council (UNSC) because the UNSC might not decide in its favor. This caused states to seek legitimacy for their military interventions through other International Organizations (IOs) in order to obtain the stamp of “procedural” multilateralism, or to amass a robust coalition in order to obtain the stamp of “operational” multilateralism. Whereas these interventions would not be legal according to the UN Charter (unless, presumably, they were in accordance with Article 51), they might still be considered legitimately multilateral by the international community.92 This is the basis for her two-­level definition of military multilateralism, which combines measures of procedural and of operational multilateralism. First, Kreps

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Rethinking the “turn-around” theory   115 codes an intervention as multilateral or unilateral on the procedural level (where a UN authorization would be the highest attainable IO sanction, but sanction from a regional organization could also be legitimate); and secondly, Kreps codes the intervention as multilateral or unilateral on the operational level. Was it truly a multilateral coalition or was the IO sanction merely cover for a largely unilateral operation? Using this combined measurement, Kreps finds that of the eighteen U.S. military interventions undertaken since 1945, half of them (nine cases) were completely unilateral (Lebanon 1958; Dominican Republic 1965; Vietnam 1965; Grenada 1983; Libya 1986; Panama 1989; Afghanistan/Sudan 1998; Iraq 1998; Iraq 2003), four instances were completely multilateral (Iraq 1990–1991; Bosnia 1993–1995; Kosovo 1999; Haiti 2004); another four instances were procedurally multilateral (Korea 1950; Somalia 1992–1993; Haiti 1994; Afghanistan 2001); and one instance was operationally multilateral (Lebanon 1982–1984).93 Ikenberry’s own codification of a multilateral scale of consultation among states in the event of a military intervention confirms Kreps’ argument that the lack of a standard definition of multilateral military interventions makes consistent scholarship difficult. Detailing the four ways in which the United States could potentially undertake military action, Ikenberry argues that: (1) it could go it alone, without consulting others; (2) it could consult others, but then go it alone; (3) it could consult and take action with others, not on the basis of agreed-­ upon rules and principles that define the terms of its relationship with those others, but rather on the basis of the current situation’s needs; or (4) it could take action with others, on the basis of agreed-­upon rules and principles. The first option is “clearly unilateral.” Then, Ikenberry argues, the second and third options “can be coded as multilateral.”94 However, would not the decision to invade Iraq in March 2003 be coded as a “3”? Would we classify this as a “multilateral” operation? Not according to Kreps, who, based on her two-­level definition, codes the Iraq intervention as completely unilateral, despite its multinational coalition.95

Multilateralism, the American way Ruggie argues that, in the American context, multilateralism can be understood as “an international order in which the United States seeks to institute and live by certain mildly communitarian organizing principles,” whereas unilateralism is “[an order] in which it avoids entanglement in any serious institutionalized commitments.”96 This seems to present a somewhat simplistic picture, especially since the United States to a large degree was able to set the parameters for its own institutional commitments and define the organizing principles of this international order as of 1945. Thus, one could say that the United States, while not avoiding international institutions in the 1940s, did manage to avoid entanglements in them to a significant degree. This is not to argue that the United States conspired to set up international institutions as tools in a plot to rule the world; but rather, that the United States set out to reform the world along its own

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116   A mission to lead the world ideational lines – economically and politically – while ensuring minimal (yet still existent) constraints for itself. In cooperation with the Soviet Union and Great Britain, the United States set up an international order that was a concert of power at the great power level, and multilateral at the intermediate and small power level. Ruggie is correct in pointing out that the exact principles that make up this order must in the end define the commitment of the participating states. The smaller participating states were not coerced or “duped” into this postwar order – as realist theories might argue. Rather, the postwar order contained important benefits for the medium and small states, such as open markets guaranteed by a liberal hegemon; political representation in world forums; and – later in the process – security commitments for those who joined NATO. Ikenberry’s distinction between “new” and “old multilateralism” highlights the tension inherent in his definition of multilateral and exemplifies my point about the many meanings of multilateralism. Ikenberry differentiates between “old multilateralism” – that of the 1940s – and “new multilateralism” – meaning embodying the principle of generalized rules of conduct – i.e. universalism. Indeed, this is his explanation for the post-­cold war struggle over the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was, he says, the ICC’s universal design that produced such skepticism in the administration of President Bill Clinton. While the treaty was being negotiated, the Clinton administration lobbied for a UN Security Council veto-­right on what cases were to be brought before the Court, seeking, in Ikenberry’s words, “to adopt the traditional postwar approach for multilateral agreements, meaning the major powers should receive special opt-­out and veto rights that make the binding obligations more contingent and subject to state review.”97 Because the ICC did not afford such special treatment for the United States, it is an example of “new multilateralism,” defined by Ikenberry as offering “fewer opportunities for the United States to exercise political control over others and fewer ways to escape the binding obligations of the agreements.”98 In other words, whereas the United States was comfortable with the “old” multilateralism of escape clauses, weighted voting, opt-­out agreements and veto rights, it balked at the “new” multilateralism where the principle of “generalized rules of conduct” actually applies to all members, great power or not. I argue in Chapter 6 that the post-­World War II international order that the United States helped create – although nominally multilateral and unquestionably beneficial to its adherents – failed to live up to the principles Ruggie and Ikenberry list as a necessary condition for substantive multilateralism. By taking the definition of substantial multilateralism seriously, and adding on to this the more specific test of multilateral foreign policy that Skidmore presents us with, I conclude that U.S. challenges to multilateralism are not only present at the contract level, as Ikenberry argues, but also at the foundational or ordering level. The U.S.-led postwar order was not communitarian. Had it been, the United States itself would probably not have joined, as happened in 1919. Rather, the postwar order was a multilateral order enacted by a hegemon – in other words, it was a mixed system.

Rethinking the “turn-around” theory   117

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In the wake of World War II, the United States took seriously the first of the two multilateralist commitments cited above (“input” multilateralism), but not the second (“output” multilateralism). In other words, the United States invested in the creation of international institutions, but postwar administrations were only loosely constrained by institutional rules and procedures.99 Thus, the U.S.sponsored institutional order was designed to bind the behavior of other states, but not that of the United States itself, an approach to international order building that is hegemonic rather than multilateral.100

Hegemony Hegemony is a type of authority in which the privileged position of the leading state rests not upon coercion alone, but also upon the institutionalized consent of other states. As Bruce Cronin puts it, “hegemony is a form of leadership, not domination.”101 Rather than a traditional imperial power, the hegemon oversees relations between “consenting adults.”102 What it does not entail is sovereign equality. One state is clearly more sovereign than all others, in that hegemony allows for a “broad and subtle penetration of economic and cultural practices and products across entire regions.”103 U.S. relative power capabilities in the 1940s unquestionably allowed for a large amount of freedom of action when designing the postwar order.104 Michael Hunt argues that hegemony’s lack of coercion, diffuse sources of support, and amorphous territorial range distinguish it from empire. Although Charles Maier hedges on whether or not the United States can be categorized as an empire as of yet, he makes the valuable point that the distinction between hegemon and imperial power is a fragile one: “At best, hegemony seems potential empire, not just a high-­minded renunciation of intervention.”105 The fine line between hegemony and imperial power highlights the tensions in arguments about American multilateralism. The postwar institutions themselves allowed the United States a set of unique privileges (as well as obligations), meaning the rules governing the institutions had built-­in legal asymmetry. While one could, perhaps, argue multilateralism does not have to entail the equality of all states in terms of indivisibility, generalized rules of conduct, and diffuse reciprocity, I argue this not only violates the spirit of the definition of multilateralism utilized by scholars such as Ruggie and Ikenberry, it is also what underlies the critique of U.S. unilateralism which has been voiced ever since the postwar order was established.106 The issue of U.S. hegemony fundamentally questions the link that liberal and constructivist theorists have made between an American civic nationalism and a commitment to multilateralism.107 Hegemony is more compatible with exceptionalism and unilateralism than with a multi-­ethnic ethos of equality and rule of law. The United Nations, for example, was not a purely multilateral organization. Rather, it was conceived as a power concert (the Security Council) placed atop of a collective security organization.108

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Conclusion The United States cannot be argued to have inhabited a tradition of “isolationism” or aloofness in its early history. This, combined with the fact that it often pursued “empire” (in terms of territorial and commercial expansion), means that one should question arguments that the United States has “vacillated” between “aloofness” and “internationalism” throughout its history. Furthermore, one should question the extent to which the United States underwent a personality change in the 1940s. The issue was never isolationism, separatism, or aloofness. It was freedom of action: unilateral when weak, and hegemonic when strong. This was the strategy. The goal of this strategy was to export the best economic, political, and ideological system ever invented to the rest of this world. Taking the long view of U.S. foreign policy history and American exceptionalism, one begins to understand that twentieth century U.S. foreign policy show greater evidence of continuity than of change or oscillation. One could conceivably argue, however, that my definition of multilateralism is too strict and that I am, in effect, setting the United States up to fail. Certainly, objections to Ikenberry’s distinction between “old multilateralism” and “new multilateralism” discussed previously can seem rooted in a too idealized view of what multilateralism is supposed to be.109 Yet, it is not my definition of multilateralism I am employing; rather I am using Ruggie and Ikenberry’s definitions and measuring them against the U.S. record. It seems the idealized view is theirs, attributing to American foreign policy a fundamental commitment to multilateralism that never was. Against Ruggie, I argue that an ideology of exceptionalism is rather incompatible with “the idea of international law as a system of coordination of equals.”110 Albert K. Weinberg had it right when he wrote in 1935 that the philosophy of American nationalism is incongruous with “the equalitarianism of democracy” because it entails believing that, “however equal men might be at birth, Americans had become subsequently a super-­people.”111 The next two chapters will proceed with the case studies of World Wars I and II. The United States partook in an international order the second time around not because American exceptionalism is “singularly compatible with multilateralism,” but rather because the objections Henry Cabot Lodge had presented against the League in 1919 were all accounted for by the United Nations in 1945, thus making American exceptionalism singularly compatible with unilateralism. The Franklin D. Roosevelt administration had taken care to “keep from the Charter all the important matters to which the majority of the Senate, in voting on the Covenant with the Lodge Reservations on March 19, 1920, had taken exception.”112 The United States was reaffirming Lodgian unilateral internationalism, while repudiating Wilsonian multilateralism.113 The turn-­around then – such as it was – becomes a more limited thesis of U.S. commitment to specific international institutions, rather than positing a fundamental change in the American outlook on how to engage with the world.

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Notes 1 Geir Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe Since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 32. 2 This is a conventional assumption found in textbooks and scholarly accounts. Textbooks will usually divide up U.S. foreign policy history into pre- and post-­1941 or 1945. See for example, Michael J. Hogan, ed. Paths to Power: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations to 1941 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); or the Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations series, particularly Akira Iriye, Vol. III: The Globalizing of America, 1913–1945. That the United States underwent a fundamental turn-­around with World War II is a common assumption in political science, agreed upon by realists, liberal, and constructivist theorists alike, albeit for different reasons. Indeed, Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST) is built upon Charles Kindleberger’s famous argument that the causes of the 1929 Great Depression were the unwillingness of the United States to take upon itself its obvious task of hegemon in the face of British decline. (He argues that the question of whether U.S. leadership after WWII would have happened without the war itself is unanswerable.) See The World in Depression, rev. and enlarged edition (Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1986), p. 287. The general exception to this assumption is found among revisionist historians who argue for an overall continuity in U.S. foreign policy in terms of expansionism and commercial empire. See, for example, Michael Hunt’s book, The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007). 3 Authors who accept the isolationist/internationalist dichotomy include Robert E. Osgood, Ideals and Self-­Interest in America’s Foreign Relations: The great transformation of the twentieth century (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1953); Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1962); Dexter Perkins, The American Approach to Foreign Policy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962) revised ed; Stanley Hoffman, Gulliver’s Troubles, Or the Setting of American Foreign Policy (New York: McGraw-­Hill Book Company, 1968); John Gerard Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue?” International Security, 21(4), 1997, pp. 89–125; G. John Ikenberry, After Victory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Trevor B. McCrisken, American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam: U.S. Foreign Policy since 1974 (New York: Malgrave Macmillan, 2003). Joan Hoff Wilson, on the other hand, has argued that a better term, not just for the interwar period, but for U.S. foreign policy in general, is “independent internationalism,” by which she means a more-­or-less narrow pursuit of national interest by multilateral means when necessary, but by unilateral means if possible. See her own assessment of her thesis thirty years on – Joan Hoff Wilson, “The American Century: From Sarajevo to Sarajevo,” in Michael J. Hogan, ed. The Ambiguous Legacy: U.S. Foreign Relations in the “American Century” (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Jeffrey Legro, in Rethinking the World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005) explicitly rejects the term “isolationism” and uses aloofness and separatism instead. See chapter 3, “The Ebb and Flow of American Internationalism.” 4 For a critical overview of classical realism, see Michael J. Smith, Realism from Weber to Kissinger (Baton Rouge, La: Louisiana State University Press, 1986). 5 George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1984), expanded edition, p. 95. See also E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1939), reprinted in Perennial, 2001. 6 Hans J. Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest: A Critical Examination of American foreign policy (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982), original publication 1951. See also Jean-­Baptiste Duroselle, From Wilson to Roosevelt: Foreign Policy of the United States, 1913–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), p.  20 for a discussion on the postwar debate on moralism versus the “national interest.”

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120   A mission to lead the world   7 David M. Kennedy, “What Would Wilson Do?” in The Atlantic Monthly (January/ February 2010). URL: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/what-­wouldwilson-­do/7844/.   8 Siobhán McEvoy-­Levy, American Exceptionalism and US Foreign Policy (New York: Palgrave, 2001), p. 28.   9 Robert Osgood, Ideals and Self-­Interest in American Foreign Policy, pp. 18, 27. 10 Ibid., p. 18. 11 David Fromkin, “Remembering Hans Morgenthau,” World Policy Journal, 10(3), 1993, pp. 81–8. 12 Morgenthau criticized President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles for not understanding how to formulate foreign policy, and for wrongly applying the policies of the Truman administration to new, non-­applicable regions of the world. During the Kennedy administration, he saw former students become administration officials, contributing to the design of the Vietnam War, which he opposed. See Fromkin, “Remembering Hans Morgenthau,” p. 85. 13 Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994). 14 The classic formulation of neorealist theory is Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-­Wesley Pub. Co., 1979). 15 See Kenneth Waltz, “International Politics is Not Foreign Policy,” Security Studies, 6, 1996, pp. 54–7. A more specific version of this, HST argues it was clearly in America’s economic interest to serve as the postwar western hegemon, especially after the interwar years had shown the dangers of instability and lack of leadership. See Charles Kindleberger, The World in Depression (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986, revised and enlarged edition); Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 16 Applying the neorealist model to individual state behavior has generated two theories of foreign policy – offensive and defensive realism – which both start with the assumption that the international system is composed of unitary, rational actors motivated by a desire for security. Offensive realism assumes that international anarchy is generally Hobbesian, meaning security is scarce and states try to achieve it by maximizing their relative advantage. In this view, foreign policy is the result of nervous states jockeying for position within a given international power configuration. For offensive realists, the puzzle of American aloofness prior to World War I despite its potential power is no puzzle at all: there was no regional hegemon to challenge or balance against, neither in the European nor the Asian theater, thus the United States stayed aloof. “Offensive realism predicts that the United States will send its army across the Atlantic when there is a potential hegemon in Europe that the local great powers cannot contain by themselves. Otherwise, the United States will shy away from accepting a continental commitment.” See John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), p. 252. Defensive realists view the international system as the cause of “natural” conduct, such as the resort to aggression if military technology (offensive balance) or other factors induce such behavior. They consider the remainder of aggressive behavior to be “unnatural” and account for it by the auxiliary hypotheses involving domestic variables. Defensive realists assumes international anarchy is more benign than do offensive realists; security can be plentiful as opposed to scarce, and states can learn this from experience. States respond to threats by balancing against them, deterring the aggressor and preventing the need for actual conflict. Thus, states balance against “threat,” not simply material capabilities. In such a view, the reason why the United States “turned” internationalist after World War II was in order to balance against the Soviet threat. Examples of defensive realists: Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987); as well as Stephen Van Evera, Jack Snyder, Barry Posen, and Charles Glaser. See Gideon Rose, “Review: Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy,” World Politics, 51(1), 1998, pp. 149–50.

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Rethinking the “turn-around” theory   121 17 Neoclassical realist theory explicitly incorporates both external and internal variables, updating and systematizing certain insights drawn from classical realist thought: “Its adherents argue that the scope and ambition of a country’s foreign policy is driven first and foremost by its place in the international system and specifically by its relative material power capabilities. This is why they are realist.” But then they argue the impact of such power capabilities must be translated through intervening variables at the unit level, which is why they are neoclassical. They accept that relative material power establishes the basic parameters of a country’s foreign policy, summed up in Thucydides’ succinct phrase that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” However, since actual political leaders and elites make foreign policy, it is their perception of relative power that matters, not objective relative quantities of power. See Rose, “Review: Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy,” pp.  146–7; see also Sten Rynning, Review of Steven E. Lobell, Norrin M. Ripsman, Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, eds., Neoclassical Realism, the State, and Foreign Policy. H-­Diplo, H-­Net Reviews. July, 2009. URL: www.h-­net.org/reviews/ showrev.php?id=24339. 18 Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power. The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998). See especially chapter 3, titled “Imperial Understretch.” 19 Ibid., p. 5. 20 See for example, Colin Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), p. 82. 21 For the former, see Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders; for the latter, see Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), who builds on William Appleman Williams. 22 Ronald Krebs, “Rhetoric, Power, and the Making of U.S. Security Policy.” Unpublished paper presented to the Miller Center for Public Affairs, October 25, 2007, p. 6. 23 For such an argument, see Jeffrey Legro and Andrew Moravcsik, “Is Anybody Still a Realist?” International Security, 24(2), 1999, pp.  5–55; for a rebuttal, see Kenneth Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” International Security, 25(1), 2000, pp. 5–41. 24 Ruggie (see Ruggie, ed., Multilateralism Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993)), Winning the Peace (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), “The Past as Prologue?, pp. 89–125) is part of the emerging constructivist scholarship in political science, which includes: Jonathan Mercer, “Anarchy and Identity,” International Organization, 49(2), 1995, pp. 229–52; Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Henry R. Nau, At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002); Jeffrey W. Legro, Rethinking the World. Ikenberry is more aptly described as a liberal theorist. See his After Victory; Liberal Order and Imperial Ambition (Malden, MA: Polity, 2006). 25 Jeffrey W. Legro, “Whence American Internationalism,” International Organization, 54(2), 2000, pp.  253–89. Specifically, Legro presents the puzzle as why the United States did not switch from unilateralism to internationalism during World War I or the Great Depression. He does not think it is a puzzle that the United States became “internationalist” after World War II. Although some would argue that the relative power positions of the United States in 1919 and 1945 were not comparable, neoclassical realists such as Colin Dueck accept this premise and also accept the conclusion that international conditions could not have predicted U.S. foreign policy after World War I. See Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders. 26 Jeffrey W. Legro, Rethinking the World, p. 15. 27 Ibid., p. 51.

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122   A mission to lead the world 28 Ibid. Whereas Legro in “Whence American Internationalism” presents the two traditions of U.S. foreign policy as “internationalism” versus “unilateralism,” he fits U.S. foreign policy in Rethinking the World into a universally applicable three-­part scheme where a state’s foreign policy can be categorized as “separatist,” “integrationist,” or “revisionist.” Internationalism implied a basic integrationist orientation – “a dominant belief that societal well-­being was best served by committing national military power to relationships with the major powers in Europe and by supporting international institutions.” (p. 52) Separatist states are states that “resist the norms of the extant international society and prefer to remain largely uninvolved in it.” Revisionist states are states that seek not to stay away from or integrate themselves in the current international system, but rather to overthrow it. Examples would be Napoleonic France or Hitler’s Germany. See Legro, Rethinking the World, p. 10. 29 See John G. Ruggie, ed. Multilateralism Matters, “The Past as Prologue?, Winning the Peace; Ikenberry, After Victory, “Is American Multilateralism in Decline?” Perspectives on Politics, 1(3), 2003, pp.  533–50. Ikenberry’s argument about the U.S. turn-­around is part of a larger argument about why powers conduct “strategic restraint” at order-­building moments in world history. In his book After Victory, Ikenberry argues that the United States gained acceptance of its postwar order by engaging in “strategic restraint” of its own power: “the United States would agree to cooperate within an institutionalized political process and, in return, its partners agree would be [sic] willing participants.” Furthermore, “the reluctant character of American hegemony, rooted in its legacy of isolationism and exceptionalism, lowered the fears of imperial-­style domination.” See p. 199 and chapter 6, “The Settlement of 1945.” Ikenberry’s theory is open to criticism, however, because he stresses that the Europeans were not concerned with hegemonic dominance; they were concerned with abandonment. So “strategic restraint” was not actually necessary. 30 Ruggie, Winning the Peace, p. 25. 31 Anne-­Marie Burley, “Regulating the World,” in Ruggie, ed., Multilateralism Matters, p.  144. Note that Anne-­Marie Slaughter published this chapter under her previous name, which was Burley. 32 The distinction between civic and ethnic nationalism is credited to Ernest Renan, who considered French nationalism as civic and contrasted it with the ethnic nationalism of the Germans. While Renan did not coin the term, he is credited with this distinction. See “What is a Nation?” in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds. Becoming National: A Reader. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 41–55. 33 Ikenberry, “Is American Multilateralism in Decline?” p. 543. 34 Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue?” p. 114. 35 Robert Divine, Second Chance: The Triumph of Internationalism in America during World War II (New York: Atheneum, 1967), p. 4. 36 Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World: America’s vision for human rights (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 79. 37 Ibid., p. 77. 38 Ibid., p. 80. 39 Ibid., p. 85. 40 Anne-­Marie Slaughter (previously Burley), “Regulating the World” in Ruggie, Multilateralism Matters, p. 130. An even earlier formulation of this thesis seems to have been offered by Warren Kimball, who wrote about FDR’s “Americanism,” which entailed trying to reform the world in the American image, using the New Deal as the prototype of reform. Kimball, however, meant this in a general way, where the goal was the extension of American political, economic, and social liberalism, not the New Deal per se. See Warren Kimball, The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 187. 41 Ibid., p. 125.

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Rethinking the “turn-around” theory   123 42 Geir Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945, p. 8. Indeed, Lundestad has claimed that the Western European countries in fact “invited” the United States in because of the threat perceived from the Soviet Union. See “Empire by Invitation? The United States and Europe 1945–1952,” Journal of Peace Research, 23(3), 1986, pp. 263–77. 43 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “Unilateralism in Historical Perspective,” in Gwyn Prins, ed., Understanding Unilateralism in American Foreign Relations (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2000), p. 23. Ruggie also argues that the Cold War resolved U.S. isolationism, see “The Past as Prologue,” p. 90. 44 For example, historian Melvyn P. Leffler, in Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), writes that “[w]orries there were, but at the time of Roosevelt’s death American officials did not regard the Soviet Union as an enemy and were not frightened by Soviet military prowess… What they feared was not a military attack, but the appeal of Communist ideology in neighboring Western Europe.” See pp. 5–7. Both Leffler and John Lewis Gaddis agree that the cold war “started” during 1946, when the United States and the Soviet Union began viewing each other not as allies, but rather as enemies. Leffler is more sympathetic to the analysis that both parties played a role in fueling a security dilemma between them, whereas Gaddis is more sympathetic to an explanation highlighting the role played by the Soviet Union in fostering fear and non-­cooperation. See Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972/2000). 45 See Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, especially chapter 4, “From the Truman Doctrine to the National Security Act, November 1946–July 1947.” 46 Ikenberry, After Victory, p. 170. 47 Mostly due to the questionable assumptions about power and human nature that classical realists employed, which were connected to a rather low level of predictability associated with their theories. 48 Indeed, and rather ironically, it seems that the fundamental disagreement between neorealism and constructivism today is not one of methodology or epistemology, but rather whether one assumes humans as being fundamentally good (a progressive assumption held by Alexander Wendt) or fundamentally bad (an unspoken neorealist assumption). This, in turn, affects whether one assumes history is progressive (as classical liberals did and neoliberals and constructivists do) or cycles (as classical realists did and neorealists do). 49 William C. Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), p. 70. 50 For a slightly different version of this argument, see David Kennedy, “What Would Wilson Do?” The Atlantic Monthly (January/February 2010). 51 This is a point conceded by neoclassical realists. Christopher Layne, for example, agrees that “Wilsonianism” (by which he means liberal ideas) is a very important part of U.S. grand strategy. critiques this as the real drive behind the U.S. quest for “extraregional hegemony” and argues it leads to overexpansion and unnecessary military entanglements. See The Peace of Illusions, American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006) pp. 8–10. 52 Ikenberry, After Victory, chapter 6; Legro, Rethinking the World, p.  74. In fact, the United States, just like during World War I, started planning for the postwar order before it was even a party to the war. See for example Borgwardt’s tracing of the role the Atlantic Charter played in the postwar planning, in A New Deal for the World: America’s vision for human rights (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005). 53 Warren I. Cohen, America in the Age of Soviet Power, 1945–1991, pp. 7–8. 54 Jeffrey Legro poses this challenge to realists in his chapter on American foreign policy in his book Rethinking the World. Melvyn Leffler responds that he explains

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124   A mission to lead the world this puzzle by “threat perception” rather than a configuration of power at the international level, which seems to conform to defensive realist logic. 55 Osgood, Ideals and Self-­Interest in America’s Foreign Relations, p. 17. 56 Realists have criticized several major foreign policy decisions such as Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations, the Vietnam War and the Iraq war, for example. See Morgenthau’s exasperation over Wilson pursuing the “right policy, but for the wrong reasons,” for example: In Defense of the National Interest, p. 26. See also Kissinger, “The New World Order Reconsidered,” in Diplomacy, pp. 804–36. 57 William Widenor also points this out, specifically in regards to George Kennan. See William Widenor: “American Planning for the United Nations: Have We Been Asking the Right Questions?” in Diplomatic History, 6(3), 1982, p. 253. 58 For the classic book on the liberal tradition in America, see Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America; An interpretation of American political thought since the Revolution (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1955). 59 See Daniel T. Rodgers, “Republicanism: the Career of a Concept,” The Journal of American History, 79(1), 1992, pp. 11–38 for an explanation of how the term “republicanism” developed as the post-­Hartzian paradigm within history. 60 Although very early in U.S. history, the United States was the only “liberal” Republic and perhaps was wary of cooperating with illiberal states (although “liberal” is a complicated term in this context as the United States sanctioned slave labor). 61 This is also a criticism that applies to the Burley/Borgwardt argument about U.S. multilateral internationalism being an international version of the New Deal. To the extent the New Deal affected international organization, it seems more likely to have shaped the content of this organizational activity, than its coming into existence. 62 For immigration statistics, see http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/cohn.immigration. us The years from 1630 to 1700 averaged 2,200 immigrants per annum; from 1730 to 1780: 4,325; from 1780 to 1819: 9,900. From 1832, the immigration rates increased dramatically (yearly average of 71,916, with high percentages coming from Catholic Ireland and Catholic/Protestant Germany), and they virtually exploded in 1846 (averaging 334,506 until 1854, again with high rates of Irish and Germans). By the 1880s, the percentages of Central, Eastern, and Southern Europeans climb significantly in the immigration statistics, as do Scandinavians. Irish immigration peaked in the 1890s, Scandinavian immigration peaked in the 1910s, and German immigration also peaked in the 1910s. See also Jean-­Baptiste Duroselle, From Wilson to Roosevelt, pp. 18–19. 63 One should also predict neutrality to be the foreign policy outcome of a multi-­ethnic population. Indeed, as Arthur Link wrote, [t]hroughout the long months of American neutrality, from August 1914 to April 1917, Wilson, whatever his own predispositions, had to work within limits imposed by American public opinion . . . That opinion was so divided in its preferences for various belligerents during the first months of the war that any policy for the United States other than a strict neutrality would have been inconceivable. Wilson remarked to the German ambassador, Count Johann von Bernstorff, that “we definitely have to be neutral, since otherwise our mixed populations would wage war on each other.” Yet, in the end, the United States sided with the Allies in World War I as well as in World War II. See Arthur S. Link, “Wilson and the Ordeal of Neutrality,” in The Higher Realism of Woodrow Wilson and other essays (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1971), p. 89. 64 See note 28. 65 This is also a point made by Bear F. Braumoeller, “The Myth of American Isolationism,” Foreign Policy Analysis, 6(4), 2010, pp. 349–71. 66 See Warren F. Kuehl, Seeking World Order: The United States and International Organization to 1920 (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969) for a chron-

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Rethinking the “turn-around” theory   125 icle of U.S. efforts at international cooperation throughout the nineteenth century. See Patrick O. Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace after World War I: America, Britain, and the Stabilisation of Europe, 1991–1932 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) for a detailed account of U.S. and British efforts at managing intra-­European and trans-­Atlantic relations in the 1920s. 67 Frank B. Kellogg to President Calvin Coolidge October 7, 1924. Quoted in Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace after World War I, p. 9. 68 Thomas Knock, To End all Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the quest for a new world order (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 260. 69 Ibid., pp. 55–6, 228. 70 William C. Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy, p. 331. 71 Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue?” p. 101. 72 Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World, chapter 5. 73 Ikenberry, After Victory, p. 199. 74 In accepting some constraints inherent in the postwar order, the United States also ensured participation by states such as Germany and Japan, preventing a future threat from these states. 75 As Borgwardt notes in A New Deal for the World, p. 10. 76 In his treatment of multilateralism, Ruggie writes that multilateralism was not invented in 1945, but that it did increase substantially from this date: “Quite naturally, therefore, one associates this change with the postwar posture of the United States.” John Gerard Ruggie, “Territoriality at Millennium’s End,” in Constructing the World Polity (New York: Routledge, 1998) p. 121. 77 Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue.” 78 Legro argues that explanations that incorporate notions of exceptionalism offer much insight, but are ultimately unsatisfying because they fail to offer a theory of change or at least explain variations over time. My argument is that, so far, U.S. foreign policy has been characterized more by continuities than change, and, as such, it is this continuity that warrants explanation. See Legro, Rethinking the World, p. 81. 79 Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity, p. 106. The nominal definition is “the practice of coordinating national policies in groups of three or more states” in Robert O. Keohane, “Multilateralism. An Agenda for Research,” International Journal, 45(4), 1990, pp. 731–64. This definition, argues Ruggie, denotes multinational cooperation, however, not multilateral cooperation, which I agree with. See also David M. Malone and Yuen Foong Khong, eds., Unilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy, (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003). 80 Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution” in Ruggie, ed., Multilateralism Matters; James A. Caporaso, “International Relations Theory and Multilateralism: The Search for Foundations” in ibid., p. 53. 81 Ibid. 82 Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution,” in Multilateralism Matters, pp. 10–11. 83 Ikenberry, “Is American Multilateralism in Decline,” p. 534. 84 There are many international orders: An open/liberal international economic order is multilateral in form, as is a maritime order based on the principle of mare liberum. An international security order would be multilateral if it employed collective security principles. Thus, “multilateralism here depicts the character of an overall order or relations among states” without saying anything about how that order is achieved. Regimes are more concrete than orders, typically referring to sectoral components of an order. The regime concept encompasses more of the “how” question, as the term “regime” is used to refer to common, deliberative, though often highly asymmetrical

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means of conducting interstate relations. Not all regimes are multilateral, as Hjalmar Schacht’s monetary schemes during World War II show us.   Formal international organizations are entities with headquarters and letterheads: material things. Not all IOs are multilateral, for instance the Comintern would not count. See Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution,” pp. 12–13.   85 David Skidmore “Understanding the Unilateralist Turn in US Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy Analysis. 1(2), 2005, p. 208.   86 Ruggie, “Multilateralism: Anatomy of an Institution,” in Multilateralism Matters, p. 6. This corresponds to what William Diebold calls “formal” versus “substantive” multilateralism.   87 John Van Oudenaren, “What Is ‘Multilateral’?” Policy Review, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. March and February, 2003. URL: www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3449941.html.   88 Ibid. In both the IMF and GATT/World Trade Organization (WTO) systems, offenders against multilateralist principles have been countries within these organizations that have failed to observe these principles. Non-­member countries do not take on the obligations or receive the benefits of membership, thus the stigma of unilateralism is not attached to non-­membership.   89 Ibid.   90 Sarah E. Kreps, “Multilateral Military Interventions: Theory and Practice,” Political Science Quarterly, 123(4), 2008–2009, pp. 573–603.   91 Ibid., p. 579.   92 Ibid., p. 586. An example of such an instance would be NATO’s Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia in 1999.   93 Ibid. See table on p. 597. Notice that the 1999 Kosovo intervention is deemed to be fully multilateral despite the lack of a UNSC resolution.   94 Ikenberry, “Is American Multilateralism in Decline?” p. 547.   95 Kreps, “Multilateral Military Interventions: Theory and Practice,” p. 597.   96 Ruggie, Winning the Peace, pp. 4–8. See also Malone and Yuen Foong Khong, eds. Unilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy, who define unilateralism as “a tendency to opt out of a multilateral framework (whether existing or proposed) or to act alone in addressing a particular global or regional challenge rather than choosing to participate in collective action.”   97 Ikenberry, “Is American Multilateralism in Decline?” p. 534. My italics.   98 Ibid., p. 534.   99 But see Thomas Risse-­Kappen, Cooperation among Democracies: The European Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), which argues that the United States did defer to its allies sometimes, owing in part to a desire to keep the institutions going. Risse-­Kappen is arguing against those neorealist theories that have posited that the West Europeans had little influence over U.S. policy during the cold war because of the disparate distribution of power between them. 100 Skidmore, “Understanding the Unilateralist Turn in U.S. Foreign Policy,” p. 209. 101 Bruce Cronin, “The Paradox of Hegemony: America’s Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nations,” European Journal of International Relations 7, 2001, p. 107. 102 Kennedy, “What Would Wilson Do?” 103 See Michael Hunt, “Empire, Hegemony, and the U.S. Policy Mess,” History News Network. (May 21, 2007) URL: http://hnn.us/articles/37486.html. 104 This is also acknowledged by Ikenberry; see, for instance, “Rethinking the Origins of American Hegemony,” Political Science Quarterly, 104(3), 1989, pp. 375–400. 105 Charles S. Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors

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106

107

108 109 110 111 112 113

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 63. Hunt argues for a distinction because of the lack of focused exercise of political and military power; of specific subordinate colonial or client regimes; and the presence of legitimacy. See also Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions for a discussion of U.S. postwar hegemony from a neoclassical realist perspective. Layne argues that the United States has pursued “extraregional hegemony” throughout the world since World War II, and that it would be wise to retreat to regional hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. See, for example, Margaret P. Karns and Karen A. Mingst, ed. The United States and Multilateral Institutions (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990); Edward C. Luck, Mixed Messages: American Politics and International Organization, 1919–1999 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999); Gwyn Prins, ed., Understanding Unilateralism in American Foreign Relations; Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman, eds. Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002); Malone and Yuen Foong Khong, ed. Unilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy; Rosemary Foot, S. Neil MacFarlane, and Michael Mastanduno, eds, US Hegemony and International Organizations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Michael Ignatieff, ed. American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). And indeed, as Geir Lundestad points out, the United States functioning as an “empire” only lasted approximately 30 years. In the 1970s, the U.S. lead over other powers had declined both militarily and, particularly important, economically, which resulted in a recalibration of multilateralism. See “Empire by Invitation?” This is also something Ruggie has pointed out, yet does not seem to tease out the consequences of. See “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution,” p. 587. I thank Jeffrey Legro for pointing this out. Knud Krakau, “Nationalism in International Law and Practice,” in David K. Adams and Cornelis A. van Minnen, eds, Reflections on American Exceptionalism (Staffordshire, England: Keele University Press, 1994), pp. 232–34. Manifest Destiny. A Study in National Expansionism in American History (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1935, sixth ed.), pp. 126–7. Leo Gross, “The Charter of the United Nations and the Lodge Reservations,” The American Journal of International Law, 41(3), (July 1947), p. 531. For a contrary view, see George Schild, “The Roosevelt Administration and the United Nations: Re-­creation or rejection of the League experiment?” World Affairs, 158(1), 1995, pp. 26–35.

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5 The triumph of Henry Cabot Lodge over Woodrow Wilson

It was plain destiny that we should come to this, and if we have kept our ideals clean, unmarred, commanding through the great century and the moving scenes that made us a nation, we may keep them also through the century that shall see us a great power in the world. (Woodrow Wilson, 1902)1

We have built up an empire so great that, whether for evil or good, it is a chief factor in the affairs of civilized mankind and of the world. (Henry Cabot Lodge, 1879)2

Introduction Despite the general consensus amongst historians of U.S. foreign relations that the term “isolationism” should be abandoned for U.S. foreign policy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the 1930s is still a topic of hot debate and many historians and political scientists uphold the thesis of isolationism for this specific time period.3 This chapter presents the first part of a two-­part argument. I shall argue that the Senate’s rejection of the League of Nations in 1919 and 1920 did not signal a retreat into an aloof or isolationist tradition in U.S. foreign policy, nor did it confirm a new tradition of interwar isolationism. I argue, rather, that the United States continued to pursue its dominant foreign policy tradition, characterized as unilateral internationalism.4 During the interwar period, the United States maintained a high level of involvement in international politics – including European power politics.5 Some of the foreign policy behavior can be characterized as unilateral, such as rejecting the League Covenant and passing the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s; some can be characterized as multilateral, such as the Washington naval treaties. Whereas there existed staunchly nationalist pockets in the American political and voting classes, these elements cannot be defined as “isolationist” without the term losing its essential meaning.6 Notwithstanding the Neutrality

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The triumph of Lodge over Wilson   129 Acts, I argue that the term “isolationism” is unhelpful in the American case and that using the terms unilateral and multilateral internationalism instead of isolationism versus internationalism help us make more meaningful distinctions. The United States conducted active multilateral diplomatic efforts in the interwar period aimed at arms control (mainly naval disarmament) and used economic policy as a tool of security policy. It also behaved in unilateral ways. The rejection of the Treaty of Versailles in the Senate and the Neutrality Acts in the 1930s are important, but they are not the only measure of U.S. foreign policy posture in the interwar period. Nor are the meaning of these events as crystal clear as one perhaps thinks today. Lest we forget, there was a Senate majority in favor of ratification of the League Covenant (with certain reservations, which Woodrow Wilson refused to allow), and the Neutrality Acts were devised by so-­called “isolationists” as well as by internationalists for reasons both nationalist and bureaucratic.7 This is not to say that there were not important differences between the 1920s, the 1930s and the 1940s – there obviously were. The 1920s were a highly active period in United States– European high politics. The 1930s, focused mostly on the consequences of the Great Depression, and were a period of nationalist economic policies. But, as we shall see, the United States did not pursue an isolationist foreign policy vis-­à-vis Europe, unless the word is shorn of all meaning. On both counts – that of (1) the general argument in favor of a reversal in the 1930s to a historic U.S. foreign policy tradition of isolationism (or “aloofness”), and (2) of a new and unique period of isolationism in the 1930s – the arguments fail to convince. This chapter will proceed in the following manner. First, it will look at the debate between Wilsonian and Lodgian internationalism. Secondly, the chapter will question the interwar period isolationism thesis, by dividing up the “interwar years” into two distinct periods (1921–1929 and 1929–1939) and treating them separately. The conclusion is that the only valid claim for an isolationist interwar policy is an exceedingly narrow one. As the next chapter will show, only after the fall of France in 1940 does it make sense to talk about real isolationism on the part of those in the United States arguing for non-­involvement in World War II.

World War I and the “League fight” The legendary rise and fall of Woodrow Wilson and his mission to “make the world safe for democracy” is one of the most evocative examples of the gripping fight for the soul of American foreign policy, casting the foreign policy traditions discussed earlier into dramatic roles.8 Wilson’s failed quest for world leadership did not, however, vindicate a foreign policy tradition of isolationism or aloofness; rather, the Wilson–Lodge dispute is evidence of the strong unilateral internationalist tradition in American foreign policy, a tradition that is closely connected with American exceptionalism.

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Wilson and Lodge: multilateral vs. unilateral internationalism

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Woodrow Wilson President Wilson may have been labeled an “idealist” by later realists, but he in fact applied a nationalist perspective to America’s new world role.9 Specifically, he utilized the rhetorical framework of American exceptionalism, arguing that the United States and its system offered the world its best hope for enduring peace. Indeed, the reason for Wilson’s initial favoring of U.S. neutrality and the reason for its entry into World War I were much the same: making sure the United States would be the main arbiter of the peace negotiations, in other words ensuring U.S. supervision of the postwar order, meant to herald an era of American reformation of European balance-­of-power politics.10 Certainly, the idea that the United States could transform European power politics was idealistic. But the idea it was based on was American exceptionalism, which is why later realists could not understand it. The League, Wilson believed, would “enable the American nation to provide worldwide leadership largely through its moral influence over public opinion, and thus fulfill its God-­ given destiny.”11 President Wilson set out on no less than a mission to reform the Old World, pointing back to America’s original purpose: “It was of this we dreamed at our birth. America shall in truth show the way.”12 According to Lloyd E. Ambrosius, “Wilson’s approach to peacemaking expressed his American exceptionalism. The new partnership of democratic nations that he envisaged would be profoundly different from the Old World’s traditional diplomacy and wars.” The League was not simply to be an instrument of international law, then – it also promised a new morality. Stretching the laws of connectivity, Ambrosius writes that the Puritans would have been proud of this “league of right.”13 The historic mission of America echoed in Wilson’s last address at Pueblo, where he envisioned the U.S. armies “performing the bloody work of liberation.” I wish that [the opponents of ratification of the Treaty of Versailles] could feel the moral obligation that rests upon us not to go back on those boys, but to see the thing through, to see it through to the end and make good their redemption of the world. For nothing less depends upon this decision, nothing less than the liberation and the salvation of the world.14 The fact that Wilson came to believe the United States could still play the role of arbiter despite having entered the war on the side of the Allies simply shows the extent of his faith in American exceptionalism. Just as Franklin D. Roosevelt would two decades later, Wilson set out to organize the postwar world before the United States was officially involved in the war. After several aborted attempts to get the belligerents to let the United

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The triumph of Lodge over Wilson   131 States negotiate a peace, Wilson and his advisors decided in January 1917 to send a message to the Senate proclaiming that the United States would negotiate a “peace without victory.”15 Such a peace would be founded on the right of peoples to rule themselves, freedom of the seas, disarmament, and finally a League of Nations to oversee all this. The principles of a peace without victory were “American principles,” said Wilson, but not simply American principles. They were also “the principles and policies of forward looking men and women everywhere, of every modern nation, of every enlightened community. They are the principles of mankind and must prevail.”16 Thus, whether neutral or belligerent, the United States would shape the new world order. The importance of the Fourteen Points delivered one year later, argued Jean-­Baptiste Duroselle, was that the United States increasingly appeared to be the “potential arbiter between nations.”17 Most important for our purposes, Wilson held the belief that the League would be a vehicle for American leadership in the world. It would allow the United States to participate in international affairs “without entangling itself in Europe’s wars. It would combine American unilateralism with a new multilateralism.”18 Thus, Ambrosius concludes, it would permit the United States to reform European international politics while preserving its own independence. In fact, Wilson was convinced that the League would indirectly allow for American hegemony, although he never used that word.19 Wilson thus united the two tenets of American exceptionalism, universalism and uniqueness. Multilateral cooperation would be utilized to implement America’s universal principles, but without sacrificing its unilateral decision-­making.20 What Wilson could not do, was convince Henry Cabot Lodge of this important fact. Henry Cabot Lodge Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge’s sense of American exceptionalism formed his approach to international affairs, just as it did Wilson’s. Like most of his countrymen, Lodge was “subject to attacks of national euphoria,” William Widenor writes, and in those times “he thought America capable of influencing the course of world history.”21 Lodge, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as of March 1919, had long advocated a “vigorous” foreign policy, favoring American power through building up the navy, as well as continental dominance, the sine qua non of which was the Monroe Doctrine.22 Lodge, one of three in the United States to receive the country’s first Ph.D.s in history (awarded by Harvard University),23 was a fitting adversary of Wilson, the only president to have held a Ph.D. in political science. Lodge’s visions of America’s role in the world had many common aspects with those of Wilson. Early in his political career, Lodge said, “We are making the greatest experiment in government ever attempted. We have built up an empire so great that, whether for evil or good, it is the chief factor in the affairs of civilized mankind and of the world.”24

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132   A mission to lead the world An admirer of the Federalists and a biographer of George Washington, he wrote in the second volume of George Washington of the first president’s frequent references to the United States as an “infant empire” and of Washington and Alexander Hamilton’s shared vision of a future American empire.25 Echoing the early Founders, Lodge argued that it was “simply a case of manifest destiny” that Canada should be a part of the United States.26 Lodge was concerned by the possibility that Americans would “fail to see our true place in the scale of nations” and favored education to “our just knowledge of our place in history.”27 Lodge’s primary ideological objection to the League was thus the possibility of ceding too much American sovereignty. A “militant American nationalist,” as Widenor describes him, he in fact owed his political success to his nationalist and patriotic image, which allowed the Boston Brahmin to connect with the rank and file on the campaign trail.28 In essence, one fundamental point separated Lodge and Wilson on the League: Wilson thought it would allow for American leadership, Lodge did not. That did not mean he was negative towards the idea of a League. In fact, the idea of an international organization to enforce peace had its American roots with Lodge’s close friend, Theodore Roosevelt, who, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 1910, urged the great powers to form a “League of Peace.”29 In the spring of 1915, Lodge, in a commencement address at Union College in Schenectady, New York State, argued for unity among the great powers to resist aggression and deny states the option of going to war, “and they can only say that effectively when the country desiring war knows that the force which the united nations place behind peace is irresistible.” In this speech, it seems Lodge coined the name of the future peacekeeping world body.30 Indeed, in the summer of 1915, the League to Enforce Peace was established with former Republican president William Howard Taft as its president. This organization became the strongest advocate of the idea of a League, as well as American membership in it. It is important to note, however, that Lodge did not endorse the same kind of League in 1915 that Wilson would later advocate. Lodge endorsed American participation in a “league of victors,” not necessarily a general league. Lodge conceived of the league as a means of getting the United States to stand with the Allies. Thus, he had a fairly consistent internationalist, but pro-­Allied stance, rather than a general pro-­League stance.31 His opinion of a league was very much influenced by his friend Theodore Roosevelt’s original idea. Roosevelt’s idea of a league, developed early in the twentieth century, was not a league for all. It was a league to be made up of “the most advanced and freest peoples” (Great Britain, the United States and possibly others), which would “forbid to any barbarism or despotism the hope of arresting the progress of the world by striking down the nations that lead in that progress.”32 It was a league of “civilized” powers to guard free peoples from tyranny. In this sense, Lodge fits comfortably as the heir of earlier nineteenth century American ideas of continental manifest destiny, as well as the turn-­of-the-­century civilizing mission directed at the Philippines. The league of victors was a twentieth century civilizing mission building on the ideas of paternalism and racial superiority.

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The triumph of Lodge over Wilson   133 Whereas the Republican platform in the presidential election of 1916 did endorse “pacific settlements of international disputes and . . . the establishment of a world court,” it did not include a plank endorsing the League to Enforce Peace (LEP) program, reportedly due to Lodge’s urgings.33 Initially favorably inclined toward the LEP, Lodge became disenchanted because he saw it as not going far enough in advocating military preparedness and pro-­Allied policies. This echoed Roosevelt’s view of LEP as a paper tiger, not willing to advocate military preparedness and a willingness to fight, if necessary.34 It is against this background that one must understand Lodge’s vehement opposition to Wilson’s “Peace without Victory” speech to Congress in January 1917. The speech was met mostly with Republican derision (though Elihu Root and Charles Evans Hughes – the Republican presidential nominee in 1916 – remained conspicuously silent), with the most formidable opposition coming from Lodge himself. A peace without victory went against a principled pro-­ Allied stance, where the whole point was to obtain a victory on the battlefield in order to settle the score between the great powers in favor of the United Kingdom. The United States should take its place amongst the great powers of the world and resurrect the Concert of Europe, acting out its appropriate place in history, not behave like a parent meekly asking the children to play nicely. And – petty politics never to be underestimated – arch nemesis Wilson’s official endorsement of an international league made Lodge convinced he should not support it.35 Upon Wilson’s peace initiative in December 1918, Lodge publicly accused Wilson of being partial towards Germany and privately lamented ever having been “mixed up with” the League to Enforce Peace.36 Right before Wilson left for the Paris peace conference, however, Lodge went quite far in supporting a role for the United States as a guarantor of the European settlement.37 He endorsed his party colleague Senator Philander Knox’s “New American Doctrine,” which declared the domination of Europe by an aggressive military power to be a menace to American national security, and he argued that should such a situation arise in the future, the United States would join again with the Allies.38

The “League fight” The fight over the ratification of the results of the Paris peace conference – the Treaty of Versailles and, as part of it, the Covenant of the League of Nations – was not a fight pitting internationalism against isolationism/aloofness. It was a fight pitting various versions of American internationalism against each other. The unilateral internationalism of Henry Cabot Lodge fought against the multilateral internationalism of Woodrow Wilson39 with both camps disagreeing with the small band of so-­called “Irreconcilables” led by senators William Borah and Hiram Johnson. Not even all of the Irreconcilables should, according to Thomas J. Knock, be labeled isolationists.40 After the midterm elections of 1918, the make-­up of the Senate was 47 Democrats to 49 Republicans. Within the Democratic Party, there were four

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134   A mission to lead the world Irreconcilables, among them Senator David Walsh (MA), an Irish-­American who would not sign any treaty that ignored the independence of Ireland, and Senator James Reed (MO), an avid Anglophile. Within the Republican Party, there were fourteen Irreconcilables (called “the Battalion of Death”). William Borah, the “lion of Idaho,” became a kind of leader of the group. Other notable Irreconcilables were Senator Joseph McCormick (IL), Senator Philander Knox (PA), and Senator Hiram Johnson (CA). “It can be said that the ‘battalion of death,’ despite its small numbers, attracted more attention than all the other factions,” Duroselle noted. There were also 12 to 14 “mild reservationists” led by future Secretary of State Frank Kellogg (MN); 20 to 25 “strong reservationists” led by future president Warren G. Harding (OH) and Lodge. In that one needs a two-­thirds vote in favor of a treaty, the “inescapable conclusion was that a two-­thirds majority could not be obtained without giving in to some amendments, more or less substantial,” noted Duroselle. On the Senate Foreign Relations Committee there were four Irreconcilables (out of seventeen members), among them Johnson and Borah. This was a greater proportion than in the Senate as a whole.41 Wilson faced opposition both on the right and on the left. By the summer of 1919, after liberals perceived their ideals badly betrayed by the final Versailles Treaty, the left-­leaning newspaper The New Republic and its editors, Walter Lippman and Herbert Croly, turned against it. Indeed, both on the left and the right the prospect of the United States transforming Europe and leading the world in a league of civilized nations had been an alluring one. Senator Johnson, a progressive Republican from California, described the settlement and possible U.S. membership in the League as “the halting and betrayal of New World liberalism, the triumph of cynical Old World diplomacy, the humiliation and end of American idealism.”42 Despite such resistance, the irony in the Senate’s failure to ratify the League Covenant is found in the simple fact that there was a majority in favor of membership of the League. In April 1919, the Literary Digest published the results of a vast poll: 718 newspapers representing 9,886,449 readers were favorable to the League; 181 newspapers representing 4,326,882 readers were hostile; 478 newspapers representing 6,792,461 readers were favorable under certain conditions.43 Despite the fact that a majority of senators and the public were in favor of American leadership in European affairs, Senate rules handed the Irreconcilables their victory by default. The disagreement On March 4, 1919, Senator Lodge became the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Since his outspoken criticism of Wilson’s “Peace without Victory” speech in January 1917, it had been clear Lodge and Wilson disagreed on what role the United States should play in European politics. Lodge feared the demise of the Monroe Doctrine and “the submersion of American sovereignty.”44 Fiercely guarding U.S. sovereignty, he asked his colleagues in the

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Senate on December 21, 1918: “[A]re you ready to put your soldiers and your sailors at the disposition of other nations?”45 Wilson himself did not do much to assuage the fears of the nationalists. Upon temporarily returning from the Paris Peace Conference in February 1919, Wilson invited 36 congressional guests to a White House dinner, where the main topic of conversation was the ongoing negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles. Here, the congressional guests were mainly concerned with Article X of the League Covenant and the issue of sovereignty. Article X stated that: The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.46 The congressional guests were very concerned about the possibility that Article X would infringe upon Congress’s constitutional right to declare war. Two days after the dinner, Lodge gave a speech where he argued that Article X would force the United States to waive its right to take independent action in its foreign affairs. To guarantee the political independence and territorial integrity of all the members of the League was “a very perilous promise to make.” The country was, Lodge stated, being asked to “move away from George Washington . . . to the sinister figure of Trotsky the champion of internationalism.”47 In order for the United States to join, the Covenant required amendment so that the Senate could be satisfied that the United States had a right of withdrawal from the league and control over its own immigration policies; to exclude from the League’s jurisdiction the Monroe Doctrine; and to provide clarifications on how international force would be employed. On the eve of Wilson’s return to Paris for further negotiations, Lodge made public the names of 37 senators who all thought the Covenant would have to be amended before they would consider ratifying it. When Wilson returned to the United States in July 1919 after the signing of the final version of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, there was a general pro-­ League mood in the United States,48 but there was no agreement on what kind of League the United States should join. Liberals on the left and conservatives on the right all had issues with the final version of the League negotiated in Paris.49 Made up of “strong reservationists” and Irreconcilables, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee commenced hearings in late July. By November 1919, the reservationists had decided on – curiously – 14 reservations to the Treaty of Versailles (containing the Covenant). The 14 reservations were, presumably, meant to mirror Wilson’s 14 Points speech of 1918. The second reservation perfectly captured the issue of unilateralism for the skeptical senators: “The United States assumes no obligation to preserve the territorial integrity or political independence of any country . . . unless in any particular case the Congress . . . by act of joint resolution [shall] so provide.”50

136   A mission to lead the world The Senate voted the Treaty down on November 19, both with and without the reservations. This was because the Irreconcilables joined with Wilson’s Democrats to vote down the Treaty with reservations, and then joined with the Republicans to vote down the Treaty without it. Public opinion and lobbying by the LEP forced the Senate to reconsider in March 1920, but even with many Democrats defying Wilson by voting for the Treaty with reservations, it still failed to gain a two-­thirds majority.

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The defeat The immediate reason the Irreconcilables won was because Wilson and Lodge could not agree on the issue of reservations. Neither was interested in compromising – Wilson did not want “half a League” and Lodge did not want the crowning achievement of progressive liberalism strangling American sovereignty. In fact, it is remarkable just how history had stacked the deck against ratification of the League. Congress was due for reassertion of its powers in foreign policy after two decades of expanding executive powers, culminating in Wilson’s assertion of executive prerogative during World War I. Furthermore, the midterm elections in 1918 handed Wilson a divided government, which, coupled with the conclusion of World War I, allowed for the element of partisanship to come to the fore of the political debate. The underlying reason for the failure to ratify, however, was that Wilson and Lodge could not agree on what American membership in the League meant for American leadership in international affairs. As Knock writes, “The concerns that the Republicans raised about collective security and national sovereignty demonstrated a more fundamental difference between two kinds of internationalism.”51 Wilson and the Republican moderates all advocated internationalism – in fact, Republican leaders such as William Howard Taft, Elihu Root, and Lodge himself were all in favor of an alliance involving France and Great Britain.52 In their view, however, the League of Nations promised to treat the United States a little too much as “a nation among nations” rather than as a leader of nations. In other words, this was about unilateralism and exceptionalism, not internationalism per se. The single fact of rejecting membership in the League has come to symbolize American “isolationism” or aloofness in the interwar period. However, rejection of the League is a poor indicator of the level of “internationalism” in American interwar policies. In fact, the presidential election of 1920 was not the “referendum for isolation” that Senator Borah thought it was. The first decade of the interwar period entailed a high level of U.S. political, economic, and security activity in Europe. The voters were registering their dissatisfaction with the Wilson administration, Robert Divine has argued, as well as the problems brought on by the war and its aftermath, but a vote for Harding in 1920 was not a vote against the League.53 In fact, the “Statement of Thirty-­One” – a document released to the press on October 15, 1920 by a group of impressive Republican pro-­Leaguers (including Elihu Root, Taft, Henry Stimson, and Herbert Hoover)

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stated that voters could “most effectively advance the cause of international co-­ operation to promote peace by supporting Mr. Harding for election to the Presidency.” The effort was designed to prevent electoral defection of pro-­League voters.54 Thus, these Republican luminaries all favored American participation in the League (albeit with reservations) and they thought this was a winning electoral strategy. In conclusion, the United States would only have become a member of the League had the Treaty of Versailles been passed with reservations, making allowance for exceptional rules for the United States.55

The interwar period The interwar period has generally been portrayed as a failure of U.S. foreign policy, which has been blamed on isolationist or aloof sentiment. Jeffrey Frieden, for instance, has argued that the “inconsistent” American interwar policies were the result of competing internationalist and isolationist economic and political interests within the U.S. government.56 One cannot fold the years from 1919 to 1941 in under one category, however. First, the 1920s were generally thought of as a foreign policy success. Second, rather than staying aloof, the United States employed both unilateral and multilateral internationalist foreign policy strategies during this period.

1921–1929: Republican internationalism The Republican Party took an active approach to international politics in the 1920s. The prominent Republican Secretaries of State – Charles Evans Hughes and Henry Stimson – engaged in “resourceful, creative diplomacy that contributed greatly to international order and stability.”57 Hughes persuaded President Harding that the United States should join the World Court; indeed, he sought to foster a transatlantic community of “ideals, interests and purposes” in 1923–1924. Root had been one of the authors of the statute for a permanent court of international justice. The Court already had an American on the bench, John Bassett Moore. The problem was that the Court was the League’s Court. The text did not pass Senate muster until 1926, at which point it contained so many reservations that the members of the League of Nations refused to accept it.58 Several prominent Republicans advocated strong international cooperation during the 1920s, including Lodge, Root, and even Borah. In 1923, Senator Lodge argued for a strong international judiciary to serve as an alternative to war;59 and Senator Borah was one of the Republicans who spearheaded the movement for naval disarmament.60 Institutionalizing naval disarmament, making the Open Door towards China universal policy among the signatories, and breaking up the Anglo-­Japanese alliance was, at that moment anyway, proof of very successful American leadership in high politics.61 In fact, although the Irreconcilables may have been opposed to the League, they seemed to be highly internationalist (albeit in a selective manner) as they

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138   A mission to lead the world advocated their own schemes for what they believed to be a “stabler, juster world order.”62 The debate over U.S. engagement in European politics had been a debate over how, not whether. Thus, although the Republicans rejected the Versailles system, they did not reject the Wilsonian goal of reordering European politics. Instead, they changed the means by which to do so. As the protracted “Versailles crisis” unfolded between 1920 and 1923, the Republican policymakers focused on the economic stabilization of Europe instead of what they deemed to have been Wilsonian “idealism.”63 President Harding was not one for making bold foreign policy initiatives himself, however. Having straddled the issues of the League and international engagement rather skillfully during the election, it was anybody’s guess where he would come down after the election victory. Lodge held out hope for “some new treaty or agreement with our Allies” (since Wilson had made the alliance with France and Great Britain dependent on the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles by the Senate), but such initiatives never came from Harding.64 Melvyn P. Leffler notes how Harding and Hoover, while proponents of the Treaty of Versailles with certain reservations, had decided after the election of 1920 that a revival of the specific issue of the League would only engender controversy, out of proportion to the benefits of the League. Rather, they thought working for a stable economic world order would foster peace and prosperity – in other words, achieve the same goals as the League had intended to, but with different means. Because President Harding seemed to have no bold foreign policy agenda, the initial American postwar strategy was somewhat bifurcated: trust in continued prosperity, as advocated by the president and Secretary of Commerce Hoover, but also increase U.S. involvement in European politics, as advocated by Secretary of State Hughes. The former strategy was grounded in the belief that prosperity would lubricate Versailles treaty revision, end the appeal of Bolshevism, ease the burden of debts, and enable European recovery without much American sacrifice.65 In short, the prosperity-­based foreign policy was to be a win–win situation for Europe and the United States. But Hughes’ strategy was more ambitious. The United States became involved in the Dawes Plan, the debt agreements, the currency stabilization programs, the Locarno treaty, and the related political accords that provided for the withdrawal of French troops from the Ruhr and eventually from the first occupied zone of the Rhineland, altering the economic and political environment of Europe for the better, at least for a while. While these developments resulted from the “judicious use of American financial power”66 they also stemmed from a concerted effort on the part of Secretary Hughes, spurred by the Ruhr crisis and British initiatives, to reorient the European political system away from Versailles toward a stable order based on Anglo-­American conditions.67 Patrick Cohrs credits Hughes with a reorientation of U.S. foreign policy toward Europe in the wake of deteriorating Franco-­German relations after 1922. In fact, Cohrs argues that the “new and improved” Anglo-­American cooperation fostered by Hughes and British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald paved the way for the first “real” peace settlement after World War I: the London

The triumph of Lodge over Wilson   139 reparations settlement of 1924. Negotiated between the western powers and Germany, it laid the foundations for the Dawes regime and Europe’s “economic peace” of the mid-­1920s. Furthermore, this “Pax Anglo-­Americana” could not have endured without the political security settlement, the Locarno pact of 1925. This was, in effect, a western-­oriented concert of Europe – one that incorporated Germany. Cohrs labels Hughes’ efforts the “Hughes doctrine,” which essentially was an internationalized Monroe Doctrine, promoting the United States as the benign hegemonic power within the Western Hemisphere, and pursuing informal influence outside of it. Cohrs thus argues against the thesis that the diplomacy of the 1920s was inherently flawed and bound to fail (by failing to prevent the Great Depression or the rise of Nazism). The United States certainly had a strong hand when dealing with Europe: It was able to shape European events through its economic, cultural, and political predominance. American power was acutely felt, and even when pressure was not directly exerted, European statesmen always had to consider how American capital would react to their initiatives and actions. Essentially foreshadowing post-­World War II American “multilateralism,” a British financier described the following fortuitous situation: “No country is independent except the United States, which secures independence through its dominion over all others.”69 In fact, Republican internationalists such as Stimson and Felix Frankfurter believed they were maximizing their influence in European affairs by staying outside of the League of Nations and withholding a security commitment from France.70 In the fall of 1929, it seemed reasonable to expect that U.S. involvement in European affairs would only deepen. Not only was it a commercial power that could not overlook the importance of order and stability in the international arena,71 but the United States had also taken a deep interest in the political situation of the European powers. Prospects for the post-­Versailles order seemed promising. Indeed, in the late 1920s, “military studies concluded that the international environment was calm and that there was no need for immediate military preparations for war.”72

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1929–1939: “neutral” nationalism As is well known, the American strategy of influencing international politics mainly through economic policies proved unworkable in the face of the Great Depression.73 Leffler argues that U.S. diplomacy in the 1920s became “complacent and overly decentralized,” the prosperity generated ironically producing a feeling that there was “plenty of time to grapple with potential problems.”74 Although one might criticize the London and Locarno settlements for not weathering the deterioration in international relations, it is also clear that the Great Depression was a crisis of unprecedented proportions.75 The bursting of the stock market bubble in October 1929 set in motion events that temporarily destroyed the fragile and nascent international community. Selig Adler, in his classic account, stressed that this caused a “new isolationism,” a thesis historian George C. Herring reiterates.76

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140   A mission to lead the world Adler’s definition of isolationism was problematic, however, as it defined “new isolationists” as “hemispherists, rather than continentalists.” Adler further argued that they were also economic isolationists in addition to political isolationists.77 Two factors brought about this “new isolationism” (which Adler contrasted with the “superficial detachment of the previous decade”): the Depression and the subsequent wave of aggression that ultimately destroyed Versailles.78 In a similar way as in Frank Costigliola’s assessment, Adler argued that the optimistic view on future prosperity in the 1920s led to the problem of “entanglements arising from a policy of nonentanglement.” Herring argues the “passionate 1930s quest to insulate the nation from foreign entanglements fully merits the label isolationist.”79 And there certainly were virulent anti-­involvement groups. The Nye Committee in the Senate, which met between 1934 and 1936 (officially named the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry), studied the causes of United States’ involvement in World War I. It was headed by Republican Gerald P. Nye and created newspaper headlines on the sinister machinations of the munitions industry in pushing the United States into the war. John Milton Cooper argues that such headlines contributed to a retrospective shift of public opinion against intervention and Wilson, and contributed to the Neutrality Acts.80 In explaining his support for the neutrality legislation before the Foreign Relations Committee in 1936, Borah described it as a stance that “contributes to keeping us out of the war more than anything else we can do.”81 This did not mean, however, that he was categorically against U.S. participation in a war.82 But non-­entanglement was not isolationism. Senator Borah for example – previous leader of the Irreconcilables – was not only instrumental in convening the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–1922, he in fact did more than any other man to bring about the approval of the Kellogg–Briand Pact in the Senate in 1929.83 As such, Borah was against entanglements yet favored an active foreign policy. Historians have duly covered the fallacies of the term “isolationism,” but nevertheless the idea of interwar isolationism – especially for the 1930s – has stubbornly persisted in academe and popular history alike, thus making the turn-­ around thesis from isolationism in the 1930s to internationalism in the 1940s seem plausible.84 Certainly there existed a small group of congressmen and voters who could plausibly be labeled “isolationists” if one defined the term rather broadly. But a broad definition is precisely the problem. The definition is so broad, in fact, that one would have to agree that the isolationists were actually expansionists, as Franz Schurmann argued: “the true heirs of ‘manifest destiny.’ ”85 They saw “a glorious future” beyond America’s borders, but they saw it more so in East Asia and Latin America than in Europe or Africa.86 As such, isolationism was not really isolationism at all, but rather geographically specific internationalism. There was nothing isolationist about advocating hemispheric dominance and Asian market penetration. Reinhold Niebuhr said it best when he warned in 1930 that Americans were “awkward imperialists” – attempting to manage their wealth and the world with

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The triumph of Lodge over Wilson   141 the same economic, informal methods that had created the wealth in the first place.87 Niebuhr’s “awkward imperialists,” Jonas’s “isolationists”88 and Adler’s and Herring’s “new isolationists” were, in conclusion, unilateralists, and nationalists, not isolationists. With the international order of the 1920s giving way to the anarchy of the 1930s, the United States did, however, temporarily resort to economic and political nationalism.89 Whereas open door capitalism remained important to U.S. foreign policy in this era, these foreign policies “remained of distinctly secondary importance to domestic concerns and to prevailing practices of privatism and independent internationalism.”90 It was the domestic market that was the primary focus of the Herbert Hoover administration in the wake of the crash in 1929, and would continue to be so in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term as president.91 In 1933, FDR chose the nationalist option over the internationalist one on each of his decisions on disarmament, trade, debt, and the currency question.92 Nationalism did not mean isolationism, however. In fact, with Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931 (violating the League Covenant, Hughes’ Washington Treaties (in which Japan had pledged to respect China’s borders), and the Kellogg–Briand Pact), the Hoover administration “set an all-­time record for close cooperation with the League,” although the president refused to permit any American actions that might risk war.93 The League did not stand up for Manchuria, and disappointed Americans who believed in collective action. While clearly focused on domestic issues such as economic recovery, this does not mean that there were no diplomatic initiatives in these early years. Akira Iriye writes that Franklin Roosevelt’s decision to recognize the Soviet Union in November 1933 “did not yield immediate results but was pregnant with important implications for international relations.”94 FDR’s Latin America policy, named the Good Neighbor policy, was initiated with greater fanfare, and was well received in Latin America. In addition, there was the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreement – a reaction to the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 – which allowed Roosevelt to negotiate the lowering of tariffs on a bilateral basis. Some of its provisions would later be used as a prototype for the GATT.95 These agreements were made with Latin American countries, indicating a move toward greater regionalism, as opposed to globalism, which is why Iriye argues that the Good Neighbor policy and the Reciprocal Trade Agreement were aspects of “American isolationism.” This analysis only holds, however, if greater engagement within the Western Hemisphere can be labeled “isolationism,” which again would be a Eurocentric – and incorrect – definition of isolationism. The Reciprocal Trade Agreements solidified the quasi-­colonial relationship the United States had with the Central American countries, strengthening the dominant U.S. role in hemispheric commerce.96 But early attempts at a forceful foreign policy in the 1930s certainly met with mixed results because of the focused attention on the domestic problems and their concomitant nationalist mass attitudes. In 1935, FDR made the (mis)calculation that the Senate would finally approve U.S. admission to the World Court, as a careful poll had found that more than two-­thirds of the senators were in

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142   A mission to lead the world favor. He thus saw little risk in submitting it for approval on January 16, 1935. The request, however, caught the eye of Father Charles Coughlin, the populist and xenophobic Detroit radio priest, along with the Hearst press.97 Father Coughlin asserted that the World Court and the League of Nations was created by international bankers and “plutocrats.” Opposition to the Court was the same as keeping “America safe for Americans and not the hunting ground of international plutocrats.” Their rabid reaction inspired a ten-­senator opposition to grow to thirty-­six, and the vote fell seven senators short of approval although there were signs of engagement. 98 In early 1936, however, Roosevelt’s support for a cooperative international monetary system was displayed in the Tripartite Monetary Agreement, specifically aimed at propping up the Western European democracies against German and Italian economic nationalism.99 This directly reversed the position that the United States had taken at the disastrous 1933 London Economic Conference, which is why Warren Kimball labels this later agreement as the official renouncement of the economic nationalism of the early 1930s.100 It seems clear that, after he won his first reelection in the fall of 1936, Roosevelt began taking more assertive actions in foreign policy, exemplified by his “quarantine speech” in October 1937: War is a contagion, whether it be declared or undeclared. It can engulf states and peoples remote from the original scene of hostilities. We are determined to keep out of war, yet we cannot insure ourselves against the disastrous effects of war and the dangers of involvement. We are adopting such measures as will minimize our risk of involvement, but we cannot have complete protection in a world of disorder in which confidence and security have broken down.101 When the League of Nations proposed a conference to discuss the Sino-­Japanese War, FDR and Hull supported it, and the United States attended the conference.102 Following the Panay incident – where Japanese military sank a U.S. gunboat on the Yangtze River in China in December 1937, killing three Americans – FDR sent the Chief of the U.S. Navy’s Intelligence, Captain Royal Ingersoll, to London for secret talks with his British counterpart on a possible joint strategy against Japan.103 The Neutrality Acts – seen as the epitome of isolationism104 – had a very mixed group of proponents. Some members of Congress were seeking noninvolvement, while others wanted to use economic embargo as a weapon against aggression.105 Some were seeking to weaken the president to ensure he could not lead the United States into another war, another group wanted to strengthen the president’s ability to sanction aggressors: “Both groups confusingly used the neutrality legislation for this,” Bear Braumoeller argues. In fact, a minority report on HJR 242, the Neutrality Act of 1937, objected to the Act on the grounds that it could be used as a weapon by the president to take the United States to war, thereby robbing Congress of its ability to declare war.106

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The triumph of Lodge over Wilson   143 Neutrality legislation, the traditional barometer of U.S. isolationism, was an unstable barometer at best. As the common wisdom in the 1930s became that Wilson’s pre-­1917 neutrality had been unfairly biased toward the Allies and therefore pushed the United States into war,107 some neutrality proponents supported the legislation so that the new president could not push the country into another war. But then, what war? The perceived threat level to the United States was low.108 Whereas Americans realized Adolf Hitler was pursuing horrible policies, they believed that American intervention was unnecessary because German weakness meant that the democratic states of Europe were in no immediate danger of losing a potential war. In fact, Jonas noted this in his influential 1966 book on isolationism.109 Nor did the legislation prevent involvement. At the end of 1937, Roosevelt decided to sell military aircraft to France and Britain. This was not a violation of the Neutrality Acts, as there was no war in Europe. It was an indication of the intention on the part of the United States to throw its hat in the ring. Between 1920 and 1933, Leffler has argued, the United States was continuously involved in the struggle to reconstruct and stabilize Europe.110 To do this, U.S. policymakers and their private messengers sought to alleviate French strategic fears, resolve the war debt and reparations controversy, export American capital, and bring Germany back into the international community.111 What U.S. policymakers did not perceive was a strategic threat from Europe. Because Germany’s military had been virtually eradicated, there seemed little chance of another war and little point in getting involved in matters such as the Rhineland occupation or border squabbles.112 Indeed, after spending the 1920s as chief New York Times reporter in Europe, Edwin L. James concluded this was “our century . . . There is no country where the power of the dollar has not reached . . . Isolation is a myth. We are not isolated and cannot be isolated. The United States is ever present.”113

Conclusion: interpreting the interwar years Inis Claude once pointed out that “serious students” of American foreign policy know that isolationism was never a true phenomenon and that the word “isolationism” did not come into general use until the 1930s. Whereas one can find references to isolation in historical documents, this was only stating a geographical fact.114 The term isolationist seems to have appeared around the turn of the century, referring to those who prefer a policy of “political isolation” – a debate spurred by the Spanish–American War, of course. The active U.S. participation in interwar international politics, not least in economic policies, led William Appleman Williams and his “revisionst” historians in the mid-­twentieth century to challenge the traditional view that the interwar period was one of isolation.115 Isolationism was “a myth designed to obscure the essential continuity of an expansionist policy pursued throughout this century, and not only in the period following World War II.”116 While Williams’ (and the revisionists’) thesis of interwar economic expansionism can be criticized

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144   A mission to lead the world for focusing too much on the primacy of the Open Door thesis, it helped underscore the domestic roots of U.S. foreign policy.117 More recent analyses have focused on the linkages that the Republican interwar administrations saw between economic stability and international security as chronicled in this chapter, as well as the thesis that Republican leaders of the 1920s were hamstrung by a minority of Irreconcilables rather than by a pervasive national mentality of “isolationism.”118 The thesis of isolationism is still alive and well, however, in scholarship on the interwar period. The 1930s in particular are said to be the prime example of an isolationist U.S. foreign policy tradition.119 This chapter has argued – using the current consensus in the field of history – that the term isolationism is entirely ill-­fitted to describe U.S. foreign policy in the interwar period. This chapter has challenged the conventional wisdom that a rejection of the League and the neutrality legislation of the 1930s signaled an isolationist era in U.S. foreign policy. Rather, it has argued that the internationalist tradition continued, amidst debate over what kind of internationalism – multilateral or unilateral – the United States should pursue. Woodrow Wilson fought mightily to convince his countrymen that the multilateralism of the League of Nations was the American way. He told Congress in January 1917 that he was proposing that: . . . [T]he nations of the world should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world: that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own polity, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful.120 To the states south of the American border, used to thinking of the Monroe Doctrine in a slightly different manner, this probably sounded rather disingenuous. To the “great and powerful” state of Russia, where the United States would be involved in a military intervention to affect the outcome of their civil war in the next year, it must also have sounded rather bizarre in retrospect. Indeed, an end to formal spheres of influence for the European great powers meant for Wilson that the United States could extend an informal influence over much of the globe.121 Although Wilson is often said to be the initiator of a missionary, crusading U.S. foreign policy tradition rooted in American exceptionalism – and while it is clear that his attempt at setting up the League of Nations and involving the United States in it was in his own eyes a crusade – his vision was, ironically, not exceptional enough for the American foreign policy tradition of unilateral internationalism. The defeat of the League did not terminate U.S. efforts at creating a “stable, liberal, capitalist order.”122 It was, rather, the Republicans who sought to intervene in European power politics after the Versailles system had failed. What precipitated the U.S. intervention in European relations in the early 1920s, in addition to the Ruhr crisis, was Hughes’ conviction that

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The triumph of Lodge over Wilson   145 Great Britain and Germany were willing to accept the United States “hegemonic” terms for what became an “Anglo-­American transatlantic order,”123 very much foreshadowing the 1940s. Moving from World War I to World War II, the next chapter will begin with the start of World War II and the time period leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and then move on to the wartime planning for the postwar international order. I will examine the three main areas of multilateralism: political multilateralism in the form of the United Nations, economic multilateralism in the form of Bretton Woods, and security multilateralism in the form of NATO. My conclusion is that these institutions, while reforming international politics, did not reform the United States’ fundamental skepticism toward substantive multilateralism. Indeed, the United States only became a member of the United Nations because all of the objections and reservations Henry Cabot Lodge had voiced in 1919 had been addressed. The main argument of this chapter, and the next, is thus that the turn-­around thesis exaggerates the U.S. commitment to multilateralism while it understates the fundamental commitment to unilateralism. In the next chapter, I will argue that the U.S. tradition of unilateral internationalism continued more than commonly thought after World War II despite international order building; and that the best explanation for this continuity was and is America’s exceptionalist identity, not various systemic factors.

Notes 1 Woodrow Wilson, “Ideals of America” in Atlantic Monthly, December 1902. 2 Henry Cabot Lodge, July 4th speech to the Boston City Council, 1879. Quoted in William C. Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), p. 69. 3 For a recent and prominent example, see George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 486. Herring writes that the internationalism that had competed with more traditional attitudes during the 1920s was “replaced by a new isolationism” with the Great Depression. Whereas he rejects the term “isolationism” for U.S. foreign relations in general, he does argue for its fit with the 1930s (p. 502). 4 Unilateralism is defined as “maintaining as much maneuverability as possible while engaging other countries.” My argument is that such maneuverability can be achieved either through lax formal obligations or overwhelming control of the decision-­making bodies governing the rules of the interaction. Multilateralism, on the other hand, is a very difficult concept to define. The simplest definition of multilateralism is the coordination of relations among three or more states according to a set of rules or principles, which was Robert Keohane’s definition, later improved upon by Ruggie and most recently by Sarah Krebs. Despite the attempts by Keohane, Ruggie, Krebs, and G. John Ikenberry, however, there are still many gray areas and many contradictions, especially as one moves from one policy area to another. See Robert O. Keohane, “Multilateralism. An Agenda for Research,” International Journal 45(4), 1990, pp. 731–64; John G. Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution,” in Ruggie, ed. Multilateralism Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); G. John Ikenberry, “Is American Multilateralism in Decline?” Perspectives on Politics 1(3), September 2003; Sarah E. Krebs, “Multilateral Military Interventions: Theory and Practice,” Political Science Quarterly, 123(4), 2008–2009 (winter 2008).

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146   A mission to lead the world   5 There were vast differences both in U.S. policy and in the international environment between the 1920s and the 1930s, and folding them into one period entails numerous theoretical problems. The period is better thought of as three different ones: 1921–33, 1933–9 and, from the American perspective, a third period from 1939–41.   6 This will be discussed later in the chapter. By “nationalist” I mean protectionist economic legislation and unilateral security policy. See, for example, Jeffrey Legro, Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), p. 71.   7 As also pointed out by Bear F. Braumoeller, “The Myth of American Isolationism,” Foreign Policy Analysis, 6(4), 2010, p. 350.   8 These traditions, the “isolationist/aloof ” posture and the “internationalist” posture, connected to an exemplary identity and a missionary identity, respectively. See chapters 2 and 3. In traditional scholarship, the “missionary” identity went hand in hand with internationalism, whereas the “exemplary” identity went together with isolationism or aloofness. This usually underpins the various cyclical theories of U.S. foreign policy that I argued against in chapters 2 and 3.   9 The historiography of Wilson and the League has gone through several stages. The early works that came out focused on Wilson’s mental state through a psychoanalytic perspective. See Alexander L. and Juliette L. George, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study (New York: Dover, 1956) and Sigmund Freud and William C. Bullitt, Thomas Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966). Arthur S. Link, called Wilson’s foremost biographer, drew upon physiological facts to counter the psychological analysis, arguing that it was Wilson’s strokes that contributed to his stubbornness and inability to compromise with Lodge, as opposed to his psychological relationship with his father. John Milton Cooper, Link’s student, also focuses on the health aspect, in addition to the political differences between Lodge and Wilson. See John Milton Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Lloyd E. Ambrosius, on the other hand, dismisses this, maintaining that Wilson was consistently stubborn and unwilling to compromise with Lodge both before and after his stroke in the fall of 1919. See Lloyd Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and the Treaty Fight in Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), and Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and his Legacy in American Foreign Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p.  141. Ambrosius as well as William Widenor rightly point out the failure of the previously cited works in acknowledging the real political differences between the positions represented by Wilson and Lodge. The “New Left” historians or revisionists, exemplified by N. Gordon Levin, Jr. and Arno J. Mayer, saw domestic politics and ideology as the most important explanatory factors, and brought a distinct sympathy for Wilsonianism into their analysis. See Gordon Levin, Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America’s Response to War and Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), for a connection between exceptionalism and Wilson. See Ambrosius, Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and his Legacy in American Foreign Relations, chapter 10, “Wilson’s Health and the Treaty Fight” and Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, chapter 10, for a literature overview. 10 Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, p.  422. Robert W. Tucker argues that Wilson sincerely wanted to stay out of the war, but that this became untenable with German submarine warfare, which challenged America’s traditional neutral rights. He compares this situation to Jefferson’s when dealing with British impressments of American sailors during the Napoleonic wars. See Robert W. Tucker, Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering America’s Neutrality, 1914–1917 (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2007). 11 Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, p. 422.

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The triumph of Lodge over Wilson   147 12 Lloyd E. Ambrosius, “Democracy, Peace, and World Order,” in Reconsidering Woodrow Wilson, John Milton Cooper, ed. (Baltimore, Md: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), p. 233. 13 Ibid., p. 230. 14 Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 211. 15 Jean-­Baptiste Duroselle, From Wilson to Roosevelt: Foreign Policy of the United States, 1913–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 53. 16 Woodrow Wilson, “A World League for Peace” Speech (January 22, 1917). URL: http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3797. 17 Duroselle, From Wilson to Roosevelt, p. 79. 18 Ambrosius, “Democracy, Peace, and World Order,” in Reconsidering Woodrow Wilson, p. 227. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., p. 228. 21 Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy, p. 64. 22 Ibid., pp. 70, 105. 23 Ibid., p. 1. 24 Henry Cabot Lodge, “Oration,” Boston City Council (July 4, 1879), quoted in Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge, p. 69. 25 See Henry Cabot Lodge, George Washington II. Quoted in Widenor, p. 71. 26 Ibid. 27 Quoted in Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge, p. 74. 28 Ibid., pp. 44, 49. 29 Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, p. 11. Roosevelt’s Nobel lecture was held on May 5, 1910. URL: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1906/ roosevelt-­lecture.html. The idea lay rather dormant until World War I broke out, at which point Roosevelt argued in several articles in the fall of 1914 for an “international posse comitatus.” Cited in Theodore Roosevelt, “An International Posse Comitatus,” New York Times, November 8, 1914. See also “The Belgian Tragedy,” Outlook, September 23, 1914, and “How to Strive for Peace,” New York Times, October 18, 1914. These can all be found in Hermann Hagedorn, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, [National Edition], XVIII. 30 Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, p. 12. My italics. 31 Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge, pp. 228–9. 32 Theodore Roosevelt, “Address at Oxford University” June 7, 1910. Quoted in Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge, p. 223. 33 See Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, p. 17. 34 Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge, p. 226. 35 Ibid., p. 251. 36 Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, p. 20. 37 Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge, p.  297. He thought the Slavic nationalities should receive assistance in establishing themselves as states and he suggested that the United States become a mandatory for areas such as Constantinople. 38 Ibid., p. 304. 39 Knock labels Lodge a representative of “conservative internationalists” whereas Wilson was a “liberal internationalist.” 40 Thomas Knock, To End all Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 229. 41 See Duroselle, From Wilson to Roosevelt, pp. 111–13. 42 Senator Johnson, June 2, 1919, quoted in Colin Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), p.  73. Thomas Knock’s argument is that Wilson partly lost the League fight not because of the opposition from the right, but because he allowed his progressive coalition of 1916 to unravel. See To End All Wars, p. 268.

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148   A mission to lead the world 43 Duroselle, From Wilson to Roosevelt, p. 96. 44 Knock, To End all Wars, p. 230. 45 Ibid. 46 Article X, The Covenant of the League of Nations. URL: http://avalon.law.yale. edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp#art10. 47 Quoted in Knock, To End all Wars, pp. 240–41. 48 Ibid., p. 252. 49 Ibid., chapters 13 and 14. 50 Quoted in Knock, To End All Wars, p. 258. 51 Ibid., 266. 52 See Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and the Treaty Fight in Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, p.  42. Lodge supported the Treaties of Guarantee, in which the United States and Great Britain pledged to aid France in the event of another German attack. See Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge, p. 331. 53 Robert Divine, Second Chance: The Triumph of Internationalism in America During the Second World War (New York: Atheneum, 1967), p. 10. 54 The immediate cause of this effort on the part of the Republican Party elders was to counteract the perceived malicious influence exercised by Senators Borah and Johnson over Harding. See Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, p. 394. 55 Widenor concludes that Lodge sincerely favored ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, but with reservations. See Henry Cabot Lodge, p. 333. 56 Jeffry A. Frieden, “Sectoral Conflicts and U.S. Foreign Economic Policy: 1914–1940,” International Organization, 42(1), 1988, pp. 59–90; see also Melvyn P. Leffler, “Political Isolationism, Economic Expansionism, or Diplomatic Realism: American Policy toward Western Europe 1921–1933,” Perspectives in American History 8, 1974, pp.  413–61; G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Liberal Order and Imperial Ambition (Malden, MA: Polity, 2006); and E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1939), reprinted in Perennial, 2001. 57 Patrick O. Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace after World War I: America, Britain, and the Stabilisation of Europe, 1991–1932 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 8. 58 Ibid. See Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, p. 399; Duroselle, pp. 146–7. 59 It was resolved that, A judicial substitute for war should be created (or if existing in part, adapted and adjusted) in the form or nature of an international court, modeled on our Federal Supreme Court in its jurisdiction over controversies between our sovereign States, such court . . . to have the same power for enforcement of its decrees as our Federal Supreme Court. (February 14, 1923, Congressional Record 6–4–3605) Cited in Braumoeller, “The Myth of American Isolationism,” p. 358. 60 Arms limitation was an American policy objective during the Republican ascendancy, but this was not isolationism or unrealistic politics. Rather, “government officials and their business supporters tried to formulate and implement disarmament proposals in a pragmatic and hardheaded way that would leave American defenses unimpaired,” argues Leffler, in “Political Isolationism, Economic Expansionism or Diplomatic Realism: American Policy toward Western Europe 1921–1933,” Perspectives in American History 8, 1974, p. 436. Certainly, the fact that there were no perceived threats emanating from the international system makes this policy “realistic.” 61 In fact, despite failures and antagonisms between the United States, Britain, and Japan, this effort remained the only successful arms reductions until the 1980s.

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The triumph of Lodge over Wilson   149 62 Akira Iriye, The Globalizing of America, 1913–1945, in Warren I. Cohen, ed. The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations Vol. III (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 75; Patrick Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace, p. 81. 63 Patrick Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace, pp. 81–83. This economic stabilization was modeled on the earlier U.S. policy of “Open Door” economic policy, promoting a non-­discriminatory system of bilateral trade agreements, as opposed to a “closed system” of high tariffs, cartels, and other trade-­restrictive means. This still meant that – as with the original Open Door policy – there was a strong pro-­American bias to this policy, this time in terms of containing strong protectionist components beneficial to the world’s leading exporter of capital and goods. See Melvyn P. Leffler “Expansionist Impulses and Domestic Constraints, 1921–1932” in William H. Becker and Samuel F. Wells, eds. Economics and World Power: An Assessment of American Diplomacy Since 1789 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), p.  233. See also his book The Elusive Quest: America’s Pursuit of European Stability and French Security 1919–1933. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1979). 64 Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders, p. 78; Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge, p. 347. 65 Melvyn P. Leffler, “Political Isolationism, Economic Expansionism, or Diplomatic Realism,” p. 422. 66 Costigliola, Awkward Dominion, and ibid., p. 427. Leffler argues that the Republican officials assumed that the stabilization and economic rehabilitation of Europe would generate worldwide economic growth; stimulate total world demand; contribute to world peace and social order; and benefit American commercial interests. 67 Patrick Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace, p. 9. 68 Patrick Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace, pp. 9, 85. 69 Statement by J. R. Bellerby in Royal Institute of International Affairs, The International Gold Problem (London, 1931), p. 16, quoted in Costigliola, Awkward Dominion, p. 264. 70 Leffler, “Political Isolationism,” p. 443. 71 Selig Adler, The Isolationist Impulse. It’s Twentieth Century Reaction (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1957), reprinted 1974. 72 Leffler, “Political Isolationism,” p. 435. 73 Frank Costigliola, Awkward Dominion: American Political, Economic, and Cultural Relations with Europe, 1919–1933 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984). Costigliola sums up the predominant aspects of U.S. foreign policy in the 1920s: America’s predominant power; the caution with which policymakers’ exercised that strength; and the problems that plagued the American policy of peaceful change and economic reconstruction. 74 See Leffler, “Expansionist Impulses and Domestic Constraints,” pp. 255–6. 75 Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace, p. 614. 76 Adler, The Isolationist Impulse, p.  239; Herring, From Colony to Superpower, p. 485. 77 Adler, The Isolationist Impulse, p. 240. 78 Ibid., 243. 79 Herring, From Colony to Superpower, p. 502. 80 Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, p. 402. 81 Presumably referring to the Spanish civil war. 82 “I would not say to Great Britain and France that the United States is not going to protect its citizens engaging in legitimate trade upon the high seas . . . I would not hesitate a moment to go to war if they invaded a vital right which this country has established as its policy.” Foreign Relations Committee, Neutrality: Hearings, 74th Cong., 2nd sess. (1936), 31, cited in Manfred Jonas, Isolationism in America, 1935–1941 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966), p. 51.

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150   A mission to lead the world 83 Jonas, Isolationism in America, p.  49. Although one can easily criticize the Kellogg–Briand Pact for being unrealistic, it fitted into the larger scheme of Republican interwar internationalism, where “American officials hoped that the slow evolution of arms limitations treaties, judicial processes, arbitration agreements, and antiwar pacts would gradually turn men’s energy and attention from military preparations to economic undertakings.” See Leffler, “Expansionism, Domestic Constraints,” p. 239. 84 Akira Iriye writes that “[t]he overall picture of American foreign policy during Roosevelt’s first administration echoed the isolationist sentiment of the public and emphasized avoidance of trouble,” and argues there was “American isolationism” during the 1930s. Indeed, when in July 1937 FDR proposed to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that he should visit the United States to discuss cooperation in international affairs, Chamberlain turned it down, uttering the famous words: “It is always best and safest to count on nothing from the Americans but words.” It is worth noting, notwithstanding Chamberlain’s words, that FDR had been “virtually immobilized” in foreign policy during his first term due to domestic economic problems. See Akira Iriye, The Globalizing of America, p. 146. See also Albert K. Weinberg, “The Historical Meaning of the Doctrine of Isolation,” American Political Science Review, 34(3), 1940, pp.  539–47; Selig Adler, The Isolationist Impulse; Duroselle, From Wilson to Roosevelt; Robert W. Tucker, A New Isolationism: Threat or Promise? (New York: Universe Books, 1972); Manfred Jonas, “Isolationism,” in Alexander DeConde et al. eds., Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy Vol. II, 2nd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2002). 85 Franz Schurmann, The Logic of World Power (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), p. 57. 86 Ibid. 87 Costigliola, Awkward Dominion. See Niebuhr, “Awkward Imperialists,” Atlantic Monthly 145 (June 1930): 670–2. 88 Jonas divided the isolationists of the 1930s into five groups: foreign-­oriented isolationists (those whose views were primarily determined by sympathy for the Axis-­powers or the USSR (e.g. Father Coughlin or Communists); belligerent isolationists (they “believed in vigorous defense of American rights, reliance on international law, and strict adherence to the unilateral foreign policy of the nineteenth century”); timid isolationists (prepared to surrender some traditional rights in order to minimize direct contact with foreign nations at war and thus avoid entanglements); radical isolationists (who sought to keep out of war at all costs in order to facilitate the establishment of a new social order in America); and conservative isolationists (who saw war as the final blow to the old order whose institutions and traditions they were desperately trying to save). See Isolationism in America, p. 35. 89 Meaning economic protectionism and unilateralism in political and security affairs. Examples include the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, and Roosevelt’s rejection of the recommendations of the London Economic Conference in 1933. 90 Leffler “Expansionist Impulses and Domestic Constraints, 1921–1932” p.  258. Leffler points out that when the Depression emerged, there was not yet a threat from a totalitarian power, which allowed most policymakers to agree on the primacy of domestic issues. See p. 227. 91 Legro argues FDR was an “ardent nationalist” in his first term who clearly gave priority to the domestic economic recovery rather than to international events. See Rethinking the World, p. 71. 92 Leffler, The Elusive Quest, p. 367. 93 Adler, The Isolationist Impulse, p. 245. 94 Akira Iriye, The Globalizing of America, p. 146.

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The triumph of Lodge over Wilson   151   95 Ibid., pp. 147–8. These steps were the first indication of movement away from what Iriye labels “isolationism and passivity.” In retrospect, of course, as Iriye writes, the Good Neighbor policy of refraining from interventions in the Western Hemisphere only lasted a short while for the United States. See also Michael J. Hogan, “Partisan Politics and the End of the Cold War,” in Hogan, ed., The End of the Cold War: Its Meaning and Implications (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 10th ed. Hogan argues that changes in the industrial structure (the emergence of large, capital intensive firms started rivaling small, labor intensive business for their political influence) made the New Deal coalition possible, which paved the way for internationalism in the form of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. Although the “nationalist bloc,” as Hogan calls them, was still strong within the Republican party and was able to obstruct many internationalist attempts by the Democrats, the shift towards internationalism was “unmistakable” even in the early 1930s.   96 Herring, From Colony to Superpower, p. 501.   97 Quoted in Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 95.   98 Ibid., p. 96.   99 The Anglo-­French-American agreement was specifically aimed at stabilizing the French currency by guaranteeing its value in international trade. See Warren F. Kimball, The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 188–9; Alfred E. Eckes, Jr., A Search for Solvency: Bretton Woods and the International Monetary System, 1941–1971 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975), pp. 26–7. According to Eckes, this agreement was a “giant stride toward Bretton Woods” by which the United States acquired the dominant position in international monetary relations it would hold until August 1971, when Richard Nixon suspended the convertibility of dollars and gold. 100 Warren F. Kimball, “U.S. Economic Strategy in World War II: Wartime Goals, Peacetime Plans,” in Kimball ed. America Unbound: World War II and the Making of a Superpower (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), p. 141. 101 Franklin D. Roosevelt, October 4, 1937, Chicago. 102 Iriye, The Globalizing of America, p. 158. 103 Ibid., p. 159. FDR did, however, refrain from taking more forceful steps. 104 Iriye argues that the Neutrality Act of 1936 reconfirmed the isolationist thrust of FDR’s first presidential period. See p. 154. The Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937 prohibited the sale of munitions and other war-­related products to all belligerents of a conflict, banned loans and commercial credits, barred American ships from belligerent waters, and forbade American citizens from traveling on ships of belligerent nations. 105 Braumoeller, “Myth of American Isolationism,” p. 359. 106 Ibid. United States House of Representatives, American Neutrality Policy: Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Seventy-­Fifth Congress, First Session, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1937, 174–7.) In Robert Osgood’s opinion, the neutrality laws were designed to “prevent the nation from committing the mistakes which were presumed to have led it into World War I.” See Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, p. 367. 107 Knock, To End all Wars, p. 271. 108 Braumoeller, “Myth of American Isolationism,” pp. 360–1. 109 Adler, The Isolationist Impulse, and Jonas, Isolationism in America. Melvyn P. Leffler also points out the lack of threat perceived in the 1920s and early 1930s, see “Expansionist Impulses and Domestic Constraints, 1921–1932.” 110 Leffler, Elusive Quest, p. 362. 111 The United States did not succeed in allaying French fears, however. 112 Leffler, Elusive Quest, p. 363.

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152   A mission to lead the world 113 Edwin James, “Our World Power and Moral Influence,” The International Digest 1 (October 1930), p. 21, quoted in Costigliola, Awkward Dominion, p. 263. 114 Inis L. Claude, “The Credibility of Institutions, Policies and Leadership,” in American Approaches to World Affairs, Kenneth W. Thompson, ed., 4th ed. (New York: University Press of America, 1986), p.  4. Walter A. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997), p. 39. 115 Williams refuted the “legend of isolationism” in his classic book, The Tragedy of American Foreign Policy (Cleveland, OH: World Pub. Co, 1959). 116 Williams quoted in Robert W. Tucker, A New Isolationism: Threat or Promise? (New York: Universe Books, 1972), p. 27. For a historiographical review, see Brian McKercher, “Reaching for the Brass Ring: The Recent Historiography of Interwar American Foreign Relations,” in Michael J. Hogan, ed., Paths to Power: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations to 1941 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp.  181–3. See also Michael J. Hogan, Informal Entente: The private structure of cooperation in Anglo-­American economic diplomacy, 1918–1928 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977), Leffler, The Elusive Quest, and Costigliola, Awkward Dominion. 117 Leffler “Expansionist Impulses and Domestic Constraints, 1921–1932,” p. 265. 118 On the “interwar” period, Merrill and Paterson write that, “Some writers blamed America’s failures on a narrow-­minded nationalism and postwar ‘isolationism,’ a term that implied nearly total disengagement from international affairs. Others noted that twentieth-­century global interdependence made isolation virtually impossible by the 1920s but that nonetheless Washington preferred to go it alone, or exercise its unilateral power, to stem threats to U.S. interests.” This is labeled “independent internationalism” (the term belongs to Joan Hoff Wilson) as contrasted with “the commitment to multilateralism that accompanied the creation of the United Nations following World War II.” Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson, eds., Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Volume II: Since 1914, 6th ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005), p. 72. See also Leffler, The Elusive Quest. 119 See, for instance, Iriye, The Globalizing of America, 1913–1945, where he writes that isolationism became a major force in U.S. politics in the 1930s and characterizes FDR’s first term as isolationist. 120 Woodrow Wilson, “A World League for Peace.” 121 Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders, p. 48. 122 Leffler, “Expansionist Impulses and Domestic Constraints,” p. 233. 123 Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace, p. 113.

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6 Hegemony vs. multilateralism

I knew something of European history – the old tyranny of kings, the absurdity of aristocracy, the futility of feudal wars – out of which America, the wonderful, had stepped proudly into the enlightenment of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. (Ray Stannard Baker, 1945)1

Introduction The common story of World War II and U.S. internationalism is that, first, it was not until Pearl Harbor that the United States “learned its lesson” and committed to the war, and by extension, internationalism;2 and, second, it took the cold war for the United States to make this commitment durable. Contrary to these popular truisms, however, the United States had always pursued an internationalist foreign policy. Committing to the war effort – while not a measurement of internationalism per se – was not a consequence of Pearl Harbor, but rather the fall of France in June 1940. The strategic situation in which Great Britain was the sole balancer of Nazi-­Germany and the Axis Powers challenged contemporary ideas about U.S. insularity from continental conflict. Franklin D. Roosevelt was successfully pursuing pro-­Allied and quasi-­interventionist policies after 1938,3 and in all likelihood the United States would have entered the war at some point without Pearl Harbor, as happened with World War I. Furthermore, just like Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt was already planning the postwar order before the United States was a formal party to the conflict. In this chapter, I shall argue: (1) that it did not take Pearl Harbor to change the internationalist path the United States was on; (2) that the international order that the United States created after the war was compatible with exceptionalism and unilateralism because it constructed a system based on hegemony, not substantive multilateralism; and, finally, (3) that the United States thus exhibited more continuity than change in its foreign policy posture in the first half of the twentieth century. World War II afforded the United States the opportunity to reaffirm its exceptional vision for the world – and to become the leader of that world – it did not signify a turn-­around from isolationism to internationalism.

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154   A mission to lead the world This argument is slightly complex, as it involves a two-­level analysis: on the domestic level, American exceptionalism and the unilateral posture towards international relations changed less than has previously been argued; but on the international level a multilateral post-­war order was constructed. Can both things be true? Yes, if we appreciate the extent to which the United States was the hegemon presiding over a multilateral structure, as opposed to a country joining a multilateral framework (which would mean subjecting itself to the same rules as all other members). Whereas the United States created numerous international institutions, subsequent U.S. administrations were not constrained by these institutional rules and procedures to the same extent that other member states were. In other words, the U.S.-sponsored institutional order was designed to bind the behavior of other states, but not that of the United States itself.4 The American international order building in the 1940s – while revolutionary in its scope and significant for the direct commitments the United States made to the European states – was not American exceptionalism marrying with multilateralism, but rather, was consistent with the two parts of U.S. foreign policy tradition described previously: exporting its political and economic system (exceptionalism) while maintaining its freedom of action (unilateralism). Indeed, safeguarding exceptionalism through unilateralism was the necessary precondition for the United States to enter into any commitments at all, as evidenced by the discussion of Lodgian internationalism in the previous chapter.

Public opinion and Pearl Harbor: their significance for U.S. internationalism The American people, along with their president, focused primarily on domestic issues during the Great Depression, as evidenced by nationalist economic legislation and unilateral security policies.5 Yet the tide against nationalism turned prior to Pearl Harbor. Before December 7, 1941, both public opinion and public actions within the United States supported increased involvement with the war. Not only did Roosevelt take actions that would eventually make it impossible for the United States to stay out of the war, there was also a public opinion majority in support of these actions.6 Furthermore, the United States committed to a postwar political order in the form of the Atlantic Charter before it was a formal party to the war. The following discussion aims to show that the significance of isolationism in the late 1930s has been overplayed in the literature, and, relatedly, that the “exogenous shock” of Pearl Harbor was not a necessary condition for U.S. involvement in world affairs. In fact, it only makes sense to talk about actual isolationism after the fall of France in June 1940, and only for a small number of politicians.

1939–1942: from nationalism to internationalism Public opinion polls from the 1930s have been utilized to show that the American public was highly “isolationist” in their attitudes toward European events

Hegemony vs. multilateralism   155 during this time. The widely cited statistics from 1935 and 1936 showing that ninety-­nine Americans out of a hundred would “regard as an imbecile anyone who might suggest that, in the event of another European war, the United States should again participate in it,” has been taken as evidence of such isolationist sentiment.8 Isolationism as a concept does not really apply in this context, as seen from the discussion of how to properly define isolationism earlier in the book. Nevertheless, let us for the sake of argument define isolationism in this context as opposition to U.S. intervention in European security politics. If so, two issues must be kept in mind when utilizing statistics from this time period: threat perception and question wording.

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7

Threat perception It has been commonplace to argue that “what ended isolationism was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.”9 Public opinion polls at the time do not bear this thesis out, however. The evolving public opinion in the United States after the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 shows that the public was in favor of intervention prior to Pearl Harbor, the most significant event in this timeframe being the fall of France.10 The statistics cited above from 1935 and 1936 not only reflected a general abhorrence of war, but also and more importantly – as Manfred Jonas has pointed out – such anti-­interventionist opinion was based on the clear assumption that the coming struggle involved “no vital interests of the United States and could be settled in Europe and Asia.”11 Indeed, the infamous 1939 issue of Time magazine that made Hitler “Man of the Year” also asserted that British control of the seas and the French Army were regarded as superior.12 Thus, the statistic saying that 95 percent of Americans thought that the United States should keep out of war arguably reflected the belief that France and England would successfully stand up to Germany.13 In other words, the statistics on public isolationism must be seen in the context of an evolving threat perception.14 It seems unlikely that an ideological commitment to isolationism would be the cause of this low threat assessment in the 1930s, as Great Britain was guilty of the same underestimation of the Nazi threat. Perhaps reflecting the different geographical locations, Great Britain would revise this threat estimation earlier – after the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia – extending unilateral security guarantees to Poland together with France. For the United States, the revision of the threat assessment happened later, after the fall of France. What this means is that opposition to intervention should only be coded as “isolationism” after the fall of France, which is when Nazi Germany became a credible threat to the United States.15 Although there were certain groups such as the “America First Committee” and members of Congress, such as senators Gerald P. Nye and William Borah, that did continue to ardently oppose any intervention in Europe after the fateful summer of 1940 – and thus can rightly be categorized as isolationists – a majority adjusted their views toward intervention in accordance with the rising threat.16

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156   A mission to lead the world Roosevelt began talking of global dangers in 1937 and 1938, the most prominent example of which was his “quarantine speech” of October 5, 1937, which was met with more supportive press reaction than the president himself had expected.17 He met strong resistance in Congress, however, emanating from a bipartisan coalition that had formed in reaction to his New Deal program and his “dictatorial” presidential tendencies. As late as mid-­1939, Roosevelt was still unwilling to test the cohesion of this coalition. FDR’s own New Deal coalition contained members staunchly opposed to intervention in European affairs.18 In any case, as David Reynolds points out, “war scares in Europe had come and gone. There seemed to be no clear and immediate danger to the United States.”19 Public opinion polls in the late 1930s show a steady erosion of the feeling of insularity and security in the Western Hemisphere.20 Polls taken from 1936 to 1939 by George Gallup’s American Institute of Public Opinion (AIPO) using variations on the question, “Will America be drawn into a European war?” show a steadily rising “yes” percentage: from 44 percent in April 1936 to 76 percent in September 1939.21 An ethical distinction was also being made between the warring parties. In October 1939, an AIPO poll showed clear partisanship in favor of Great Britain in relation to the arms embargo repeal. Asked if they favored a repeal of the embargo if it helped Germany, only 4 percent answered yes, 91 percent answered no, and 5 percent had no opinion. Asked if they favored the repeal if it helped Britain and France, 58 said yes, 34 percent said no, and 8 percent had no opinion.22 Michael Leigh concludes that, by 1939, the public was not only making an ethical distinction between the warring parties, but the “credibility of American insularity” was also waning. Even so, the public still clung to hopes of (military) noninvolvement.23 Hoping for noninvolvement and being against any involvement is not the same thing, however. As early as January 1939, before the war, 69 percent of Americans favored all aid to Britain short of war. By the end of 1939, most Americans were convinced that the European conflict entailed moral issues that made the cause of the European democracies an American cause.24 Indeed, speaking after the Nazi invasion of Poland, Roosevelt told his countrymen he could not ask them to be neutral in their hearts, as Woodrow Wilson had done twenty-­five years earlier.25 The success of the German blitzkrieg in the spring of 1940 greatly undermined the American feeling of security. After September 1940, the number of Americans who preferred aiding Britain and France to avoiding war with Germany never dropped below 50 percent.26 In fact, by January 2, 1941, almost a year before Pearl Harbor, AIPO found that 68 percent of Americans favored all-­out aid to Britain even at the risk of war, a figure that remained constant for the rest of the year.27 Question wording It is also important to consider question wording when using poll numbers as evidence for a dominant isolationist public opinion. When asked whether the

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   157 United States should enter the war immediately, the proportion in favor never exceeded 30 percent in the time period 1940–1941. When asked if the United States should enter the war if there were no other way to defeat Germany, however, the affirmatives were high: 72 percent in September 1940, 68 percent in April 1941, and 70 percent in November 1941.28 More specifically, in May 1941, AIPO conducted a survey on this controversial issue of interventionism. In that survey, 62 percent of the respondents said they would rather see the United States go to war than see Britain surrender to Germany (26 percent would rather see Britain surrender, 12 percent had no opinion). Furthermore, 59 percent answered in the affirmative when asked whether the U.S. Navy should be used to guard ships carrying war material to Britain (39 percent said no, and 7 percent had no opinion). The respondents were under no illusions what this might entail. To the question of whether U.S. Navy ships carrying war material to Britain would get the United States involved in the war, 74 percent answered yes, 16 percent thought it would not mean war, whereas 10 percent had no opinion. Indeed, 76 percent thought that even if the United States helping Britain would mean a German declaration of war on the United States, the United States should still help Britain (21 percent said no, and 3 percent had no opinion).29 In fact, when asked in the spring of 1941 whether Roosevelt had gone too far in helping Britain, 53 percent answered that his policy was about right, 18 percent thought he had not gone far enough, and 19 percent thought he had gone too far. Hadley Cantril of the Office of Public Opinion Research at Princeton (who unofficially transmitted poll results to the White House, often pre-­ publication) offered the following analysis based on this finding to the White House: Since the general point of view of the country is for all out aid and since the President’s popularity is still at an all time high (around 72%) and since people are never very clear about specific ways to instrument their general attitudes, I would bet anything that should the President come out for convoys or other specific aid that one week later about the same result would be found [on the above question]. At least half the population will follow him whatever he does, at least 15% will be ahead of him, at least 15% would disagree with him.30 Shortly after this, on May 27, 1941, FDR gave a radio address where he proclaimed “an unlimited national emergency” and pledged full-­scale support for Britain. And indeed, public reaction to this speech was immediate and overwhelmingly favorable. Despite this, Roosevelt backed down and told the press that he envisaged neither convoys nor an attempt to repeal the neutrality legislation. The subsequent delay from May to September on these policies cannot be explained by isolationist public opinion. In fact, according to Leigh, since a majority of Americans already favored convoys to protect Atlantic shipping, they must have “wondered why convoying, which the president deemed to be

158   A mission to lead the world vital, had not begun.”31 Finally, polls taken in November 1941 – in the days immediately prior to Pearl Harbor – showed only 2 percent of Americans agreeing with the notion that the most important task facing the United States was to “keep out of war.”32

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The role of Congress The twenty-­seven months between the German invasion of Poland and Japan’s attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor was not really a period of “Great Debate” between Roosevelt and the internationalists on the one hand and the isolationists on the other hand, then.33 If it were, what should one make of poll results such as AIPO’s, with one taken as early as September 1939 showing a majority in favor of the United States joining an international security organization?34 The probable answer is that while the general public was pro-­ interventionist, an important segment of Congress was not.35 Roosevelt’s approach to Congress was careful, as he was loath to ask for anything he was not sure of getting. Nonetheless, Roosevelt managed to get all his interventionist policies approved – once he asked for this (which had not been the case between 1933 and 1937). Three days after his declaration of neutrality on September 5, 1939, FDR announced his decision to seek the repeal of the arms embargo in the neutrality acts, which Congress granted him on November 4.36 In fact, Roosevelt was able to get all of his major foreign policy initiatives and proposals passed by Congress in 1940 and 1941.37 What is significant here is that Congress dismantled the neutrality structure before Pearl Harbor: repealing the arms embargo in 1939; passing the first peacetime selective service act in American history in September 1940;38 and passing Lend-­Lease in March 1941.39 Rather than restrict trade with belligerents, the United States made seven billion dollars’ worth of American goods available to Britain and her allies as a “virtual gift.”40 America had made itself, in Roosevelt’s phrase, “the arsenal of democracy.”41 The Atlantic Charter Rather than stay aloof or isolated from the Allies, Roosevelt was very much involved in planning the postwar world before the United States was a party to the conflict.42 It was FDR, in fact, who first suggested the idea of agreeing upon common war aims at the meeting in Placentia Bay on August 9, 1941 between him and Churchill.43 Roosevelt was reportedly “anxious” to tie Churchill to American goals, so as not to fall into the Wilsonian trap of being accused of allying with imperialists and anti-­democrats. Indeed, Roosevelt had cabled Churchill on July 15 to ask, rather brazenly, that Britain “make no secret commitments to any of its Allies” without “the agreement of the United States.” Reynolds writes that Roosevelt had been “disturbed” to receive no reply.44 Furthermore, the United States had wanted British agreement to a Lend-­Lease “consideration” taking the form of British commitments to a liberalized regime

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   159 of international trade, something British Treasury Representative John Maynard Keynes was opposed to. In Assistant Secretary of State Sumner Welles’ draft of common war aims presented to Churchill, Welles also insisted upon Britain conveying dominion status on India. Churchill’s reaction was not enthusiastic.45 The eight point document known as the Atlantic Charter was distinctly American. The second article rejected territorial changes that did not “accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned”; the fourth contained a pledge that both governments would try to promote access by all states “on equal terms” to the world’s trade and raw materials; and there were references to other Rooseveltian ideas such as “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear.” Whereas Churchill argued that the Charter should only apply to Europe, FDR would state, after Pearl Harbor, that it applied to the entire world.46 Like Wilson, then, “Franklin Roosevelt wished to define the terms of an American peace,”47 and he wished to do so before the United States was a formal party to the war. The Four Freedoms as presented by Roosevelt in his State of the Union Address in January 1941 were “to apply everywhere in the world,” expressing what Reynolds dubs “a globalist American ideology.”48 Against “hemispherism” FDR asserted that the age of airborne warfare invited the world to threaten America. These two issues were interconnected: The president argued that “only in a world in which American values reigned supreme could the United States feel secure.” Although authors have criticized FDR for not having a coherent vision of the postwar world, he did exhibit a global perspective on international events that was “distinctively Rooseveltian.”49 Warren Kimball characterizes FDR’s approach to the world as “Americanism” – that “city-­on-a-­hill/an-­example-for-­all-the-­world-to-­follow” perspective that sometimes necessitated force to get its point across. Indeed, Kimball notes, “the Puritans would have been proud.”50

Pearl Harbor and its significance George Kennan – and many others – have argued that the war was a conflict from which the United States had stayed aloof as long as it could, but into which it was ultimately forced by Pearl Harbor.51 Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s diary entry, stating that the attack on Pearl Harbor “ended isolationism for any realist,” is usually taken as evidence that Pearl Harbor was the event that vanquished isolationism.52 After the fall of France in the summer of 1940, however, American involvement quickly went from pro-British neutrality to actual belligerency.53 Although measured, the destroyers-­for-bases deal of September 1940 was a milestone in U.S. policy, Reynolds argues. It signaled a new commitment to Britain as America’s front line, and British resistance and egalitarian sacrifice during the Blitz “confirmed the impression [Roosevelt] wanted to convey of the country’s ideological compatibility with the values of Americanism.”54 Divine argues that this was what marked the end of American neutrality, because from this time forward, “the United States was a nonbelligerent, not yet at war with Germany,

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160   A mission to lead the world but clearly aligned with Britain in the struggle against Hitler.” Congressional anti-­interventionists aside, public opinion polls showed 70 percent support for the destroyers-­for-bases deal.55 The Lend-­Lease Act of March 1941 entailed the lending of munitions to those countries (Great Britain and China) whose survival was deemed to be in the U.S. national interest. During the spring and summer of 1941, Roosevelt extended U.S. naval operations in the Atlantic. On March 15, 1941, as the Battle of the Atlantic intensified, the Atlantic Fleet was ordered to return to port in order to change to camouflage paint and prepare for active duty, writes Bear Braumoeller. On April 20, Roosevelt outlined plans for four task forces to patrol the Atlantic; if U-­boats were found they were to be tracked and their locations broadcast to the British.56 From September 1941, FDR authorized the “shoot-­on-sight” policy, conducting undeclared naval warfare in the Atlantic, and making the United States in effect a cobelligerent.57 The U.S. Navy was helping escort British and Canadian convoys across most of the Atlantic, and in November Roosevelt secured a repeal of the key provisions of the Neutrality Act, including those that banned U.S. vessels from entering British ports. In conclusion, arguments that have pointed solely to Pearl Harbor as the instigator of U.S. intervention in World War II have exaggerated its significance. Placing it in its appropriate historical context shows that it was not the watershed event it was made out to be, as U.S. resolve to fighting the war – should this become necessary – was evident nearly a year and a half before Pearl Harbor.58 Historian Marc Trachtenberg writes that the literature on FDR’s foreign policy up till Pearl Harbor generally divides this policy into three distinct periods: During the first period, up till the fall of France, FDR probably wanted to stay out of the war; the second period saw a military build-­up and support for Britain that belied interventionist intention; and the third phase, beginning in the spring of 1941, was a move toward undeclared war against Germany.59 Since American military actions in the fall of 1941 constituted undeclared warfare, it seems highly likely that the United States would have intervened in World War II at some point, just as it did with World War I. The timing, however, was – like the previous time – up to the belligerents on the hostile side. Events were not merely a reflection of American actions. Hitler’s unwillingness to provoke the United States also kept the United States from a formal – and premature – involvement in the war up until the end of 1941.60

The second post-­war order: hegemony versus multilateralism Henry Luce, in an editorial for Life Magazine in February 1941 urging the United States to enter World War II, predicted that the twentieth century would become known as the “American century.” The United States, apart from the duty to oppose Hitler, needed to take advantage of its “natural right” to order international affairs, Luce wrote. Indeed Americans had to accept “wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the world,” he argued, “and in consequence to exert upon the world the full impact

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   161 of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit.”61 Luce would not be disappointed. During the war, the State Department, under the leadership of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, commenced strategic planning for the postwar order, producing drafts of the organizations the United States was to lead. Indeed, by 1945, Senator Alexander Wiley, a Republican from Wisconsin, suggested that the United Nations was merely another experiment “in a long line of great American experiments.”62 I argue that the second postwar order was indeed an American experiment, but not in the way other authors argue. The second postwar order was a reaffirmation of Lodgian internationalism, not a belated turn-­around to Wilsonianism. In stark contrast to the League of Nations, the United Nations was anchored in America. Rather than mere formalities, the fact that the organization was located in the United States, relied on U.S. financing, and accepted U.S. direction sent a clear message: this was an American-­led international order, not League of Nations 2.0 in Geneva.63 Revealingly, the reservations Lodge had demanded in order to ratify the Treaty of Versailles were in place in 1945.64 Finally, the NATO alliance was the culmination of Lodge’s advocacy for a pro-­western alliance. In brief, the United States sought, and got, to safeguard its exceptional status through the following general mechanisms: a veto over potential actions (through the veto in the Security Council and its share of votes in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank); extensive assurances that the Senate (as opposed to the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, for example) would be able to veto or sanction U.S. actions in these institutions; the opportunity to exempt itself from jurisdiction (both in the case of the ICJ and from the UN Charter in general) or through non-­participation all together (as with the International Trade Organization or human rights treaties such as the Convention to prevent Genocide, which the Senate rejected). This will be more fully explained in the case studies below. The United States constructed exceptionalist conditions for itself in the institutional order, something made possible by its status as hegemon. Due to the war’s heavy toll on the European allies, the United States would go from being one of the great powers to being the greatest power.65 But hegemony is not merely a reflection of a country’s relative material power. It does not entail physical conquest, as with empires, but rather acknowledgement of hegemonic authority.66 Hegemonic leadership can only develop within a social environment with the consent of the broader community. Such a community provides permissive conditions in which hegemony can evolve – as happened during and immediately after World War II.67 More specifically, Ernst Haas defines hegemony as the “national capability to advance long-­range views of world order . . . for the success of institutions charged with that task.”68 This does not mean that the United States endured no limits to its sovereignty, but rather that those specific limitations that were unacceptable to U.S. policymakers in 1919 were removed in 1945.69 Because of its position, the United States was afforded an opportunity to which it had aspired for quite some time:

162   A mission to lead the world to re-­organize international politics (and particularly European politics) according to American principles of leadership, acknowledging American exceptionalism through its principles and American unilateralism through its institutional framework of control and/or exemptions. I will now consider in turn the three parts of the postwar order set up by the United States in cooperation with Great Britain and the Soviet Union.

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The second political postwar order: the United Nations and the International Court of Justice The United Nations was, in a very specific sense, shaped by the influence of American planning and leadership. The primacy of the United States in the postwar planning derived in part from America’s disproportionate military and economic power. It also derived in part from the worldwide prestige of America’s wartime President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, “whose ideological leadership of the drive to win the war and build a just and peaceful world order brought him recognition as the spiritual father of the United Nations.”70 Perhaps most important, however, was the ever-­present threat of a Senate veto. The U.S. position in these negotiations was rather ironic; its failed history with the League gave it more leverage over specific details of the new organization. The American proposals were a mix of national interests and principles of international organizations, aimed in part at preventing internal dissent – in other words, a Senate veto on U.S. membership. This created a situation where the foreign negotiators had to give weight not only to their own national interests, but also to the overarching interest of all parties present: that of ensuring American membership. It was this combination of factors that in Inis Claude’s opinion brought about the adoption of a Charter that was “fundamentally based upon principles advocated by the United States.”71 The threat of a Senate veto, combined with the practical matter that the proposals worked out by the State Department during the war became the working draft of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference – and, by extension, the San Francisco Conference – left a remarkable American stamp on the United Nations Organization.72 Negotiating the United Nations: American preparation, American design The early and detailed U.S. preparation for the eventual conference at Dumbarton Oaks and, later, San Francisco would facilitate a deep U.S. influence over the subsequent international organization. In this process, the United States and its policymakers were careful not to sacrifice real sovereignty, unilateral maneuverability, and American leadership. The Big Three – the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain – met in Washington, DC in August 1944 intent upon not creating another League of Nations. Common lessons learned from the failure of the League were that the powerful nations, namely the United States and the Soviet Union, had to

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   163 participate (which at the San Francisco conference would give these two countries a veto power over the negotiations themselves). Furthermore, the League had taught the Big Three that these same great powers would play the most important role in keeping the peace, thus they had to exercise paramount authority in the new organization, in keeping with FDR’s vision of the Four Policemen. It had to have powerful tools at its disposal, such as sanctions (including military sanctions) in order to prevent future aggression, and it must not become a “debating society” where every conceivable issue would be talked to death. Rather, the new world organization would concentrate on matters directly pertaining to issues of world peace and security.73 Thus, the great powers were looking for a combination of the League and something more powerful – enough like FDR’s Four Policemen to keep the great powers happy and enough like the League of Nations to keep the small nations content. In presenting the principle of the Four Policemen in September 1941, Roosevelt had stated that he did not wish “to reconstitute a League of Nations which, because of its size, makes for disagreement and inaction. There should be a meeting place of nations for the purpose of full discussion, but for management there seems no reason why the principle of trusteeship in private affairs should not be extended to the international field.”74 And indeed, the signing of the Declaration of the United Nations on New Year’s Day 1942 listed the Big Four, out of alphabetical order, at the top of the document.75 The United States started preparing for the postwar order earlier than the other two great powers, beginning, as mentioned previously, before the United States was even a party to the war. In contrast to Wilson’s approach, Roosevelt decided (taking Secretary of State Hull’s suggestion) to keep all formal postwar planning in the State Department. From December 27, 1939 when Hull and Leo Pasvolsky (who would become the chief State Department planner of the postwar organization) created the Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations, designed to deal with all problems posed by the coming of peace, until the U.S. delegation left for San Francisco in the spring of 1945, the State Department went through innumerable committees and drafts on the postwar order.76 The needs of postwar security were naturally being viewed from the perspective of expanding U.S. interests. As Anne O’Hare McCormick of The New York Times had asked at the first meeting of the new Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy in February 1942, was the group’s purpose to examine problems from the “American point of view” to determine “the kind of world we want?” “Exactly,” Assistant Secretary of State Sumner Welles had replied.77 During the summer of 1943, the administration attempted to line up congressional support for American participation in a postwar peacekeeping organization. The administration thus backed a resolution, drafted by the Department of State and sponsored by Democrat J. William Fulbright, “favoring the creation of appropriate international machinery with power adequate to maintain a just and lasting peace” and calling for U.S. participation therein. After cursory debate, the measure passed in the House by an overwhelming vote of 360–29. In the

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164   A mission to lead the world Senate, however, a resolution similar to Fulbright’s, proposed by Senator Tom Connally, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, had to compete with a more elaborate and detailed proposal backed by Democrats and Republicans.78 Roosevelt, ever concerned with public opinion, thought this was too much too fast, but he need not have worried. In early September 1943, the Republican Postwar Advisory Council adopted its “Mackinac Declaration,” which committed the Republican Party to promote “responsible participation by the U.S.” in a postwar “cooperative organization.”79 Thus, the debate could now center on what the shape of the organization would be and not the nature of the American commitment to it. Assistant Secretary of State Edward Stettinius (who had replaced Welles in the summer of 1943) resolved the impasse with Connally, persuading him to accept amendments that slightly strengthened his resolution without making it too detailed. The Senate approved it on November 5 in a vote of 85–5.80 The New York Times proclaimed the next day: “The Senate yesterday undid a twenty-­four year-­old mistake.”81 The resolution, however, was ambiguous, and most importantly of all, it pointed out that any action must obtain concurrence from the Senate. The Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers in October 1943 had concluded that a general peacekeeping organization should be established “at the earliest practicable date,” and FDR received the Informal Political Agenda Group’s initial draft of an organization on December 29, 1943. Hull’s covering memorandum said that this statement of basic ideas was founded on two central assumptions: that the four major powers would consider themselves “morally bound” not to make war on each other or on any other state and would cooperate to maintain the peace; and that each would keep and equip adequate military forces and would be willing to use them to prevent or suppress aggression. Roosevelt gave his approval to the general approach of the proposal and expanded upon his own ideas. Most important, he accepted the plan for a single council consisting of the Big Four and a number of smaller powers, thus modifying the simple Four Policemen concept to which he had seemed wedded – at least rhetorically – in all previous discussions of postwar security.82 FDR also wanted clarification on U.S. military commitments, making sure that the United States would not be called upon to furnish armed forces without its consent (as Congress would not allow that), and also that it was not bound to send troops to Europe (but rather to keep land forces in the Western Hemisphere, although voluntary services such as naval and air forces could be sent to other areas of the world). By the end of April 1944, a “possible Plan for a General International Organization” had been completed by the United States. At this point, the British had only recently begun planning for the postwar world, and the Soviets seemed not to have given much thought to a postwar organization.83 The American plan called for the creation of a universal organization with four principal organs: a General Assembly, an Executive Council, an International Court of Justice, and a General Secretariat. Real power was found only in the council, which was to consist of eight members: the Big Four and an equal number of smaller states

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   165 elected by the General Assembly. Voting on substantive matters was to follow the rule of great power unanimity, with other questions settled by a majority vote. With some important modifications, this plan formed the basis of the draft charter that the State Department eventually presented at Dumbarton Oaks.84 On April 25, Hull began a series of consultative meetings with select senators, who raised a series of questions about the plan.85 The possible contention over supplying troops to a future peacekeeping mission was assuaged by Hull’s assurance that any U.S. commitment would be submitted in advance for Senate approval. More difficult was the question of great power unanimity, over which the senators themselves were divided. Robert Hilderbrand notes that most of them were relieved to discover that the United States would have the power to veto key decisions, but that Senators Guy Gillette (Democrat-­IA) and Warren Austin (Republican-­VT) objected to the granting of too much power to the “less trustworthy members of the Big Four.” Hull responded that the veto was essential to the plan’s acceptance both by the American people and the governments of other nations, and without it there was little chance of an organization materializing at all.86 Senator Vandenberg was worried about the possibility – seen from the vantage point of twenty years earlier – that the early creation of an organization would imply its use to maintain a “bad peace.” Senators Vandenberg and Robert La Follette – worried about the election year – refused to endorse the plan without the reservation that its ultimate acceptability depended upon the justness of the terms of the peace.87 The echoes of 1919 were omnipresent. At the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, DC from August to October 1944, Assistant Secretary Edward Stettinius – who got along famously with British delegation leader Alexander Cadogan, permanent undersecretary for foreign affairs – led the U.S. delegation. Stettinius and Cadogan formed something of an alliance against Soviet Ambassador Andrei Gromyko, who refused to agree to the U.S. draft as the basis of discussion (despite Stettinius’ perhaps transparent attempts at referring to it as a “neutral paper”). Because of the American draft’s detailed nature and advanced state, however, it became the unofficial blueprint at Dumbarton after all.88 Several difficult issues were discussed at Dumbarton, including voting and veto rights in the Security Council (the Soviets insisting on an absolute veto on all issues), disarmament, the creation of regional security organizations, and the requisition of bases for peacekeeping purposes. The U.S. delegates wanted not surprisingly to have it both ways on regional organizations: to make sure they were subordinate to the Security Council in principle, while in reality not allowing the Council to interfere in specific Western Hemisphere affairs. They also wanted to have it both ways on postwar bases and territorial trusteeships. The U.S. delegation was looking to use the authority of the new world organization to permit the U.S. military to take over strategic islands in the Pacific.89 The British found this hypocritical as the United States, in their opinion, was seeking to avoid the taint of imperialism, all the while taking on an imperial role in the Pacific.90

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166   A mission to lead the world The issue of voting and vetoing in the Security Council was also complicated; in fact the U.S. delegation internally disagreed. Hull favored the Soviet position of an absolute veto for the Big Four due to concerns over Senate ratification, whereas Pasvolsky and the British delegation were against it.91 At some point early in the conference, the official U.S. policy changed to eliminating the veto right of a permanent member when that member was involved in any sort of a dispute before the council.92 The Soviets insisted on an absolute veto, but, as Secretary of State Hull wrote in his memoirs, “We were no less resolute than the Russians in aiming to secure a veto on any possible enforcement action.”93 The Big Three part of Dumbarton Oaks ended without agreement on the veto issue (along with certain other issues).94 The Dumbarton Oaks plan was released as scheduled on October 9, 1944 with an accompanying communiqué that revealed little of the tension among the delegates. It said only that the attached plan indicated a framework of basic agreement among the Big Four to be followed by more complete proposals to serve as a basis of discussion at a full United Nations conference.95 The remaining issues were supposed to be settled at the Big Three summit at Yalta in February 1945. The fiercest battle waged was over the veto and the so-­ called “x-­matter” (the name Stettinius gave to Gromyko’s idea that sixteen Soviet republics be admitted as individual members to the United Nations). They finally decided that the permanent members of the Security Council could not veto the discussion of a dispute to which they were a party, or veto recommendations of peaceful settlement to such a dispute. No actual enforcement could be undertaken without the concurrence of all permanent members, however. It was also decided that White Russia (Belarus) and the Ukraine would be admitted as individual members.96 San Francisco In the spring of 1945 – the last weeks of FDR’s life – the president was quite focused on the San Francisco conference. In fact, Roosevelt had U.S. Intelligence spy on the diplomatic correspondence of other nations about their plans for San Francisco.97 Stephen Schlesinger argues that the United States knew in advance the negotiating positions of almost all of the fifty or so countries going to San Francisco. On key issues – whom to admit to the new world organization; decolonization; the Security Council veto; the role of smaller countries; and even Soviet views – the United States had crucial intelligence beforehand. According to Schlesinger, the United States used its surveillance reports to set the agenda of the conference, to control the debate, to pressure nations to agree to its positions, and to write the United Nations Charter mostly to its own blueprint.98 Although the U.S. draft of the world organization underwent considerable changes at Dumbarton and San Francisco, “the substance of the provisions finally written into the Charter in many cases reflected the conclusions reached at much earlier stages by the United States Government.”99 That Senate ratification, rather than general public appeal, was the main concern of the U.S. delegation in San Francisco is supported by the fact that

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   167 there were several instances where positions worked out by the State Department (and agreed upon at Dumbarton) were changed by the U.S. delegation to San Francisco with the specific aim of facilitating Senate ratification of the treaty.100 In fact, writing to his wife after Senate confirmation of the United Nations Charter in July 1945, Senator Vandenberg noted that, “the things we did at Frisco to remove potential Senate opposition have paid rich dividends.”101 The ICJ provides an instructive example. Whereas the State Department originally had agreed to give the ICJ “compulsory jurisdiction” over questions that might otherwise be considered “domestic,” the experienced congressional members on the U.S. delegation quickly squashed this. The Senate had already rejected the World Court in the 1930s; it would not hesitate to do so again. In fact, however, although the State Department originally had drafted a version of an “updated” League World Court (which was adopted by the Committee of Jurists meeting before San Francisco as their working paper), the U.S. delegation objected to keeping the League’s Court at all. It was thought that establishing a new Court would facilitate Senate acceptance, which is also what happened – testifying to the power of the silent threat of a Senate veto.102 Despite the numerous committees at the conference, mimicking Dumbarton Oaks, the real center of gravity at San Francisco was Stettinius’s penthouse suite at the Fairmont Hotel. Here the heads of the Big Four delegations met each evening to discuss what changes they would permit in the blueprint agreed upon at Dumbarton Oaks.103 The main balancing act for the U.S. delegation at San Francisco was trying to satisfy calls for “internationalism as well as for nationalism.”104 In general, Washington sided with Moscow more than with the smaller member states during the negotiations. The most serious as well as the most dramatic controversy at San Francisco occurred over the Yalta voting provisions giving the permanent members a veto. In the end, in order to get it through the conference, the great powers had to state quite frankly that unless the Yalta formula – as interpreted by them – was accepted, there would be no world organization. This was accompanied by a less open controversy among the (now) Big Five over the interpretation of the Yalta voting compromise.105 This was resolved only by the other powers refusing to accept the Soviet position (which sought to make the veto absolute, applicable even to the initial discussion of a case by the Security Council).106 Senator Vandenberg opposed having a veto on pacific-­ settlement issues, but, as he wrote in his diary: The irony of the situation is that the greater the extent of the ‘veto,’ the more impossible it becomes for the new League to involve America in anything against our own will. Therefore, the greater the ‘veto’ the easier it becomes to fight off critics in Congress, in the country, and in the press when the new Treaty faces its ratification battle. (Every cloud has a silver lining.)107 The San Francisco conference ended in late June 1945, two months after it started. Virtually all decisions had gone in favor of the position of the U.S. delegation: a Security Council controlled by the five allies, a weaker General Assembly, a

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168   A mission to lead the world malleable Secretariat and military commission (soon immobilized by the Cold War). To the regret of many states present, the majority voted to establish a new court with a new name (International Court of Justice), and it was voted that the Court should have optional, as opposed to compulsory, jurisdiction over international disputes. On regional organizations, the U.S. delegation (or rather, the congressional and military members of the delegation) had succeeded in safeguarding the inter-­ American system and the Monroe Doctrine.108 Pasvolsky pointed out the difficulty with granting autonomy to regional blocs (how could the United States protect its bloc interests in the Western Hemisphere without granting the Soviets the same role in Europe?), but to no avail. Finally, the Anglo-­American proposal at San Francisco whereby nations in concert would have the right to take collective defensive actions without having to get prior approval by the Security Council had a rather successful fate: it was written into the UN Charter as Article 51.109 Indeed, even the preamble started with these familiar words, “We, the people,” a suggestion by U.S. delegate Virginia Gildersleeve. Charging Gildersleeve with cultural insensitivity, Ruth Russell has written that the proposal was laced with “political interest, combined with an unawareness of the connotations in other languages.”110 The Netherlands, for example, objected that it presented a legal difficulty, since the Crown – not the Dutch people – concluded treaties. The compromise was to start the Preamble with “We, the peoples of the United Nations” but end it with a reference to their representatives assembled at San Francisco. The name United Nations, favored by the U.S. delegation, also came under attack at the conference, being perceived as too closely associated with the wartime alliance. As deliberations went against the U.S. position, Gildersleeve voiced an emotional appeal to keep the name Roosevelt had favored, a move that succeeded. The name became a tribute to FDR.111 In the security realm, neither the United States nor the Soviet Union had any intention of subjecting national policy, especially in the event of some future dispute, to the collective control of either small countries or of other major powers.112 In essence, “armed with the veto, the Americans never relinquished real authority.”113 The Security Council membership and veto ensured full control over the organization and its possible security actions. Indeed, the absence of a veto in the Security Council would probably have prevented Senate approval of the charter. As John Morton Blum notes, the Republicans had consistently “demanded the retention of national sovereignty, an objective to which many Democrats also subscribed, as did most of the American people.”114 Thomas Campbell has argued that it was because of pressure from U.S. military spokesmen that the end result of San Francisco entailed a stronger emphasis on national sovereignty, rather than because of concerns about Senate approval. Campbell argues that this is evident in the veto, the opening for large nations to take security measures through regional organizations without having to obtain prior Security Council approval, and a significant dilution of the trusteeship system. It seems likely, however, that the strong voice and involvement of the congressional members on the U.S. delegation successfully safeguarded any national sovereignty on the part of the United States, as opposed to a solely military influence.115

Hegemony vs. multilateralism   169

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Lodgian internationalism The late Senator Lodge’s overall objective with his reservations twenty-­five years earlier had been to make the League “safe” for the United States to join and – quite possibly and more prosaically – to prevent his political arch-­ nemesis’s greatest political victory.116 The Roosevelt administration took several pages from the Lodgian playbook when constructing the UN. As John Foster Dulles expressed in hearings to the Foreign Relations Committee, “the document before you charts a path which we can pursue joyfully and without fear. Under it, we remain the masters of our own destiny.”117 Several issues that had featured prominently in Senator Lodge’s reservations more than twenty years earlier were taken care of in the Charter: the right of withdrawal; the jurisdiction of the organization; the Monroe Doctrine; and of course, the issue of collective security as stated in the League Covenant’s Article 10. Each will be considered in turn. The right of withdrawal Lodge’s first reservation had related to Article 1, paragraph 3 of the Covenant, which provided for withdrawal after two years’ notice and after fulfillment of certain obligations. Lodge’s reservation would have excluded any jurisdiction by the League and established the United States as the sole judge of whether its obligations to the League had been fulfilled.118 The UN Charter, on the other hand, contained no regulations with respect to withdrawal. The right to withdraw was explained to be absolute at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings in 1945, with the only possible effect being “adverse public opinion” in Senator Vandenberg’s perspective. The right to withdraw was thus fully in line with Lodge’s first reservation, and in fact went beyond it. First, the Charter did not make withdrawal contingent upon fulfillment of a member’s obligations, and second, there was no time interval stated.119 Jurisdiction over domestic matters The fourth reservation of Senator Lodge referred to Article 15, paragraph 8 of the League Covenant. Its purpose was to reserve to the United States “exclusively, the right to decide what questions are within its domestic jurisdiction.” In contrast, Article 2, paragraph 7 of the UN Charter contained a sweeping reservation, embracing the whole field of action by the UN, ensuring that it would be up to each member state whether to submit a case for consideration or arbitration by the UN.120 Whereas the Covenant attempted to strike a balance between state sovereignty and collective security, the UN Charter’s Article 2, paragraph 7 safeguarded the discretionary elements of sovereignty at the expense of collective security. Here, “the Charter may be said to be fully in line with the principle of Senator Lodge’s fourth Reservation.”121

170   A mission to lead the world

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The Monroe Doctrine The fifth Lodge reservation had related to Article 21 of the Covenant of the League, which was intended to safeguard the validity of regional understandings such as the Monroe Doctrine. Although this article had been inserted at the request of Woodrow Wilson, Lodge construed it to mean that Wilson had submitted the Monroe Doctrine to the jurisdiction of the League, and his reservation was intended to remove this danger.122 In 1945, however, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee declared that “both the Monroe Doctrine and the inter-­ American system are effectively safeguarded under the Charter” and indeed that “the basic purposes of both will be strengthened by the establishment of the organization.”123 No explicit reference to the Monroe Doctrine had been included in the Charter, but both Connally and Dulles said at the hearings that the Monroe Doctrine survived the Charter intact. As with so many other issues, however, the Security Council veto would ultimately enable complete U.S. control of the interpretation and execution of the Monroe Doctrine.124 The legacy of Article 10 Lodge’s second, and most controversial, reservation pertained to the Covenant’s Article 10, the “cornerstone” of the League.125 Article 10 entailed the negative duty to respect, and the positive duty to protect, the territorial integrity and the political independence of member states. Senator Lodge raised no objection to the first part, but the second part was immediately controversial in Congress, with some seeing it as an automatic duty to assist victims of aggression, others seeing it as defense of the territorial status quo.126 The UN Charter in fact contained no single provision comparable to the Covenant’s Article 10. Article 10’s first negative duty was implicit in the Charter’s Article 2, but efforts aimed at including a specific statement on the respect for member’s territorial integrity and political independence failed at the San Francisco conference.127 Ratification: “another great American experiment” President Harry Truman personally delivered the Charter to the presiding officer of the Senate on July 2, 1945 hoping for ratification before he went to the Potsdam Conference in mid-­July. He made the following clear to the Senate, with an eye to its ratification history: “The choice before the Senate is now clear. The choice is not between this Charter and something else. It is between this Charter and no Charter at all.”128 The Committee on Foreign Relations began hearings on July 9. Former Secretary of State Stettinius (he resigned on June 27) opened the hearings by submitting his lengthy official report, and Republican adviser John Foster Dulles closed the hearings, emphasizing the bipartisan character of support for the United Nations. All witnesses stressed the need to ratify without reservations.129

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   171 The most significant aspect of the report from the Committee on Foreign Relations was the assurance on the freedom of action left to the United States under the Charter.130 Whereas in 1919 the Senate Committee had recommended ratification of the Covenant of the League of Nations after recommending a long series of amendments and reservations, this time, by a vote of 21–1, the Committee recommended unqualified ratification.131 After a week of debate, the Senate voted on July 28 to ratify the Charter 89–2. It seems fair to conclude that the fact that so much in the way of specific commitments was left to the future (as with the military agreements), or surrounded by the safeguard of reservations (such as in the cases of domestic and compulsory jurisdiction), or dependent on specific United States concurrence (as with the veto in the Security Council) contributed to obtaining strong Senate support. As stated by Dulles before the Foreign Relations Committee, the Charter “engages our Nation to honorable cooperation for peace and justice and, at the same time, protects those precious American traditions of which the Senate is our principal custodian.” Dulles thus correctly indicated the reasons for why the Senate approved the Charter without reservations and almost without dissent.132 “At its inception, American leaders viewed the institution both as the custodian for maintaining a favorable postwar order and as an important tool for exercising U.S. leadership,” Bruce Cronin argues.133 State Department planners viewed the organization to be the heart of its program to institutionalize American leadership and political values in the new post-­war order. In short, the United States expected its political creation, the United Nations, to “express, embody, and extend the American dream, not to challenge or modify it.”134 A short honeymoon In the beginning, the General Assembly was promoted as a kind of “global town hall meeting” in the great New England tradition.135 The United States served as a champion of the Assembly from the 1940s through the 1950s, until the pro-­ western majority disappeared in the Assembly in the 1960s. With decolonization, the membership of the global town hall expanded and its diversity increased, resulting in increased relative power to the Third World members. Unfortunately for the United States, “the rest of the [UN] membership was not buying the twin assumptions that U.S. political and economic models have universal validity and that it was the job of the international organization to help codify and disseminate them.”136 Such a challenge to the perceived universality of the American political system was a disappointment to the United States and contributed to its gradual distancing from the Assembly, leading it to turn to the Security Council as its primary place of business.137 In some areas, the disenchantment and distancing was swift. As early as 1947–1948, the United Nations was perceived as growing more independent from the United States, something that made the Republican-­controlled Congress nervous. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was by some senators seen

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172   A mission to lead the world as a threat to domestic issues such as race relations, and in 1948 the American Bar Association in fact condemned it.138 The case of the ICJ is illustrative of the careful guarding of U.S. sovereignty. The Senate report had taken pains to explain that neither the Security Council nor the Assembly could force states to bring cases before the Court. Senator Vandenberg explained on the floor of the Senate that if the President decided to file the acceptance of the “optional clause” of ICJ jurisdiction over U.S. issues he would submit the proposal to the Senate for “advice and consent.”139 When the United States did file for the “optional clause” in August 1946, it did so based on exceptions that Senator Wayne Morse (R-­OR) had submitted during the Senate debate, explicitly stating that issues that fell within U.S. jurisdiction be exempted, as well as an exception stating that no dispute under any inter-­ American treaty to which the United States was a party could be brought before the Court without its consent.140 The filing was furthermore accompanied by a strong reservation offered by Senator Connally, excepting “matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States of America as determined by the United States” itself. These reservations clearly reflected how the United States hedged on multilateralism – they were unilateralist positions couched in “traditional American universalist ideology.”141 Indeed, when the ICJ ruled in 1984 that the U.S. intervention against Nicaragua was in violation of international law, the United States argued that the ICJ lacked jurisdiction to hear the case (a claim that the ICJ rejected). The United States subsequently withdrew from the Court. U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, dismissed the Court as a “semi-­legal, semi-­juridical, semi-­political body, which nations sometimes accept and sometimes don’t.”142 In conclusion, the United States became a member of the United Nations because it was a “non-­coercive” organization.143 The League was a “coercive” type of international security organization because Articles 10 and 16 were intended to impose upon its members the obligation to employ force in certain cases. Senator Lodge’s reservations would have transformed the League into a “non-­coercive” or “intermediate” type of organization. A “non-­coercive” organization would entail no such obligations and an “intermediate” type of organization would entail the obligation to consult, with the possible result of sanctions.144 The UN in general conforms to an intermediate type organization, but with one important exception: that of its permanent members. The consultation required by the Charter and the principle of unanimity in the Security Council precludes any action taken against a permanent member, such as the United States.

The second economic postwar order The story of economic multilateralism is usually assumed, rather than explicated: the United States set up rules and institutions explicitly limiting national sovereignty in economic issue areas – how could it not be a prime example of the multilateral turn-­around? As usual, this misses the extent to which the United

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   173 States, as the originator of these rules and institutions, set the parameters of cooperation and non-­cooperation. The conventional puzzle is usually presented in the following manner: why, if the United States shunned away from organizing the international political economy in the 1930s, would the United States do so after World War II?145 Was it not a remarkable turn-­around that what FDR had rejected in 1933 – a tripartite agreement with France and Great Britain to stabilize currency values – was now being pursued after the war?146 But the puzzle’s premise is somewhat biased: The United States certainly attempted to organize the international political economy in the 1920s, but not in the early 1930s. Indeed, as early as 1936 Cordell Hull and Henry Morgenthau had begun steering U.S. economic policy toward “cooperation on currency exchange rates and nondiscriminatory trade patterns.” But let us for the sake of argument accept the puzzle’s premise. G. John Ikenberry provides us with a plausible answer: “As the world’s dominant state, the United States championed GATT and the Bretton Woods institutions as a way of locking other countries into an open world economy that would ensure massive economic gains for itself.”147 There was never any doubt, in Washington or abroad, that the Bretton Woods system was designed to serve the long-­term interests of the United States. In general, the foreign leaders accepted the theory that what was good for America would be good for the world: “that the world would benefit from the responsible and generous position to which the United States had committed itself,” which is, of course, how hegemony works.148 The economic postwar order was a fortuitous combination of the U.S. national interest coinciding with the general interest of the world, as American (and indeed foreign) policymakers saw it. For instance, while Secretary Hull’s quest for a British pledge to abandon restrictive trade practices would open the British Empire to American exports, it would also end artificial impediments to peaceful commercial competition (which Hull believed would supplant aggressive competition between nations).149 A later example of this would be the Marshall Plan, which simultaneously ensured the viability of American exports in European markets while benefitting its recipients.150 The most interesting aspect of the U.S. postwar economic planning process, however, was the ascent of the new hegemon – the changing of the guard between imperial Britain and the self-­proclaimed anti-­imperial United States. The story of economic post-­war multilateralism is also the story of the United States subtly and sometimes not so subtly wresting away the City of London’s status as custodian of the world economy.151 Changing of the (imperial) guard The preliminary discussions on the International Monetary Fund (IMF ) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank) between the United States and Great Britain were dominated by the Americans, and of course much resented by the British. That the United States would

174   A mission to lead the world dominate the ensuing process of accommodation was only natural, as the United States would emerge from the war with huge accumulations of gold and credits, as well as with unscathed industrial facilities.152 Dean Acheson, then assistant secretary of state, thought that,

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. . . [T]here is a rather pathetic feeling on the part of the British that we really are going to write the ticket, and all they want is a chance to go over it with us, pointing out their views, and to be allowed to come in on the formulation from the start.153 In other words, they wanted at least the appearance of being treated as equals, which in the end was all they got. At the Atlantic Conference in August 1941, the Americans insisted on a broad postwar commitment from the British to grant the United States commercial access to the Empire, regardless of the imperial preference system.154 This was a continuation of the Lend-­Lease Agreement, which stated in its Article VII that, if Britain ended its imperial preference system, it would not have to repay its Lend-­Lease goods. Upon being presented with Article VII, Keynes had lambasted it as “the lunatic proposals of Mr. Hull.”155 Ironically, while negotiating with Britain in an effort to get the old hegemon to relinquish its imperial preference system, the new hegemon was negotiating “the equivalent of imperial preference arrangements with the Philippines and Cuba.”156 This is not to say that the economic postwar order was a pernicious plan on the part of the Americans, but rather to note the reality of relative power. The American negotiators, in short, led by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau and Secretary of State Hull, were seeking American leadership in the IMF and the World Bank, a smaller British share in world trade, and New York to be the new capital city of world finance.157 The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank On the whole the new hegemon’s plans prevailed: The charter for the IMF enlarged the role of the dollar among currencies, which was the intention of the United States Treasury and Congress. In fact, in joining the IMF, members would not give up sovereignty to the Fund but rather to the United States, “for this country would have a veto over exchange-­rate variations and access to international reserves.”158 American proposals, resources, and influence dominated the World Bank as well. The World Bank design appeared to subordinate Anglo­American arrangements to multilateral co-­operation in postwar economic affairs, but the “internationalism associated with the multilateral emphasis was superficial,” John Morton Blum writes.159 Morgenthau was the president of the Bretton Woods Conference, held in July 1944 at a mountain resort in New Hampshire. The recommendations serving as the basis for the conference had been worked out by the U.S. Treasury weeks earlier.160 The conference structure, while “nominally democratic,” ensured that

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   175 no plan for currency stabilization and reconstruction assistance would work without support from the U.S. delegation.161 As with the negotiations at San Francisco a year later, the U.S. delegation at Bretton Woods kept a keen eye on the future Senate ratification process. When Keynes, in an effort to “secure at least a semblance of parity for Britain in the postwar economic structure,” argued that at least one of the two institutions should have its headquarters in London, the American delegation refused to yield because it “seemed likely to spark a controversy in Congress.”162 Indeed, Congress would eventually defeat the idea agreed upon at Bretton Woods for a comparable international institution for trade (the later proposed International Trade Organization (ITO)) – “the cornerstone” of Truman’s global commercial multilateralism. The ITO Charter, repeatedly submitted to Congress, was never approved.163 Conservative economic nationalists, such as Senator Robert Taft (R-­OH), Senator Eugene Millikin (R-­CO), and Speaker of the House Joseph Martin (R-­MA), argued against it based on the fear that the ITO would have jurisdiction over domestic economic issues. The U.S. private sector, on the other hand, argued against it because the final agreement negotiated at Havana had allowed for the possibility of discriminating against U.S. goods and investment.164 In the end, which came on December 6, 1950, President Truman announced that he would no longer seek Congressional approval of the ITO Charter. The ITO was replaced by GATT (which had been negotiated as a temporary means of liberalizing trade while the ITO was being developed), which meant that a “bilateral–multilateral” approach, as opposed to a straightforward multilateral approach, would be the solution to postwar economic cooperation. The fact that GATT was an informal arrangement among contracting parties, as opposed to a supranational organization, made it more palatable to Congress.165 While on the surface the Bretton Woods institutions remained independent from their members, the manner in which the IMF and the World Bank were to be financed by those members made them highly susceptible to U.S. influence, because of its relative wealth. The United States had just over a third of the voting power in each institution in 1945, giving it not the power of a majority, but rather that of a veto-­proof share of votes.166 Although the funding structure of the World Bank is different from the Fund, the same principle applies: The U.S. contributions provide it with a veto-­secure share of votes.167 This is not to say that the IMF and the World Bank were or are “controlled” by the United States. Because of the manner in which their financial structure was set up at Bretton Woods, U.S. influence over these institutions was and is indirect. In essence, the important share of votes held by the United States since the beginning has allowed for significant behind-­the-scenes influence. Not only through the financial structure, but also in the way the institutions are staffed and managed, U.S. influence has been keenly felt. Senior managers in both institutions would almost never present a proposal to the board that risked U.S. disapproval, argues Ngaire Woods. In fact, these managers would never have been appointed in the first place had the United States disapproved.168

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176   A mission to lead the world But this is not simply an argument about material self-­interest advanced through the benefits of power asymmetries in institutional structures.169 No one would argue that it is surprising that the most powerful country attempts to secure benefits for itself. The way in which the United States built its new “constitutional order” (as Ikenberry calls it) reflected its belief in American exceptionalism, but again, not in the way Ikenberry or Ruggie would argue. From the Open Door to the Bretton Woods regime, the United States pushed for its own style of capitalism to be adopted by other countries, not due to sinister motives but rather because it desired “to replicate its own understanding of macroeconomic theory and its normative preferences with regard to the international economy,” thinking it was offering the world the best economic system. That U.S. dominance has served to shift the agendas of international financial and development institutions towards economic neo-­liberalism should come as no surprise.170 The economic international engagement of the United States after World War II was then, because of its economic superiority and the rules it created, destined to be rather beneficial to it. As the twentieth century progressed, the economic superiority of the United States would gradually decrease relative to its competitors. Not surprisingly, when the American economy was experiencing great difficulty during the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon unilaterally and without consultation with the other members of the international monetary system canceled the Bretton Woods system in 1971 and stopped the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold, making this act known as the “Nixon shock.” The “economic Pax Americana” that Bretton Woods had initiated seemed to be over, and it was – as ever – the prerogative of the United States to decide that it be so.171

The second security postwar order NATO was perhaps the most significant multilateral commitment that the United States undertook after World War II, because of its security aspect. With NATO, there was now a sense of “all for one and one for all.”172 Allies such as France had finally gotten that which the United States was unable – or unwilling – to provide in the interwar period. This is indisputable. As with the UN Charter, however, the signing of the Treaty did not entail an automatic, multilateral commitment by the United States to the other members, despite the fact that the cold war had now most certainly commenced. Because the dynamics relating to the early cold war era is beyond the scope of this book, only a little will be said about it here. NATO derived from European initiatives early in 1948.173 In March of that year, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg entered into the Brussels Pact, aimed at protecting themselves from the Soviets, and, if necessary, from Germany. Several dramatic events convinced the United States to accept British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin’s invitation to talks for a North Atlantic Treaty (NAT), including the coup d’état in Czechoslovakia; the Soviet

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   177 proposal to Finland for a defense agreement between the two countries; General Lucius Clay’s warnings about Soviet intentions in Germany; and a rumor that the Soviets had proposed a defense pact with Norway.174 Although some scholars call this peacetime military alliance with European states “unprecedented” (and not very appealing to American leaders), it is clear, first, that Henry Cabot Lodge and other prominent Republicans at the time of World War I and been very much in favor of it, and, second, that the United States secured for itself exactly the kind of freedom of action it had in the UN.175 Although NATO was a European idea, the United States secured provisions that would reshape the organization more to its liking – for example, it insisted on membership for Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Italy, and Portugal in order to dilute the influence of the original signatories. Furthermore, the final language of Article 5 of the treaty was a compromise worked out by Senator Vandenberg and Senator Connally that attempted both to provide a security guarantee and to reserve the right of the United States – and the Senate – to determine its specific meaning. The Article stated that an “armed attack against one or more of them . . . shall be considered an attack against them all,” and that each party would then take such action “as it seems necessary, including the use of force.”176 The European countries naturally wanted to make the American security commitment to Europe as automatic as possible. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, newly appointed in January 1949, stepped into the middle of the negotiation process, mediating between the Western Europeans on the one hand and Congress on the other. Acheson stated that of course he would not allow the Europeans to “declare war on behalf of the United States.”177 British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Oliver Franks, accused Senator Connally in the spring of 1949 of being the reincarnation of Senator Borah in 1919 due to Connally’s remarks lamenting the United States serving as Europe’s Sir Galahad, always plunging into war without knowing for what purpose.178 In addition to modifying the language of Article 5, Vandenberg, Connally, and other Senate Foreign Relations Committee members urged that a provision be added that provided that the treaty be carried out by the parties “in accordance with their respective constitutional processes,” which became Article 11.179 “Often forgotten in later years,” writes Richard K. Betts, “Article 11 is a reminder that the United States did not bind itself irrevocably.”180 Most American officials did not perceive the North Atlantic Pact in 1949 as an automatic or permanent security guarantee. During the Senate hearing, Senator Vandenberg spoke for almost two hours on the treaty, explicitly stating that Article 5 was not an automatic commitment to war, but “if that it does mean war, only Congress itself, under the specific terms of the Pact, can declare it.”181 Secure in the knowledge that the Senate’s power to declare war had not been altered and that the United States had no automatic obligation to go to war for its allies, the senators ratified the treaty 82–13 after sixteen days of hearings. The purpose of NATO was to some extent to provide an alternative to the UN, as the cold war had rendered the organization unable to fulfill its main functions of preserving peace and organizing defensive measures should aggression

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178   A mission to lead the world occur.182 It was also meant to support European steps to build stronger economic, political, and security ties within Europe itself. In this sense, Ikenberry argues, the NATO agreement was a continuation of the Marshall Plan strategy – extending assistance to Europe in order to enhance Europe’s chances of reviving and integrating itself. Many expected a united Europe to mean a lessening of the importance of NATO.183 The negotiations over the treaty did not signal an intention to create a large transatlantic NATO bureaucracy or an integrated military establishment, but it did entail military aid from the United States to Europe.184 It was the Korean War and the development of the Soviet nuclear bomb that pushed NATO several steps forward.185 The United States would then of course insist upon a dominant voice within the alliance, as symbolized by the practice of reserving the post of Supreme Commander of NATO for an American general.186 In Richard Betts’ words, “the allies’ junior status was codified in the tradition of making SACEUR’s deputy a European officer.”187 There is no doubt, however, that with NATO the security of Europe and America became bound together. This entailed substantial consultative and decision-­making obligations to each other. According to Ikenberry, this “indivisibility is what has given the Western-­centered international order a deep multilateral character. This is multilateralism as Ruggie has described it – as an organizational form.” Ikenberry goes on to explain, however, that American membership of NATO was “worth the price” – it ensured that Germany and the rest of Western Europe would be integrated into a wider, American centered, international order. At the same time, “the actual restraints on U.S. policy were minimal.”188 Or, as Geir Lundestad writes about the transatlantic alliance, “The Americans were all for European integration, but American sovereignty could not be limited. . . . Atlantic integration could never be an alternative to European integration.” Whereas the European “invitations” did not force the Americans to do anything they did not really want to do, they did influence timing of America’s actions toward Western Europe.189 Nevertheless, “those parts of NATO that were to be binding even on the US had to reflect rather exclusively American ideas.”190 There seems to be little difference here between the Republican ideas behind a Western alliance in 1919 and this Western alliance of 1949. In this sense, the “turn-­around” in the U.S. security commitment was not on the ideational or identity level. This time around, the alliance was kept separate from the international organization (in 1919, Woodrow Wilson made the U.S. commitment in the proposed Anglo-­American Treaty of Guarantee to France depend upon action in the League Council, making them inextricably linked).191 Furthermore, this change in outcome was influenced by the developing U.S. threat perception throughout 1948. The fact that NATO materialized was indeed a hugely significant change in outcome, but the willingness to commit to such an alliance was also present in 1919, especially among Republican senators, making the difference on the U.S. domestic ideational level between the two cases much smaller than often portrayed. From the perspective of the European allies, of course, it made all the difference in the world.

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   179 The order the United States set up after World War II was hierarchical, not horizontal. It was rooted in a strong belief in American exceptionalism, in that it was not based on “equality” between the United States and other nations, or on the “rule of law” if by “rule of law” we mean equal rules for everyone. Rather, the law allowed extra privileges for one actor, meaning the rule of law upheld U.S. hegemony. This is not, then, an international reincarnation of a liberal democracy; rather, it was the internationalization of American exceptionalism. Indeed, the American liberal and law-­based political identity did not inspire it to establish legal–institutional frameworks along the lines of equality and respect in East Asia (as Ikenberry and Ruggie argue it did in Europe).192 It was the triumph of Lodge, not of Wilson.

Conclusion: change versus continuity Anticipating the controversial draft of the 1992 Defense Department Planning Guidance authored by then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz,193 George Kennan wrote to the Secretary of State and Undersecretary of State in 1948: [w]e have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. . . . Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.194 Because the United States was indispensable in bringing about victory in World War II, it could extract postwar concessions while still calling the shots. This is nothing new to realists, and that is where the realist story would end. In Cohen’s words, “the United States perceived itself – and was perceived by much of the world – as the great liberator. Its leaders were prepared to be generous, but they expected deference, acceptance of American principles for the reorganization of the world.”195 This is not an argument for an American conspiracy to dominate the world, however – even though that was, for a brief moment, the result.196 Using hegemony as an explanation in itself is insufficient, as Ruggie points out.197 My argument is that American hegemony – as opposed to American hegemony – was significant because it allowed for the United States to create an order compatible with its historical sense of exceptionalism and its foreign policy tradition of unilateralism. This is different from Ruggie and Ikenberry, who connect a fundamental commitment to multilateralism with the United States’ multi-­ethnic composition and liberal creed.198 As I have tried to show, the analysis of the two world war case studies is complicated by conceptual confusion, partly because authors use internationalism and multilateralism interchangeably, partly because “multilateral” is often poorly defined. For example, the point is not, as Jeffrey Legro has argued, that there was a conversion from unilateralism to internationalism during World War

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180   A mission to lead the world II, as these are not contradictory categories of foreign policy behavior. Indeed, the term “internationalism” is, at best, confusing in this story because the United States was always internationalist. Ruggie makes the same error when he argues that the United States only became internationalist by combining it with exceptionalist values.199 Reworking slightly Ruggie’s logic, this chapter has argued that the United States would only create a nominally multilateral world order if exceptionalist institutional structures were in place to safeguard U.S. “freedom of action.”200 The turn-­around thesis thus boils down to this: In 1919 the United States spurned international organizations, whereas in 1945 it joined them. While obviously true, this simplifies the story to a degree where it distorts it, because 1945 was significantly different from 1919.201 Wilson failed to convince a critical mass of his fellow politicians that he in fact had obtained sufficient freedom of action for his country. By contrast, Roosevelt and Truman succeeded in doing just that. The UN Charter incorporated several of Lodge’s reservations from 1919 and 1920, notably omitting any commitments to safeguarding others’ political independence and territorial integrity such as those in the League Covenant’s contentious Article 10; making the jurisdiction of the ICJ optional; and requiring decision-­making not by unanimity but by great power veto. Roosevelt won where Wilson lost because not only did Roosevelt have the benefit of hindsight and could learn from Wilson’s political (and tactical) mistakes, as is often remarked upon, but also because he adhered to Lodgian unilateral internationalism when designing the United Nations. In other words, the UN was acceptable to American politicians and voters because it acceded much to the unilateralists of the 1920s, and, most importantly, because it allowed for independent American leadership.202 We should thus move away from the black-­and-white depiction of the United States as “unilateral” before World War II and “multilateral” after it. Ikenberry argues that the United States would concede postwar restraints on sovereignty because it “operates” in a “loose” multilateral order. Herein lies the fundamental challenge I pose to scholars who argue for a multilateral turn-­ around in 1945. The United States created a nominally multilateral order with itself as hegemon in 1945. This order consisted of a plethora of institutions and rules – this is indisputable. What is also indisputable is that this order was not meant to restrict the United States to any significant degree – it was hegemonic, hierarchical, and “loose” as Ikenberry point out. States did not coordinate their policies on the basis of equality, but rather on the basis of the benefits the United States provided. Allied states sanctioned special prerogatives for the United States within the postwar institutional matrix in return for a stable, hegemonic system. In some cases, the very design of international institutions specified and legitimated special American rights and exceptional privileges.203 In other cases, the United States simply bypassed normal institutional channels or intentionally weakened the authority of various international institutions to avoid challenges to American freedom of action.204 Thus, although there clearly were large-­scale changes in international organization and U.S. commitments to its allies during the 1940s, there was no need

Hegemony vs. multilateralism   181 for a wholesale transformation of the fundamental U.S. foreign policy tradition of unilateral internationalism, as the emerging institutional order accorded with an American design and limited U.S. sovereignty only to a pre-­determined and acceptable degree. When this international order overstepped the boundaries set up by its creator, the United States would distance itself from it, as seen during the cold war and beyond.

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Notes   1 Woodrow Wilson’s close friend and biographer, writing of his own young adulthood in Chicago in the 1890s. Roy S. Baker, American Chronicle (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1945), p. 83. Quoted in Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World: America’s Vision for Human Rights (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2005), p. 151.   2 See, for example, John G. Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue: Interests, Identity, and American Foreign Policy” International Security, 21(4), 1997, p. 98.   3 John Chalberg ed., Isolationism: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego, Calif: Greenhaven Press, 1995), pp.  136–7; John Milton Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 426.   4 David Skidmore, “Understanding the Unilateralist Turn in US Foreign Policy” Foreign Policy Analysis, 1, 2005, p. 209.   5 By “nationalist” policies, I mean economic legislation designed to insulate American consumers and producers from the international effects of the Great Depression, exemplified by high tariffs such as those enacted with the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. As noted by Robert M. Hathaway, Roosevelt had spoken very little of foreign affairs during the 1932 election, and his First Inaugural Address betrayed the same focus on domestic issues. See “1933–1945: Economic Diplomacy in a Time of Crisis,” in William H. Becker and Samuel F. Wells, Jr. eds. Economics and World Power: An Assessment of American Diplomacy since 1789 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), p. 279.   6 For one critical and one positive assessment of Roosevelt’s handling of foreign policy both before and during World War II, see Justus D. Doenecke and Mark Stoler’s respective essays in their edited volume, Debating Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Foreign Policies, 1933–1945 (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005).   7 For instance, Geir Lundestad cites this statistic as evidence of pervasive isolationism in the 1930s. See The United States and Western Europe Since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 23.   8 Manfred Jonas, Isolationism in America, 1935–1941 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966), p.  1. The quote is from the magazine Christian Century, “A Peace Policy for 1945,” LII (January, 1935).   9 Stewart M. Patrick, The Best Laid Plans: The Origins of American Multilateralism and the Dawn of the Cold War (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), p. 50. The specific quote is from Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe, p. 25. 10 George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 520. 11 Jonas, Isolationism in America, p. 1. Italics mine. 12 Time January 2, 1939. 13 A poll conducted by the American Institute of Public Opinion in 1936 estimated it to be 95 percent. Jonas, Isolationism in America, pp. 1–2.

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182   A mission to lead the world 14 On threat and balancing against perceived threats as opposed to material capabilities, see Stephen M. Walt, Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987). Walt argues that states balance against threats, not power, where threat level is determined by geographic proximity, offensive capabilities, and aggressive intentions. 15 Bear F. Braumoeller, “The Myth of American Isolationism,” Foreign Policy Analysis, 6(4), 2010, pp. 349–71, makes this explicit argument. 16 Not only is there a debate over whether or not the American public was “isolationist” in the 1930s, there is also a debate over whether Franklin Roosevelt can be said to have fallen into this political category during his first or even first two terms. Whereas some authors accept the term “isolationism” as a general term for the 1930s, such as Mark Stoler, “The Roosevelt Foreign Policy: Flawed, but Superior to the Competition,” in Doenecke & Stoler, eds., Debating Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Foreign Policies, pp.  120–2; Akira Iriye, “The Globalizing of America Vol. III,” Warren Cohen, ed. The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 146–7; and Lawrence S. Kaplan, NATO 1948: The Birth of the Transatlantic Alliance (New York: Rowman Littlefield Publishers, 2007), p.  2, others argue that isolationism is largely incorrect, and that better terms are unilateralism and nationalist economic sentiments. See Warren F. Kimball, The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp.  84–98; Jeffrey W. Legro, “Whence American Internationalism,” International Organization, 54(2), 2000. Robert Dallek does not think Franklin Roosevelt’s policies in the early 1930s can be attributed to an “isolationist impulse” on the part of Roosevelt himself, but were rather a response to the perceived public constraints and primacy of domestic issues. See Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 530. 17 Doenecke, “The Roosevelt Foreign Policy: An Ambiguous Legacy,” p. 31. The New York Times found “general approval of the President’s address in Chicago calling upon peace-­loving peoples to make a concerted effort in opposition to aggressor nations which are creating lawlessness in the world.” See Michael Leigh, Mobilizing Consent: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy, 1937–1947 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), p. 34. 18 Mark A. Stoler, “The Roosevelt Foreign Policy: Flawed, but Superior to the Competition,” in Doenecke and Stoler, eds., Debating Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Foreign Policies, p. 117. 19 David Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001), p. 173. 20 This would automatically weaken the argument made by anti-­interventionists, that the Western Hemisphere – properly defended – was impregnable. See Justus Doenecke, “American Isolationism, 1939–1941,” in The Journal of Libertarian Studies, VI (3–4), 1982, p. 205. 21 Leigh, Mobilizing Consent, p. 42. 22 Ibid., p. 44. 23 Ibid., p. 46. 24 Indeed, as early as 1938, the German ambassador to the United States, Dieckhoff, prophetically informed his superiors back in Germany that although isolationism seemed pervasive, the American people could easily be “roused out of their lethargy” and if they perceived moral causes at stake, such as protecting liberalism and democracy, “the jump from a policy of isolation to intervention will not be very great . . .” Jonas, Isolationism in America, p. 208. Dieckhoff to Foreign Office, dtd October 15, 1937. Translation by Jonas. 25 Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 173. Historians debate whether FDR was too concerned with public opinion – worried he would get too far “ahead” of it, like Woodrow Wilson ultimately had – or used public opinion as an excuse to delay

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   183 American intervention in the war. Warren Kimball argues for the latter point of view in The Juggler, whereas Robert Dallek, in Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, argues FDR was constrained by his perception of public opinion. For instance, Roosevelt’s acceptance of the Neutrality laws was not an act of conviction, but of “realistic calculation about what he could achieve at home and abroad.” See Dallek, p. 530. 26 Braumoeller, “Myth of American Isolationism,” p. 364. 27 Jonas, Isolationism in America, p. 215. 28 Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 173. 29 Leigh, Mobilizing Consent, p. 79. 30 Ibid., p. 76. 31 Ibid., p. 77. 32 Braumoeller, “Myth of American Isolationism,” p. 366. (Braumoeller is using public opinion data that, after being reweighed in a project conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he deems sound and representative.) 33 Wayne S. Cole used this term to denote the debate between internationalists and isolationists. He would later also use it as a description of the debate between historians after Pearl Harbor and beyond. See “American Entry into World War II: A Historiographical Appraisal,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 43(4), 1957, pp. 595–617. 34 Leigh, Mobilizing Consent, pp.  79–80. AIPO asked, “Would you like to see the United States join in a movement to establish an international police force to maintain world peace?” to which a majority – 53 percent – said yes. 35 Jonas, Isolationism in America, p.  206. Indeed, according to Winston Churchill’s account to his war cabinet, FDR had told Churchill at Placentia Bay in August 1941 that he did not regard Congressional skepticism toward involvement as truly representative of the country. See also Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, p.  285; and Doenecke, “American Isolationism, 1939–1941” pp. 209–10. Michael Leigh makes the specific argument that Roosevelt was too cautionary because of his misreading of public opinion through Congressional attitudes, which were more anti-­interventionist than was the general public. 36 On November 4, the Neutrality Act of 1939 was passed, allowing for arms trade with belligerent nations on a cash and carry basis, thus in effect ending the arms embargo. The end of neutrality policy came with the Lend-­Lease Act of March 1941, which allowed the United States to sell, lend or give war materials to allied nations. 37 John Chalberg ed., Isolationism: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1995), pp. 136–7. This does not mean Roosevelt felt confident that he would – as seen for instance in his conducting the Destroyers-­for-Bases Agreement in 1940 by executive agreement, and not by treaty. 38 Although the Selective Service Act passed with one vote and was restricted to service in the Western Hemisphere, it is also noteworthy that FDR did not openly back this legislation in the beginning. In the summer of 1940, however, public opinion was in favor of it, and on August 2 he declared himself “distinctly in favor of a selective training bill.” See Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, p. 248. 39 Warren Kimball calls the Lend-­Lease Act “undeclared economic warfare.” See Kimball, The Juggler, p. 12. 40 Jonas, Isolationism in America, p. 207. 41 Roosevelt said this in a fireside chat on December 29, 1940. Robert Osgood called it “the most extreme statement of the American mission, in terms of a tangible commitment, ever suggested by anyone charged with the conduct of America’s foreign affairs.” Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 107. 42 See A New Deal for the World for a detailed description of the Atlantic Charter. This is not to mention the secret meetings from January 1941 onward between British top

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184   A mission to lead the world military planners and U.S. defense officials, who produced a document called ABC-­1, signed March 29. This document was to set out a common strategy in the event that the United States entered the war. See Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 117. 43 Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 146; Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, p. 282. This was their first meeting as wartime leaders, but they had in fact met once before. 44 Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 147. 45 Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 147. Whereas FDR assured Churchill in February 1942 that the United States had no intention of asking Britain to trade in imperial preferences for lend-­lease, Kimball argues this was in fact what the United States aimed for. See Kimball, “U.S. Economic Strategy in World War II: Wartime Goals, Peacetime Plans,” in Kimball ed. America Unbound: World War II and the Making of a Superpower (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), p. 149. 46 Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p.  148. Elizabeth Borgwardt puts much emphasis on the Atlantic Charter, arguing it prefigured the rule-­of-law orientation of the Nuremberg Charter, the collective security articulated in the United Nations Charter, and even the free-­trade ideology of the Bretton Woods charters. She argues the Atlantic Charter was a “transformative moment in America’s national identity as a global power,” and that it crystallized an ongoing transformation in the ideas and institutions underlying the modern human rights regime. See A New Deal for the World, p. 5. 47 Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 109. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., p.  4. Justus Doenecke characterizes FDR’s vision as one of “drift.” See Doenecke, “The Roosevelt Foreign Policy: An Ambiguous Legacy.” Warren Kimball, who is generally favorable toward Roosevelt, agrees that he never articulated a cohesive philosophy. Kimball does argue, however, that FDR’s actions hinted at a conceptual consistency. See Kimball, The Juggler, p.  185. Robert Dallek believes FDR decided sometime in the spring of 1941 that the United States would have to go to war, but that he did not want to force this decision by announcing for war. Thus, answering the critics who argue Roosevelt was pushing for war, Dallek notes his caution and restraint, refusing to ask for a declaration of war until an unequivocal provocation had occurred. See Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, pp. 530–1. 50 Kimball, The Juggler, p. 186. 51 George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), expanded ed., p. 160. 52 Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr., and Joe A. Morris, eds., The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg (Boston: Hougton Mifflin Company, 1952), p. 1. 53 Indeed, it was the fall of France that turned Walter Lippmann, the nation’s leading columnist on foreign affairs, into a pro-­interventionist. See Legro, “Whence American Internationalism,” p. 273. 54 Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, p. 175. 55 Robert A. Divine, “Franklin D. Roosevelt resisted U.S. involvement in World War II,” in John Chalberg ed., Isolationism: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego, Calif: Greenhaven Press, 1995), p.  274. In his book The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1965), Divine shone a critical light on what he deemed to be FDR’s overcautious and vacillating policy. Divine argued that because of such a policy, the ultimate decision of war was left to the enemy. 56 Herring, From Colony to Superpower, p. 526. 57 Ibid., p. 533.

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   185 58 Braumoeller makes this explicit point in his excellent discussion of interwar “isolationism.” See Braumoeller, “The Myth of American Isolationism,” pp. 365–6. 59 See chapter 4, “The 1941 Case” in The Craft of International History: A Guide to Method (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 85–6. 60 Doenecke, like Divine, criticizes the president for always leaving the initiative to the Axis – for “waiting to be pushed into the situation” as FDR told treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. See “The Roosevelt Foreign Policy: The Ambiguous Legacy,” p. 38. 61 Henry Luce, “The American Century,” in Michael J. Hogan, ed., The Ambiguous Legacy: U.S. Foreign Relations in the American Century, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 20. 62 Edward C. Luck, Mixed Messages (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), p. 16. 63 During the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944 in San Francisco, the Soviets suggested the new world organization be titled “World Union,” to which the American delegation replied that such a name was unacceptable as it was exactly the kind of thing unilateralist opponents would seize upon. See Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World, p. 164. 64 Leo Gross, “The Charter of the United Nations and the Lodge Reservations,” The American Journal of International Law, 41(3), 1947, pp. 531–54. 65 See Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), pp. 1–3 for details on the comparative toll the war took on the Allies. 66 For a thorough discussion of what hegemony entails, see Bruce Cronin, “The Paradox of Hegemony: America’s Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nations,” European Journal of International Relations 2001, 7(1), pp.  103–30. See also G. John Ikenberry “Rethinking the Origins of American Hegemony,” Political Science Quarterly, 104(3), 1989, pp.  375–400; Charles S. Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006); Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006) for a discussion of U.S. postwar hegemony from a neoclassical realist perspective. For a discussion of whether the United States was constituted an empire, see Geir Lundestad, “Empire by Invitation? The United States and Europe 1945–1952,” Journal of Peace Research, 23(3), 1986, and Michael Hunt, “Empire, Hegemony, and the U.S. Policy Mess” History News Network. (May 21, 2007) URL: http://hnn.us/articles/37486.html. 67 An example of such a “permissive environment” would be Geir Lundestad’s “empire by invitation” argument, whereby the Western European states “invited” the United States into a dominant role due to fears of a resurgent Germany, a future threatening Soviet Union, and possible American abandonment. See Lundestad, “Empire by Invitation?” 68 Quoted in Cronin, “The Paradox of Hegemony: America’s Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nations,” p. 109. 69 Hegemony, as Ikenberry uses the term, does not exclude the possibility of the hegemon sometimes being constrained by the international institutions it sets up – it endures short-­term losses for the sake of long-­term gains. For example, Lodge was willing to join the League if Article 10 was eliminated; a League without Article 10 would still have constrained the United States to some extent. I thank John M. Owen for pointing this out. 70 Inis L. Claude, Jr., Swords into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization (New York: Random House, 1971), 4th ed., p. 61. This despite the fact that his personal involvement could not begin to compare to the degree that Wilson had personally involved himself in the case of the League, and despite the fact that he died before the San Francisco Conference was convened in 1945.

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186   A mission to lead the world 71 Ibid., p. 62. 72 Gary B. Ostrower, The United Nations and the United States (New York: Tywane Publishers, 1998), p.  20; Stephen C. Schlesinger, Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003); pp. 47–8. 73 Robert C. Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks. The Origins of the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990), p. 2. 74 FDR expressed this in writing when outlining his objectives for the mission of Myron Taylor to the Vatican. Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, pp. 15–16. During the meeting between FDR and Churchill in August 1941, Roosevelt had mentioned that the two powers should police the world for a transitional period, after which an international organization might emerge. During Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov’s trip to Washington, DC in early 1942, FDR stated that, “the United States, England, Russia, and perhaps China should police the world and enforce disarmament by inspection.” In December 1942 he told Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King about the “big policemen, who would be the four powers.” See Warren Kimball, The Juggler, pp. 85–6. 75 The Big Four were the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and China. 76 For a detailed look at the various committees, people, and plans leading up to the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, see Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, chapters 1 and 2. It was during the “phony war” in Europe during the spring of 1940 that the first draft of a plan for a postwar organization was made. Reflecting the concerns at the time, the idea was to create an organization based in Europe, with only possible participation by other states in the world, and contained no specific mention of U.S. membership. The plan’s primary objective was disarmament. This body should issue commands to another new organization, an international peacekeeping force, which was to be regional and hegemonic in character. It bore the stamp of Sumner Welles, who would continue to advocate regionalism even after he left the State Department in 1943. By the summer of 1941 State Department thinking on the two most important issues of trade and disarmament had converged on the need to establish an international organization after the war. After Pearl Harbor, on February 12, 1942, the new Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy met for the first time, charged specifically with the task of drafting a new world organization. It had what appeared to be a clear statement of presidential policy to build on: the Atlantic Charter, calling for “the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security” after the war. On New Year’s Day, 1942, twenty-­four other nations, including the USSR and China, subscribed to it as well. During the summer of 1943, State’s Division of Political Studies constructed a “Charter of the United Nations” that envisioned “an organization on the universal pattern” but did not preclude regional developments provided they were consistent with the purposes of the universal organization. Peacekeeping authority was vested in a council consisting of the five great powers and three other nations to be elected for annual terms; decisions were to be made by a two-­thirds majority vote including three-­fourths of the permanent members. Even though it was to be a universal organization, it was not the League of Nations, its creators argued: it granted the great powers “exceptional and immediate responsibility for security” along with “permanent preponderance” in the membership and voting procedures of the council, it enabled action to be instituted with less than unanimity, and it provided for “effective international control” of armaments. Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, chapters 1 and 2. 77 Ibid., p. 20. My italics. 78 This proposal was favored by Senators Joseph H. Ball (R-­MN), Harold H. Burton (R-­ OH), Carl A. Hatch (D-­NM) and Lister Hill (D-­AL). 79 Patrick, The Best Laid Plans, p. 63. 80 Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, p. 27. 81 Cited in ibid., p. 28.

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   187   82 Ostrower, The United Nations and the United States, pp. 33–5.   83 Indeed, British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden had remarked to Churchill that, if Britain failed to develop its own framework for the postwar world, the consequence would be that “the United States makes a policy and we follow, which I do not regard as a satisfactory role for the British Empire.” British ideas on postwar organization only began to take shape during 1943, and they were far less developed than those of their American counterparts. Despite few primary sources, Hilderbrand argues that it does seem certain that no working plan or proposals had been formulated in the Kremlin by the end of 1943, either. In fact, the Soviets failed to answer State’s request for a working paper of the world organization until April 5, 1944, at which point it offered commentary on the U.S. and British proposals rather than one of its own. See Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, pp.  39, 44; Schlesinger writes that neither the Chinese, Russians nor the British seemed to take the preparatory work very seriously, but notes that the British did prepare notations titled “Future World Organization.” See Act of Creation, p. 47.   84 Schlesinger, Act of Creation, pp. 47–8.   85 Members included Democrats Tom Connally, Walter George (GA), Alben Barkley (KY), and Guy Gillette (IA) and Republicans Arthur Vandenberg (MI), Warren Austin (VT), Wallace White (ME), and Progressive Robert La Follette, Jr., (WI). They became known as the Committee of Eight. See Vandenberg, Private Papers, p. 95.   86 Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, p. 57.   87 Ibid., p.  58; Vandenberg, Private Papers, pp.  101–7. Vandenberg was, however, impressed with how “conservative” this new organization was, “from a nationalist standpoint,” as the organization was “based virtually on a four-­power alliance.” See pp. 95–6.   88 Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, p. 71; Schlesinger, Act of Creation, p. 48. Indeed, it was the Joint Steering Committee – originally intended only to decide on matters of procedure – which would come to be where the substantive decisions were made. The group consisted of Stettinius, Pasvolsky and Dunn for the Americans; Cadogan and his deputy Gladwyn Jebb; and Gromyko and his deputy, Arkady Sobolev, with Alger Hiss serving as secretary.   89 Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, p. 170.   90 Ibid., p. 171.   91 Schlesinger, Act of Creation, p. 50.   92 Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, pp. 189–90.   93 Quoted in Patrick, The Best Laid Plans, p. 75.   94 The next part of the conference would involve the Chinese and not the Soviets, who had refused a meeting including them.   95 Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, p. 245.   96 See Ruth Russell, A History of the United Nations Charter, p.  533; Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks, p. 253.   97 Stephen Schlesinger, “FDR’s Five Policemen: Creating the United Nations” World Policy Journal, 11, 1994, p.  88; see also, Schlesinger, Act of Creation, chapter 6, “Secret Agents, Big Powers.” Schlesinger points out that whereas the Soviets were also working to obtain as much information as possible prior to the conference; the United States was far ahead of Moscow in this regard.   98 Schlesinger, “FDR’s Five Policemen,” p. 89. Washington learned from its intercepted messages that Moscow was treating the Yalta agreements as “sacrosanct” while also resisting free elections in Poland and exerting heavy-­handed pressure on Iran and Turkey. From its intelligence and also from Averell Harrimann, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, the United States was learning that the Soviets were going to renege on their promise to “integrate” the Polish government with London exiles as well as the Lublin (pro-­Soviet) group, and impose their own regime. The impasse over

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Poland’s government persisted for weeks, endangering the UN’s ratification. “Stalin was, according to some observers, on the edge of aborting the whole UN scheme – a ‘Western’ idea about which he was never enthusiastic – over Lublin.” In the midst of the San Francisco conference, Truman sent Harry Hopkins, FDR’s closest confidante and someone who knew Stalin from previous encounters, to Moscow in order to work out a deal on Lublin. Hopkins arrived in Moscow in late May and stayed for ten days. He eventually obtained Stalin’s agreement to another meeting in Moscow on Poland. By the end of June, there was a nominally integrated Polish government, and by the end of July, the United States and Great Britain formally recognized the regime and thereafter it gained UN membership. Schlesinger, “FDR’s Five Policemen”, pp. 91–2. Ruth Russell and Jeannette E. Muther. A History of the United Nations Charter: The role of the United States, 1940–1945 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1958.), p. 2. Members of the U.S. delegation to San Francisco were: Senator Arthur Vandenberg (exemplifying the Wilsonian lesson of not excluding the Republicans from the negotiations) and Senator Connally, along with Dean Virginia Gildersleeve of Barnard College (a link to women’s groups and the educational community); Naval Lt. Commander Harold Stassen; Congressman Sol Bloom (D) of the Foreign Affairs Committee; Congressman Charles Eaton (R); and a member of the delegation but not present due to ill health, Cordell Hull – replaced by Edward Stettinius as Secretary of State in November 1944. Vandenberg, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, p. 218. Russell, A History of the United Nations Charter, pp. 864–76. Vandenberg, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, p. 175; Schlesinger, Act of Creation, p.  114. The more technical issues were referred to an informal group of advisors headed by Leo Pasvolsky. Ostrower, The UN and the US, p.  30. Thomas M. Campbell argues that the shift from universalism to nationalism was due to the military spokesmen successfully promoting nationalist concerns (such as the need for bases in the Pacific) and ultimately winning over Cordell Hull’s more universalist design. See Thomas M. Campbell, “Nationalism in America’s UN Policy, 1944–1945” International Organization, 27(1), 1973, pp. 25–44. France would join the Big Four in May 1945, making the group the Big Five. Russell, A History of the United Nations Charter, p. 713. Vandenberg, Jr., ed., The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, p. 200. The veto controversy was in the end resolved in favor of Vandenberg’s position. He had labored hard to prevent a veto on discussion of conflicts (but not enforcement). According to Schlesinger, Senator Vandenberg was viewed by the other U.S. delegates as a self-­important man who “saw dark plots everywhere,” (as Senator Connally put it) but Stettinius – heeding President Truman’s instructions – made sure there was special deference given to Vandenberg, resulting in a smooth bipartisan environment. Schlesinger, Act of Creation, p. 121. Campbell, “Nationalism in America’s UN Policy, p. 37. In fact, at Stettinius’s urging the War Department had sent Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy to San Francisco with instructions to seek freedom of action for the inter-­American system. Ibid., pp. 40–2. Russell, A History of the United Nations Charter, p. 915. Ibid., p. 919. John Morton Blum, V was for Victory: Politics and American Culture during World War II (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1976), p. 313. Ostrower, The U.S. and the U.N., p. 38. Blum, V was for Victory, pp. 313–14. Campbell, “Nationalism in America’s UN Policy, 1944–1945,” p.  28. On Security Council veto: As finally incorporated into Article 27 of the UN Charter, the

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“universalist” view prevailed only in that permanent powers could not vote on their own cases in peaceful settlement matters. On trusteeship areas, the Secretaries of War (Henry Stimson) and Navy (James Forrestal), along with Stettinius, managed to push through the idea of certain trusteeships being labeled “strategic areas” (such as the islands in the Pacific where American bases would be located), which was a departure from the “Atlantic Charteresque” idea of UN trusteeships of ex-­colonial areas moving toward independence. On regional organizations, the three great powers came together to make sure there would be little or no interference from the Security Council on the issue of regional blocs. Thomas Knock, To End all Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 264–7. Leo Gross, “The Charter of the United Nations and the Lodge Reservations” The American Journal of International Law, 41(3), 1947, p. 532. Ibid., p. 544. Ibid., p. 545. Ibid., pp. 538–9. Ibid., p.  543. The UN’s Article 2, paragraph 7 stated: “Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.” Chapter VII concerned “Action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression.” See Charter of the United Nations, URL: www. un.org/en/documents/charter/index.shtml. Leo Gross, “The Charter of the United Nations and the Lodge Reservations,” p. 535. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Charter of the United Nations, S. Exec. Rept. No. 8, 79 Cong. 1 sess. (July 16, 1945), pp. 12–16) quoted in Russell, p. 940; Schlesinger, Act of Creation, p.  272. Two other subjects receiving attention in the Senate debate: the question of accepting the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court and the problem of the powers of the U.S. representative on the Security Council in relation to the commitments in a military agreement under Article 43. Leo Gross, “The Charter of the United Nations and the Lodge Reservations,” pp. 536–7. For a discussion on Lodge’s reservations in general and Article 10 in particular, see Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition: The Treaty Fight in Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), especially chapter 6, “The question of control at home and abroad,” and Knock, To End All Wars, esp. chapter 12, “A Practical Document and a Humane Document.” Ambrosius is generally more favorable toward Lodge, whereas Knock is more favorable toward Wilson. Gross, “The Charter of the United Nations and the Lodge Reservations,” p. 546. Ibid., p. 548. Text of Harry S. Truman’s July 2, 1945 address to the U.S. Senate (Senate Document No. 70, 79th Congress, 1st Session), presenting the Charter of the United Nations and the Statute of the International Court of Justice, together with the text of the United Nations Charter. From the Papers of Harry S. Truman Official File. URL: www.trumanlibrary.org. Russell, A History of the United Nations Charter, p. 937. Dulles had accompanied Senator Vandenberg to San Francisco as his adviser. Schlesinger, Act of Creation, p. 272. Senator Hiram Johnson (R-­CA) provided the dissenting vote. He would become hospitalized later, and was unable to attend the general Senate vote. Schlesinger, Act of Creation, p. 272.

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190   A mission to lead the world 132 Quoted in Gross, “The Charter of the United Nations and the Lodge Reservations,” p. 554. 133 Cronin, “The Paradox of Hegemony,” p. 115. 134 Edward C. Luck, Mixed Messages (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), p. 16. 135 Senator Vandenberg referred to the General Assembly as “tomorrow’s Town Meeting of the world.” See Vandenberg, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, p. 173; Edward C. Luck, “The United States, International Organizations, and the Quest for Legitimacy” in Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman, eds. Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), p. 52. 136 Luck, “The United States, International Organizations, and the Quest for Legitimacy,” p. 54. 137 Ibid., pp. 29, 52–4. In this sense, one could argue that whereas the original membership of the UN did not present much of a constraint on U.S. freedom of action (apart from the Soviet bloc, once the cold war got underway), the unfolding decolonization would indeed do so. 138 Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World, p. 267. 139 Meaning submitting the United States to be under the jurisdiction of the ICJ. 140 Russell, A History of the United Nations, p. 947. 141 David M. Malone and Yuen Foong Khong, Unilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy: International perspectives (Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), p. 7. 142 Quoted in Eric A. Posner and Miguel E. P. De Figueiredo, “Is the International Court of Justice Biased?” Journal of Legal Studies, 34, 2005, p. 600. 143 Gross, “The Charter of the United Nations and the Lodge Reservations,” p. 551. 144 Ibid., p. 551. 145 This is the puzzle posed by Legro to realist theorists. On the failure of the United States to act as hegemon in the interwar period, see, for instance, Charles Kindleberger, The World in Depression (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986, revised and enlarged edition); E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1939), reprinted in Perennial, 2001. 146 Warren I. Cohen, America in the Age of Soviet Power, 1945–1991, in Cohen, ed. The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, Vol. IV (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 4. 147 G. John Ikenberry, “Is American Multilateralism in Decline?” Perspectives on Politics, 1(3), 2003, p. 540. 148 Warren Cohen, Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations Vol. IV, p.  6; Warren Kimball, “U.S. Economic Strategy in World War II: Wartime Goals, Peacetime Plans,” in Kimball ed. America Unbound: World War II and the Making of a Superpower (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), p. 149. 149 Alfred E. Eckes, Jr., A Search for Solvency: Bretton Woods and the International Monetary System, 1941–1971 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975), p. 39. 150 Leffler concludes that, “economic motivations for the Marshall Plan were secondary.” Rather, “The United States launched the Marshall Plan to arrest an impending shift in the correlation of power between the United States and the Soviet Union.” See Preponderance of Power, p.  163. Lundestad argues that Europe actually received a slightly larger amount in yearly averages in the period prior to the Marshall Plan (July 1945–June 1947) than it did during the Marshall Plan years: 8.3 billion over two years contrasted with 14.1 billion over four years. See Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe, p. 47. 151 Ruggie has dubbed the postwar economic order one of “embedded liberalism”: the reconciliation of markets with the values of social community and domestic welfare. The liberal unregulated markets of the turn of the century (now associated with the Great Depression) were to be embedded in social and political relations, and were

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Hegemony vs. multilateralism   191 not to be beyond control. The consensus was “written into the institutional architecture of the international monetary system.” See John Gerard Ruggie, “Embedded liberalism and the postwar economic regimes,” in Constructing the World Polity. Essays on International Institutionalization (New York: Routledge, 1998); and see also Rawi Abdelal, Capital Rules: The construction of global finance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007) p. 7. 152 John Morton Blum, V was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1976), p. 307. 153 Eckes, A Search for Solvency, p. 61. See also Blum, V was for Victory, p. 307. This did not mean Acheson did not respect his British counterpart; rather, he described John Maynard Keynes, the British negotiator on the Lend-­Lease Agreement, as “brilliant.” See James Chace, Acheson: The Secretary of State who Created the American World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), p. 89. 154 Kimball, The Juggler, p. 189. 155 Chace, Acheson, p. 90. 156 Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World, p. 254. 157 Hull was a well-­known classical liberalist, convinced that “unhampered trade dovetailed with peace; high tariffs, trade barriers, and unfair economic competition, with war.” Morgenthau was a more traditional New Deal–liberal, and their views were not always overlapping. In fact, they engaged in a degree of inter-­ departmental competition for control over the economic postwar planning. Whereas the State Department took the lead in commercial policy, formulating policies that would culminate in the ITO and the GATT, Treasury took the initiative in international monetary policy, which culminated in the IMF and the WTO. Hull, quoted in Eckes, A Search for Solvency, pp. 34, 57; see also Patrick, The Best Laid Plans, p. 110. 158 Eckes, A Search for Solvency, p. 49; see also Blum, V was for Victory, p. 308. 159 The idea of the World Bank was essentially developed by Morgenthau’s assistant, Harry Dexter White. Quote from Blum, V was for Victory, p. 308. 160 Eckes, A Search for Solvency, p. 137. Keynes’ involvement was also keenly felt; he and Morgenthau’s assistant, Harry Dexter White, had authored the joint statement of principles on the fund, which had paved the way for final consideration of the bank. 161 Ibid., p. 138. 162 Ibid., p. 146. 163 This despite the fact that Truman submitted it after the election in November 1948, returning Democrats to a majority in both houses, and that he submitted it as a joint resolution – only requiring a majority to pass – as opposed to a treaty. Patrick, The Best Laid Plans, p. 250. 164 Patrick, The Best Laid Plans, pp. 256–7. 165 Ibid., p. 258. It is also important to note that ITO/GATT happened much later, after the war had ended, and after the cold war had started. Patrick argues that the Marshall Plan and GATT became elements of a strategy of “economic security,” as contrasted with Hull’s earlier vision of global peace facilitated by open trade. See p. 260. 166 Ngaire Woods, “The United States and the International Financial Institutions: Power and Influence within the World Bank and the IMF,” in Rosemary Foot, S. Neil MacFarlane, and Michael Mastanduno, eds., US Hegemony and International Organizations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 99. She further notes that the fact that the United States is domestically fragmented can actually serve as an influence enhancer: using the recalcitrant Congress as a threat can enhance the negotiating position of US Treasury officials when dealing with the IMF. 167 Ibid., pp.  100–1. The World Bank does not rely on direct contributions from its member governments, but the United States contributes 16.98 percent of the capital

192   A mission to lead the world stock that the Bank uses as a basis for raising money in financial markets. As Woods writes, the annual subscriptions of members account for less than 5% of the Bank’s funds, of which the U.S.’s subscription grants it 16.52% of votes on the Bank’s Board and a veto over policy decisions requiring 85% majority, as with the IMF. Furthermore, like the IMF, the World Bank has become susceptible to more direct US influence as its activities and resources have expanded.

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With the opening of the new International Development Association (IDA) facility under the World Bank, which gives out loans at highly concessional rates to poorer developing nations, donations to the IDA have become another avenue for influence. The United States contributes 20.86 percent of the IDA funds as the largest contributor (the next is Japan at 18.7 percent). There have been instances where the United States has threatened to withhold IDA funds in order to demand changes in policy, not just in the IDA but in the World Bank as a whole. During the 1970s the Bank was forced to promise not to lend to Vietnam in order to prevent the defeat of IDA 6 and in 1993, under pressure from Congress, the United States linked the creation of an Independent Inspection Panel in the World Bank to IDA 10. 168 Ibid., p. 113. 169 For a classic statement of this realist logic, see John J. Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security, 19(3), 1994–1995, pp. 5–49. 170 Foot et al., US Hegemony . . . “Introduction” p. 18. For instance, Philip Nel argues African leaders have come to accept that neoliberal economic solutions provide the only acceptable path to economic advancement. See Philip Nel, “Making Africa Safe for Capitalism,” in Foot et al. This is connected to the so-­called “Washington Consensus,” “a policy orientation within the IMF, the World Bank, and the US Treasury promoting open markets, deregulation, and privatization for developing countries.” See also Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World, p. 256. But see Ruggie, “International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order,” International Organization, 36(2), 1982, pp. 379–415. Ruggie argues that the United States allowed more social democracy in Europe than it practiced itself because Europeans insisted on it – in other words, it was constrained by demands coming from its allies. But this is exactly my point: The main concern for the United States was to preserve its own sovereignty and maneuverability, which is why Congress defeated the Charter of International Trade Organization. 171 Eckes’ term. See A Search for Solvency, p. 284. 172 John G. Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution,” in Ruggie, ed. Multilateralism Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). 173 Sir Nicholas Henderson, second secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, DC from 1947 to 1949, writes that the Americans were very reluctant in the first six months of 1948 to entertain any ideas of a security commitment to Europe. See The Birth of NATO (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983), p. xii. As of March 12, 1948 George C. Marshall could finally message the British to say that the United States was indeed ready to “proceed at once and join discussions on the establishment of an Atlantic security system.” See Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe Since 1945, pp. 48–50. 174 Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, pp.  208–18. Moscow had warned the smaller European nations, particularly Norway, not to cooperate with American “imperialism.” See also Vandenberg, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, p. 475. 175 Cohen, Cambridge History of the American Foreign Relations, Vol. IV, p.  48. As Cohen also points out, the United States had already signed a mutual pact of resistance to aggression with the Latin American countries in 1947, called the Rio Treaty.

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Vandenberg, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, p. 474. Kaplan, NATO 1948: The Birth of the Transatlantic Alliance, p. 200. Ibid., p. 201. Vandenberg, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, p.  474; Henderson, The Birth of NATO, p. 100. Richard K. Betts, “U.S. National Security Strategy: Lenses and Landmarks,” paper presented for the launch conference of the Princeton Project “Toward a New National Security Strategy,” (November 2004), p.  13. URL: www.princeton. edu/~ppns/papers/betts.pdf. Vandenberg, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, pp. 496–7. Speech before the Senate, July 6, 1949. Of course, Woodrow Wilson had made the same point in 1919, but to no avail. My italics. Henderson, The Birth of NATO, p.  xiv. It was not, however, supposed to rival the United Nations, which the U.S. participants were somewhat worried about during the negotiations. See Henderson, The Birth of NATO, p. 79. G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Liberal Order and Imperial Ambition (Malden, MA: Polity, 2006), p. 197. As Raymond Aron noted, the fact of disproportion of forces between the United States on the one hand, and the European nations on the other, “is such that the decisions are inevitably made by the American leaders and the plans resulting from these decisions are established by the general staffs in which the American influence dominates, or, on occasion, the Anglo-­American influence (special relations continue, in spite of everything, between the United States and Great Britain).” See Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (1966) (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003), p. 443. Ibid.; Betts, “U.S. National Security Strategy: Lenses and Landmarks,” p.  13. Indeed, American troop levels in Europe did not increase dramatically until the Korean War (they went from 80,000 in 1950 to 244,000 in 1953). See Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe, p.  53. The United States did, however, provide military aid and staff/planning before Korean War. David Skidmore “Understanding the Unilateralist Turn in US Foreign Policy,” p. 210. Betts, “U.S. National Security Strategy: Lenses and Landmarks,” p. 14. Ikenberry, “Is American Multilateralism in Decline?” p. 536. My italics. Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe, p.  59. See also Lundestad, “Empire by Invitation?” See G. John Ikenberry, “Rethinking the Origins of American Hegemony,” pp.  111–37. Although European views mattered on issues related directly to the common defense, David Lake nevertheless concludes that the constraints NATO allies placed upon U.S. behavior “were not very significant, largely because the U.S. might well have pursued quite similar policies anyway.” David Lake, quoted in Skidmore, “Understanding the Unilateralist Turn in U.S. Foreign Policy,” p. 210. See Michael Lind, The American Way of Strategy: U.S. Foreign Policy and the American Way of Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 98–100. Although in 1951 the United States, New Zealand, and Australia entered into a security alliance named ANZUS. Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–1999 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992) authored by U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz and his deputy Scooter Libby. Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1948, Vol. 1, p. 524, cited in Ikenberry, After Victory, p. 169. Cohen, Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations Vol. IV, p. 57. Kimball, “U.S. Economic Strategy in World War II: Wartime Goals, Peacetime Plans,” p. 151.

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194   A mission to lead the world 197 Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution,” p. 590. 198 Juxtaposing American hegemony with American hegemony is something Ruggie does in his article, p. 593. 199 Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue.” 200 Michael Ignatieff, ed. American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). Ironically, Ruggie himself describes the American penchant for “exemptionalism” in this volume – the tendency to exempt itself from international law. See his “American Exceptionalism, Exemptionalism, and Global Governance.” 201 This is not to say that actual membership was not very meaningful to U.S. allies, who in the 1940s got commitments from the most powerful nation in the international system. But this change in outcome does not correspond to a change in the U.S. domestic level foreign policy tradition. 202 Ruggie, on the other hand, argues that the lesson that Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower drew from the fight over the League of Nations was that “unilateralism had opened the door to isolationism.” “The Past as Prologue,” p. 97. 203 Ikenberry makes the point that the institutionalization of U.S. power is what made the order “safe” for the smaller states to join in. But the smaller states were not concerned with domination, they were concerned with abandonment, as Ikenberry himself states. This seems to open Ikenberry’s argument up to some logical challenges. 204 David Skidmore, p. 210.

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Part III

Resisting the laws of history

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7 American exceptionalism reaffirmed

Introduction The end of the cold war reaffirmed American exceptionalism. The disintegration of the Soviet Union was seen as proof that the American model was indeed superior and had outlasted and outcompeted its chief rival.1 Like the French Revolution in 1789, the Communist crumbling from 1989 to 1991 confirmed that the American political and economic model was the wave of the future. It signaled, in the words of Francis Fukuyama, the “end of history.”2 But this was not merely the end of a long era in history, where liberal democracy had outlasted its totalitarian rivals. “By the grace of God,” the United States had “won the Cold War,” President George H. W. Bush stated in his State of the Union speech in 1992.3 According to the American narrative, the United States fought and won the cold war, vanquishing the evil empire and bestowing “upon the admiring world a benevolent great power.”4 The exceptionalist interpretation of the end of the cold war set the stage for the 1990s, a period of victorious celebration for the United States. The United States entered its unipolar moment5 with relish and vigor, perhaps a bit too much for other states’ liking: By the end of the decade, Samuel P. Huntington labeled America the “lonely superpower,” resented across the globe for its “intrusive, interventionist, exploitative, unilateralist, hegemonic, hypocritical” behavior.6 French foreign minister Hubert Védrine decried the “hyper power” and wished for a “multipolar” world where the United States would no longer be dominant. As a British diplomat told Huntington: “One reads about the world’s desire for American leadership only in the United States. Everywhere else one reads about American arrogance and unilateralism.”7 And yet – the United States was finally the unrivaled hegemon. Nothing and no one could possibly challenge this modern-­day Rome. With the attacks of 9/11, this “holiday from history” – as columnist George Will labeled it – seemed to have ended abruptly.8 The world had irrevocably changed, it seemed. But, in fact, the 2000s were not so different from the 1990s. The unilateralism of the George W. Bush administration was the logical continuation – albeit dressed down to a bare minimum of diplomatic garb – of the roaring U.S. hyper power of the 1990s. The difference between the “multilateral”

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198   Resisting the laws of history Bill Clinton administration and the unilateral Bush Jr., administration was mostly one of tone, not substance. In this penultimate chapter, I will argue that despite the end of the cold war, the 1990s showed no signs either of a U.S. retreat into isolationism or of a renewed commitment to multilateralism. This argument will be presented by way of looking at military interventions and multilateral treaties in the presidencies of George Bush, Sr. and Bill Clinton. Then, I will analyze the U.S. reactions to the terror attacks on 9/11, referred to as the war on terror. I argue that the U.S. reactions to 9/11 can only be properly understood in the context of American exceptionalism, and that the war on terror was a radical rhetorical expression of the foreign policy tradition of unilateral internationalism seen previously. This means that while there were many commonalities with earlier security policy – especially that of Ronald Reagan – the war on terror notably lacked any of the diplomatic gloss usually attached to U.S. unilateral policies. This made the pill of U.S. unilateralism especially bitter for other states to swallow in the wake of the traumatic events of 9/11. I will conclude by illustrating an important aspect of continuity from the cold war to the war on terror by looking at human rights, which will underscore the fundamental U.S. ambivalence toward its own multilateral institutions. By the end of the chapter, I hope to have convinced the reader that the end of the cold war, while a significant change in the international structure, did not herald significant change in U.S. foreign policy.

A “holiday from history”? The end of the cold war was a moment of opportunity for the United States. The extent to which one would see continuity or change in U.S. foreign policy in the post-­cold war era would speak volumes. Was there a resurgence of isolationism, a deepening of the purportedly dominant tradition of multilateral internationalism, or a continuation of unilateral internationalism? While much has been made of the apparent differences between the post-­cold war presidencies of George H. W. Bush, William J. Clinton, and George W. Bush,9 I will argue that when it comes to the fundamental approach to international security these differences were more superficial than real. Democrat Bill Clinton was not necessarily the multilateralist to Republican George W. Bush’s unilateralist. After all, it was Clinton’s America that was accused of being a “hyper power” by the French foreign minister. It was George Bush, Sr. who decided to intervene on behalf of the United Nations in Somalia, and the Clinton administration that ended that intervention rather abruptly in 1993, along with failing to intervene to end the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Both Bush, Sr. and Clinton formulated an American exceptionalist vision for U.S. leadership in the post-­cold war world. The former called it “new world order,” the latter “the indispensable nation.” This is not to say that there were not important differences between the post-­ cold war presidencies in foreign policy writ large; there were, of course, many. But in that the end of the cold war made possible the airing of fundamental

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American exceptionalism reaffirmed   199 disagreements that had been kept under wraps in the interest of fighting Communism,10 it seems remarkable that their differences were not larger. As this chapter will show, part of what was significant about U.S. foreign policy in the 1990s is what did not happen. The end of the cold war did not herald a new isolationism, despite some predictions.11 The United States did not retreat into itself or do anything else that would demonstrate the existence of a true isolationist or aloof tradition. Indeed, the term “isolationism” has become a term utilized only when warning against it, rather than advocating for it, and is often defined rather subjectively.12 Nor did the absence of a balancing power mean that the United States again used the UN for what it purportedly had intended: multilateral diplomacy and security. The penchant for unilateralism and asserting American exceptionalism did not change with the end of the cold war, but rather proved to be aspects of continuity from the cold war era and before.13

Searching for signs of isolationism or multilateralism in the 1990s Good versus evil, right versus wrong, human dignity and freedom versus tyranny and oppression. (George H. W. Bush on the Gulf War14)

If the causes of the so-­called multilateral turn-­around of the United States in the 1940s were the twin foes of Nazism and Communism, then the end of the cold war would provide the United States with the perfect opportunity to return to what Charles Krauthammer called the original American foreign policy: isolationism.15 Undefeated, massively protected, and prosperous, there would be little reason for the United States to go abroad, searching for monsters to destroy. While clearly impossible to become isolationist properly defined, perhaps the United States could allow itself to stay more aloof from the outside world, and focus on harnessing the “peace dividend” to create an ever more perfect union? But there was no return to the supposedly old order. Rather, President Bush, Sr., presiding over the end of the cold war, announced a “new world order.” This new order, Bush and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft wrote in their memoir A World Transformed, meant that, . . . the United States henceforth would be obligated to lead the world community to an unprecedented degree, as demonstrated by the Iraqi crisis, and that we should attempt to pursue our national interests, wherever possible, within a framework of concert with our friends and the international community.16 So perhaps this new world order – while not signaling isolationism – would mean more multilateralism from the United States? The post-­cold war world was

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200   Resisting the laws of history indeed inaugurated with what is widely seen as the classic multilateral case study: the Gulf War.17 And it was multilateral, both procedurally and operationally.18 The world community, as represented by the UN, and the United States agreed that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had violated Kuwait’s sovereignty. It was a brief flash of hope for those who thought the UN would finally take on the role it was supposed to have had in 1945. Had the age of collective security perhaps finally arrived?19 Indeed, Bush’s National Security Directive (NSD) 74 in November 1992 – the first policy statement since the Truman Administration advocating active U.S. support for UN peacekeeping missions – seemed to suggest exactly that.20 But what if the UN had not agreed with Bush’s assessment of the threat from Iraq? The memoir of Bush and Scowcroft testify to their uniquely American definition of multilateralism: While we had sought United Nations support from the outset of the crisis, it had been as part of our efforts to forge an international consensus, not because we thought we required its mandate. The UN provided an added cloak of political power. Never did we think that without its blessing we could or would not intervene.21 What, then, if Beijing or Moscow had decided to veto Resolution 678?22 Foreshadowing events in 2003, Bush and Scowcroft explain that they: . . . would ask the council to act only if we knew in advance we had the backing of most of the Arab block and we were fairly certain we had the necessary votes. If at any point it became clear we would not succeed, we would back away from a UN mandate and cobble together an independent multinational effort built on friendly Arab and allied participation.23 This is, of course, rather close to what happened in 2003. Furthermore, nine months earlier, President Bush had not been very concerned with multilateralism when intervening in Panama, a legacy of the hegemonic role that the United States has played in the Western Hemisphere since the Monroe Doctrine.24 And that’s perhaps the point. The unipolar moment sparked by the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union, argued Krauthammer in his article “The Unipolar Moment,” meant that something seemingly multilateral like the Gulf War in fact merely constituted “pseudo-­multilateralism.” This was because the United States essentially led the diplomatic and military operations necessary to reverse the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. It was really the United States, behind the smoke and mirrors of UN resolutions, that was doing all the work. True multilateralism, argued Krauthammer, involves “a genuine coalition of coequal partners of comparable strength and stature – the World War II Big Three coalition, for example.”25 Krauthammer’s point is well taken. Without the United States, it is hard to imagine a Gulf War at all. This, however, should not detract from the procedurally and operationally multilateral character of the intervention. What is

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American exceptionalism reaffirmed   201 more interesting, perhaps, is the indication given in Scowcroft and Bush’s book that the line between a textbook case of U.S. security multilateralism (the Gulf War) and one of the most controversial and unilateral military interventions in U.S. history (the Iraq War) seems rather thin. To further muddle the picture of neat differentiations between the post-­cold war presidents, it should be pointed out that whereas President Clinton may have been the president accused of committing the United States to too many UN peacekeeping operations, it was Bush Sr.’s NSD that encouraged U.S. support for UN peacekeeping missions. Notably, it was Bush, Sr. who committed U.S. troops to Somalia. In fact, in 1994, after much criticism and controversy following the “Black Hawk down” incident in Mogadishu in 1993 where 18 U.S. military were killed and one captured, President Clinton’s Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 25 stepped back from what had originally been an optimistic assessment of future U.S. participation in UN peacekeeping operations, essentially overruling Bush’s NSD.26 In essence, Bush’s “new world order” – while multilateral on its surface – signaled neither isolationism nor multilateralism; no new beginning for the United States and the UN, but rather a continuation of the U.S. penchant for unilateralism.

Benevolent hegemony America stands alone as the world’s indispensable nation.

(Bill Clinton27)

President Clinton became the first president since 1945 that did not have the Soviet Union to contend with. In the words of neoconservatives Robert Kagan and William Kristol, President Clinton was now presiding over the world’s “benevolent hegemon.”28 Without any enemies, the United States was entering its “unipolar moment.” This made U.S. allies rather uneasy, to put it mildly. As the British permanent representative to the UN said in 1997, “American exceptionalism cannot mean being the exception to the laws everyone else has to obey.”29 But just as the rest of the world observed the unipolar moment with some skepticism, the United States was feeling somewhat uneasy about the world order that emerged from the thawing of the cold war. The United Nations: un-­American? Ironically, while the collapse of the USSR made the United States the world’s only hegemon, it also revealed an international order no longer distinctly American. Republican senator and 1996 presidential candidate Robert Dole spoke for many Americans when he said that international organizations too often reflected a consensus that seemingly opposed American interests or did not reflect American principles or ideals.30 Indeed, in expressing surprise that the expected

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202   Resisting the laws of history rapprochement between the United States and the UN failed in the 1990s, analysts have overlooked the fact that the UN of the 1990s – seen from the U.S. perspective – was a far cry from the organization it had created in the 1940s. This is not something that happened only at the end of the cold war. As pointed out by Margaret Karns and Karen Mingst, the original postwar position of the United States within its institutional order was eroding as early as the 1960s. Because of the reemergence of the traditional European powers as well as the process of decolonization, the United States found itself increasingly on the defensive: “Its control over agendas slipped; its ability to mobilize votes across all issues eroded; its close ties and influence within secretariats were reduced by the assertion of greater autonomy.”31 The United States wearily viewed the rise of the “Third World” in international institutions, suspecting their intent was to redistribute wealth from North to South.32 The consequence was a series of unilateral moves by the United States: temporarily withdrawing from the International Labor Organization during Jimmy Carter’s presidency and threatening similar action in the International Telecommunications Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Congress reduced appropriations for International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) contributions in some cases and mandated withholding funds in others. During the administration of Ronald Reagan several acts perceived as hostile to IGOs were taken, such as rejection of the Law of the Sea treaty, opposition to the World Bank’s promotion of energy conservation, and withdrawal from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.33 The Kassenbaum Amendment of 1983 signaled deep congressional skepticism towards the UN: it stipulated that the United States should pay no more than 20 percent of the annual assessed costs of the organization, and the legislation further mandated the withholding of 20 percent of 1987 contributions unless weighted or restricted voting procedures were adopted for budgetary matters.34 Indeed, in the words of John Bolton, former U.S. representative to the UN, acts in the 1970s such as Resolution 2758’s “illegitimate expulsion” of the Republic of China in 1971 and its replacement by the People’s Republic; Resolution 3379 in 1975 equating Zionism with racism; and the annual condemnations of the U.S. embargo against Cuba were examples of “anti-­American activity.”35 Only with the successful Persian Gulf action and the 1991 repeal of the “Zionism is racism” resolution did it seem like “the halcyon days of 1945 had returned for the United Nations,” Bolton writes.36 But the halcyon days never seemed to materialize. The Gulf War became the exception that confirmed the rule. The United States mostly pursued an exceptionalist and unilateral vision for post-­cold war U.S. international leadership, keeping the UN at arm’s length. During the Clinton administration, the term “indispensable nation” became the go-­to term used to communicate the value of U.S. benevolent hegemony. In a speech in 1996 President Bill Clinton justified NATO’s intervention in Bosnia by stating that “America remains the indispensable nation” and that “there are times when America, and only America, can make a difference between war and peace, between freedom and repression.”37

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American exceptionalism reaffirmed   203 Specifically commenting on this estrangement between the UN and the United States in 1998, Secretary of State Madeline Albright argued on the Today Show that the reason the United States was having problems getting other UN members to agree with the U.S. analysis of the threat from Iraq was because “we are America, we are the indispensable nation, we stand tall – we see further into the future.”38 The UN had become, quite simply, something rather “un-­American” – an epithet unique to the United States and its exceptionalist identity. Yet the rest of the world just did not seem to agree with Albright about this special perspective that the United States possessed. The feeling was mutual, especially as suspicion deepened in a nationalist U.S. Congress resentful of international organizations infringing on U.S. sovereignty.39 In an unprecedented address to the UN Security Council on January 20, 2000, Jesse Helms – chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee – said, If the United Nations respects the sovereign rights of the American people, and serves them as an effective tool of diplomacy, it will earn and deserve respect and support. But a United Nations that seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people, without their consent, begs for confrontation and – I want to be candid with you – eventual U.S. withdrawal.40 Perhaps even more remarkable was the beginning of his address, where Senator Helms expressed the hope that this day would be the beginning of a “pattern of understanding and friendship” between UN diplomats and U.S. senators, as if these two groups were somehow enemies. Contract multilateralism? And, indeed, there were times when this seemed to be true. Although President Clinton was an economic free trade internationalist, he presided over a government that imposed new unilateral economic sanctions, or threatened to do so, sixty times on thirty-­five countries, the most extreme of which were the Helms– Burton Act aimed at preventing trade with Cuba.41 Furthermore, during the 1998 monetary crisis in Asia, the U.S. efforts at compelling Asian states (receiving assistance from the IMF ) to reform internally according to U.S. directions were accused of using the IMF to impose a unilateral agenda on Asia. In fact, in 1998 South African President Nelson Mandela, during President Clinton’s visit, publicly declared that he resented U.S. efforts to impose conditions on its freedom of trade.42 In the area of arms control, the Clinton administration signed (1993) and the Senate ratified (1997) the Chemical Weapons Convention, but implementing legislation subsequently passed by Congress ensured unilateral U.S. exemptions. For example, Congress gave the president authority to reject a challenge inspection of U.S. chemical facilities if the president deemed that such an inspection would pose a threat to U.S. security interests. Congress also provided that any

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204   Resisting the laws of history samples collected through inspection must be analyzed on U.S. territory. Finally, Congress limited the range of industrial facilities that would be obligated to declare activities involving chemicals posing a risk of proliferation.43 Clinton was perhaps less comfortable with the idea of using American military power than either his successor or his predecessor, but does this mean he was a substantive multilateralist, as defined in Chapter 4? Clinton’s uneasiness with military force glosses over the fact that the Clinton administration would unilaterally employ U.S. military power if so inclined. Indeed, after the disaster in Mogadishu in 1993, Clinton ordered UN ambassador Madeline Albright to deliver a speech at the National War College declaring readiness to use force without reference to or even in defiance of the UN Charter.44 Furthermore, one could argue that Clinton’s policies towards the Israel–Palestine conflict were more unilateral than Bush 43’s were.45 Indeed, Clinton’s primary foreign policy objectives – the rhetorical defense of human rights, enlargement of democracy, and support for market-­based economies – seem identical to both Bush, Sr. and Bush, Jr.’s, and none of the post-­cold war presidents were above unilateralism to achieve these objectives.46 In other words, although the end of the cold war in theory could free the UN Security Council to perform its original duties, those who waited for a recommitment from the United States to substantive multilateralism were kept waiting.47 There was a clear element of power asymmetry to this: The United States was militarily able to do whatever it wanted to during this “unipolar moment,” which was perhaps Krauthammer’s point. The post-­cold war presidents – operating in a unipolar international system48 – were able to assert U.S. hegemony more freely in the world than their predecessors, which the more frequent military interventions attest to. The United States was indeed exercising “benevolent hegemony.”49 Continuity rather than change: the importance of ‘primacy’ Of course, Kagan and Kristol’s 1996 essay calling for the United States to exercise “benevolent hegemony” was meant not as an endorsement of the Clinton administration’s foreign policy, but as a critique of it.50 Although the reasons given for intervening around the world were much the same for Republicans in the 1980s, Democratic liberals in the 1990s and Republican neoconservatives of the 2000s – to promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law51 – there were still fierce debates and real disagreements over U.S. foreign policy. Certainly, liberals and neoconservatives do not think of themselves as belonging to the same political group. Kagan and Kristol, attempting to rally sleeping conservatives to a new national purpose, argued that the United States should again assert itself in international politics, assuming that under Bill Clinton, it had not. The United States, they wrote, should not aim just for benevolent hegemony, but benevolent global hegemony. Having defeated the “evil empire,” the United States enjoys strategic and ideological predominance. The first objective of U.S. foreign policy should

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be to preserve and enhance that predominance by strengthening America’s security, supporting its friends, advancing its interests, and standing up for its principles around the world.52 Indeed, like the conservative critiques of President Obama, President Clinton was in the 1990s accused of not “standing up for” the United States. In 2000, future George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessan wrote in a Weekly Standard article that there were two competing visions of internationalism in the twenty-­ first century: the “ ‘global multilateralism’ of the Clinton–Gore Democrats” vs. the “ ‘American exceptionalism’ of the Reagan–Bush Republicans.”53 This was – to some extent – true. The Clinton administration seemed to have wanted more multilateralism than it got. But, of course, the most multilateral president – measured in terms of multilateral cooperation in security policy – was George H. W. Bush, the president who later wrote in his memoirs that he would have invaded Iraq regardless of a UN Security Resolution, much like his son later did. The multilateralism that Thiessen used – tellingly – as a smear against the Democratic party was that quintessentially American kind of nominal, but not substantive, multilateral commitment. Even that, however, was a bridge too far for Republicans in the presidential election of 2000. For all the debate over America’s role in the world during its “holiday from history,” however, the liberal internationalists of Clinton’s Democratic Party and the neoconservatives of Bush Jr.’s Republican Party agreed on what was perhaps the most fundamental issue for U.S. foreign policy: American primacy. The overarching goal of U.S. foreign policy in the 1990s was to extend the unipolar moment for as long as possible by preventing the emergence of a new rival.54 Although the neoconservatives would be criticized for the ways in which this was undiplomatically expressed (as seen in the controversial draft of the Defense Planning Guidance of 1992 and, of course, the general rhetoric associated with the Bush Jr., administration),55 Democrats and Republicans agreed on the importance of continued U.S. primacy in the international order.56 They were united in the goal of making the unipolar moment a permanent state of affairs. The strategic goal of preserving and enhancing U.S. predominance was – and is – a bipartisan goal. The bickering over how much the United States should placate its allies in international fora is in fact a second-­order argument, as the overarching goal of primacy – enabling unilateral internationalism – is a bipartisan one. Based on the global feedback Huntington chronicled in his essay on the “lonely superpower,” Kagan and Kristol need not have worried. The world certainly felt the presence of a global hegemon. Despite the permissive condition of unipolarity, then, the post-­cold war presidents acted much the same upon the world. They all had in common a sincere belief in American exceptionalism and all pursued its mission: convincing the rest of the world to join in the end of history with the one nation that has already reached history’s destination. Their fundamental outlook on international politics – and the United States’ role in it – was more similar than many think. Indeed,

206   Resisting the laws of history Hans Morgenthau’s description of Wilsonian liberals at the beginning of the century applies equally to neoconservatives and liberals at its end: they all believed that a new world order of peace would eventually “end” history once all countries adopted liberal democracy.57

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Another crusade for democracy Ours is the cause of human dignity; freedom guided by conscience and guarded by peace. This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind. (George W. Bush58)

George W. Bush inaugurated a new era: he was the third post-­cold war president, and the first president of the war on terror. But did 9/11 “change everything”? I argue that in security policy, it did not. The foreign policy tradition of unilateral internationalism continued unabated. 9/11 did, however, provide the impetus for President Bush’s foreign policy doctrine of unilateral internationalism to move from its originally intended limited focus on great powers such as China and Russia to an expansive “war on terror” that was accompanied by a dominant narrative of American exceptionalism in the public discourse.59 In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration communicated a conception of American exceptionalism that set the United States apart from the rest of the world as the leader of a new crusade for democracy, strategically playing on this sense of national identity in order to engender support for its specific policies, such as the war against Iraq.60 Furthermore, I argue that the Bush administration’s challenges to established international law in the area of human rights also provides us with a particularly telling foreign policy continuity from the cold war. I will show this by examining the fate of the Genocide Convention during the cold war and the redefinition of “torture” during the Global War on Terror. The post-­cold war era was highly internationalist, messianist, and a fundamentally unilateral era in U.S. foreign policy, and I therefore argue for continuity from the 1990s to the 2000s. It should be noted, however, that the Bush Jr. administration’s unilateral internationalism, while in keeping with previous U.S. foreign policy, was also a radical rhetorical expression of this tradition to an extent not seen since the Reagan administration. Like Reagan, Bush Jr. married the dominant narrative of American exceptionalism with a militarized strategy against an “evil” enemy, rallying the nation to stand united behind the flag. Or, as Richard Betts names the National Security Strategy of 2002, “Primacy in Your Face.”61 The change in tone from the Clinton administration was noticeable, and was not well received by the United States’s European allies. I will come back to this in the next chapter, which is also the book’s Conclusion.

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Pre-­9/11 Bush Jr. originally came into office with a rather simple foreign policy strategy: put American interests first, and focus on large (and potentially threatening) state actors such as Russia and China. This echoed the realism of his father, which was remarkable precisely because the realist doctrine is rarely found in U.S. foreign policy. This doctrine was evidenced by, among other things, his choice of Condoleezza Rice as his National Security Advisor. Her specialties were the Soviet and Czechoslovakian armies – issue areas directly relevant to the bipolar superpower politics of the Cold War. Bush Jr. was clear on one thing: gone were the days when the United States would rashly intervene around the world for idealistic reasons, like his predecessor was accused of doing. When asked by ABC’s This Week during the presidential campaign what he would do if another Rwanda occurred, for example, Bush said: We should not send out troops to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide in nations outside our strategic interest. I don’t like genocide and I don’t like ethnic cleansing, but the president must set clear parameters as to where troops ought to be used and when they ought to be used.62 This was clearly different from President Bill Clinton’s policy of committing U.S. troops to humanitarian missions, as seen in Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo (although Clinton was vulnerable to criticism from both sides of the aisle: too much engagement as seen from the right and too little as seen from the left). But the disagreement was not nearly as fundamental as many like to think: first, Clinton did not send any troops to end the Rwandan genocide.63 Second, both presidents viewed the United States as the natural leader of the world order it had nurtured during the cold war and both saw it as acceptable for the United States to act alone when necessary. The first eight months of the Bush 43 presidency, while upping the intensity of U.S. unilateralism, did not change its direction. Bush pulled the United States out of commitments his predecessor had agreed to such as the Kyoto Protocol, he revoked Clinton’s signature on the ICC treaty, and opposed a pact to control trafficking in small arms, a new protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.64 The pullout of the ICC was particularly hostile, as the administration actively put pressure on third countries to sign bilateral agreements with the United States stipulating they would not extradite U.S. citizens to the Court. Clinton’s almost-­agreement with North Korea on freezing its missile program was abandoned, as well as peace efforts in Northern Ireland and Colombia.65 But these differences mask an important fact: the Kyoto Protocol and the ICC were unlikely to have been ratified by the Senate anyway – indeed, that is why President Clinton did not submit them for such action.

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American exceptionalism and the war on terror Much as American exceptionalism was expressed during the cold war in the concept of the United States as “the leader of the free world,” Bush formulated an exceptionalist vision of the U.S. mission in the war on terror. Once again, the world was divided in two camps, one “good” and one “evil.” In his address to Congress on September 20, 2001, Bush said, “Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom, the great achievement of our time and the great hope of every time, now depends on us.”66 President Bush consistently framed the attacks on September 11, 2001 as an assault on the “freedom” and democratic institutions of the United States, as opposed to being linked to American foreign policies in the Middle East, for example.67 In his speech to Congress, Bush offered the following explanation for why 9/11 had happened: Americans are asking, “Why do they hate us?” They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-­appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.68 Bush effectively communicated the narrative of the United States as the moral leader of the crusade against terrorism, leading a global coalition.69 The good-­ versus-evil rhetoric familiar from World War II and the cold war was often deployed, as was the emphasis on the inherent innocence and moral superiority of the United States. As promised, America was playing the most important part in a world historic play of good versus evil. In this sense, 9/11 did not “change everything”; rather, the way Americans perceived the world re-­adjusted to a world-­view more compatible with the cold war than the 1990s. The war on terror, in a sense, answered the question posed by Rabbit Angstrom, the main character of John Updike’s Rabbit novels: “Without the cold war, what’s the point of being an American?”70 The bipartisan character of the war on terror was remarkable, but not surprising, given that support for the war on terror in many ways was treated as a test of patriotism. In a study examining presidential rhetoric for “national identity-­ affirming discourse” in five issues of Time and Newsweek after 9/11, the authors found that President Bush employed such discourse 97 percent of the time.71 The war on terror became then – during the Bush administration – an identity­affirming exercise. “Several times,” notes Hutchinson et al., “President Bush and other officials described the war on terror not just as this nation’s fight, but as ‘civilization’s fight’.”72 It was difficult for politicians, citizens or the media to counter or question the narrative. Of course, it is not surprising that, in the months following 9/11, one would find strongly “identity-­affirming” articles in major news magazines like Time and Newsweek. What is interesting, rather, is that this reflected a view from the

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American exceptionalism reaffirmed   209 editors’ desks on what Americans wanted to read, as well as a strong national sense of agreement on what this identity was. Indeed, in a November 2001 poll, 69 percent of Americans said that the media were “standing up for America” since 9/11.73 The identity-­affirming rhetoric espoused during the war on terror by the Bush administration predictably worked better domestically than internationally. Indeed, after the Bush administration realized the war on terror had caused a colossal dip in esteem for the United States in the Middle East,74 President Bush named his former advisor Karen Hughes as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and dispatched her on a listening tour through the Middle East. The tour was a spectacular failure.75 Wrote journalist Rami Khouri: “She never understood that her particular brand of moralizing and arrogant cheerleading – ‘Go Muslims, go! Reach for the sky! You can be modern and democratic, if you really try!’ – was part of the problem, not part of the solution.”76 In thinking that public diplomacy consists of communicating American exceptionalism (our values are the best, be like us) rather than engaging in serious discussions over policy differences, the Bush administration erred gravely. Inconceivable as it was to President Bush and Undersecretary Hughes that countries in the Middle East did not – albeit secretly – want to be more like the United States (“Americans-­in-waiting”), the public diplomacy message during the Bush administration focused on the inherent superiority of American values, rather than on the highly controversial war on terror and the war in Iraq. Iraq Not just the war on terror but also the war in Iraq was broadly supported across the aisle of Congress. Bush framed the specific goal of America’s war on terror as the God-­given mission to democratize the Middle East. Indeed, this was one of the several reasons offered as a justification for the invasion of Iraq. The issue was not merely one of disarming a hostile dictatorship claiming to have weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). The issue was, as Bush told the men and women of the Armed Forces stationed in the Middle East in a televised address on the evening of the invasion, that “the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you.”77 It was yet another mission of world historic proportions where the United States would “bring freedom to others,” as Bush said in his address. Most liberals supported the war, as did a significant majority of the American people and U.S. congress members.78 Such a widespread majority in favor of the Iraq war signaled either a fundamental agreement on important assumptions in U.S. foreign policy by the American body politic, or the successful manipulation of a population by a cynical administration.79 Although the thesis of manipulation has been a popular one amongst critics of the war, one must ask – in an environment characterized by so much fundamental agreement on the exceptional leadership role of the United States in this new “crusade” – whether manipulation would be necessary at all.

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210   Resisting the laws of history The discussion of how, exactly, the United States ended up invading Iraq when its reason for doing so proved inaccurate is not one to be rehashed here. To be clear, though, the process leading up to, first, Congress voting on the Resolution for Authorization to Use Force in Iraq on October 10 and 11, 2002; and, second, the invasion on March 20, 2003 was clearly problematic.80 The Bush administration’s public information campaign, exemplified by statements such as, “Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists,” was later proved largely incorrect.81 What is relevant for our discussion, however, is the remarkable unanimity of opinion found in the United States at the time preceding the invasion of Iraq. In October 2002, as Congress was voting on the Iraq War Resolution, polls were showing that two-­thirds of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was involved with or directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks.82 On October 10 and 11, Congress voted overwhelmingly to authorize the President to use force against Iraq.83 In fact, this resolution passed with more votes than the one authorizing Bush, Sr. to commence the Gulf War.84 The resolution charged Hussein with having WMD and harboring members of al-­Qaeda. Neither of these two facts turned out to be true. Nor did the Bush administration work in tandem with the UN Security Council (as directed by Congress in its authorization) to inspect Hussein’s alleged stockpiles of WMD. Instead, the Bush administration decided to shorten the UN process, disengaging from it before the UN weapons inspectors had finished their mission, unilaterally commencing an invasion with a “coalition of the willing.”85 What the rhetorical war on terror tells us is that American exceptionalism is a strict identity, with a clear disciplining effect on U.S. politics. The United States does not – according to its politicians – fight “necessary, but evil,” wars. Rather, since the inception of the Republic, the United States has fought only “holy wars.”86 Indeed, an interesting illustration comes from a comparison between British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s rhetoric on why Great Britain was fighting in Iraq with U.S. President George W. Bush’s rhetoric. Whereas Blair’s rhetoric conformed to the principles of a just war theory, Bush’s rhetoric conformed to the principles of a holy war. This points to the fact that in the U.S. context, its militarism is moral, because it fights wars only for principles, not for material factors. Obviously, this means the U.S. troops are fighting “the good fight” and are “good” warriors. In other words, the Bush administration’s employment of identity-­affirming rhetoric in the context of fighting the war on terror meant that debate was severely restrained on any issue pertaining to the war on terror. Since a possible invasion of Iraq was defined – by the administration – as part of the war on terror, a critical debate surrounding a potential invasion was effectively circumscribed. Likewise, there was little opportunity to debate perhaps the most shocking part of the war on terror – the use of torture.

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American exceptionalism and human rights In the 1990s, it seemed as if the moral leadership the United States had claimed over human rights since World War II would finally be realized. Post-­cold war, the United States improved its participation in human rights treaties, exemplified by the ratification of such regimes as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1992), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1994). It still lagged behind most other countries it is reasonable to compare it to, however.87 In fact, even when the United States ratifies a treaty, the Senate continuously attaches significant reservations, understandings, and declarations (RUDs) qualifying the U.S. commitment, a tendency Michael Ignatieff calls “exemptionalism.”88 International exasperation over U.S. unilateralism in human rights is one particularly obvious example of the fundamentally diverging perspectives on multilateralism between the United States and other countries, a perspective that has consistently diverged since the end of World War II up until today. Human rights and the war on terror The UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, while signed and supported by the Ronald Reagan administration in 1988, took six years to be ratified by the Senate. When it was, the Senate attached two reservations, five understandings and two declarations.89 In addition to this, the resolution had a “proviso” that the U.S. President was to notify parties to the Convention that the treaty did not require or authorize U.S. legislation or other action prohibited by the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the United States. This proviso belonged to Senator Helms, who called it the “Sovereignty Amendment.” Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York criticized the proviso because it made the U.S. obligations seem uncertain.90 And uncertain they proved to be, as the actions taken by the George W. Bush administration as a tactic in fighting its war on terror essentially loosened any legal ties the United States had with the Geneva Conventions and the Torture Convention. After September 11, 2001 the United States set out to develop its own interpretation of “torture” and “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” essentially redefining the requirements of the Torture Convention.91 Article 1 of the Convention provides a specific definition of torture as: any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the

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instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.92 The Torture Convention makes clear that there are no exceptions to these prohibitions. Specifically, Article 2(2) states that torture cannot be justified by any exceptional circumstances such as war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency. Article 2(3) makes clear that an order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.93 Of course, the Geneva Conventions also make it clear that there are no acceptable exceptions in the case of torture. The ban on torture is absolute. Nonetheless, the U.S. Justice Department fashioned new interpretations after 9/11, with the purpose of shielding American officers involved in torture from prosecution. One memorandum written by John Yoo, Deputy Director of the Office of Legal Council, and signed by its Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee in August 2002, claimed that for an “alternative [interrogation] procedure” to be considered torture, and thus illegal, it would have to cause pain of the sort “that would be associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure, or permanent damage resulting in a loss of significant body function will likely result.”94 Bybee and Yoo’s memorandum was meant to specifically protect CIA officers from prosecution, as these were the government employees conducting so-­called “enhanced interrogation procedures” that were harsher than those used by the U.S. military. The military follows the Uniform Code of Military Justice – a federal law that also incorporates provisions from the Geneva Conventions of 1949 – and therefore military personnel would not escape prosecution were they to employ interrogation techniques of the sort used by the CIA. The memo had much wider consequences, however, raising the threshold of what constituted “torture” in the war on terror. Drawing on the August 2002 memo, the March 2003 memorandum written by Yoo concluded that the Fifth and Eighth Amendments did “not extend to alien enemy combatants held abroad” and that “federal criminal laws of general applicability do not apply to properly authorized interrogations of enemy combatants, undertaken by military personnel in the course of an armed conflict.”95 “The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values,” President George W. Bush asserted on September 6, 2006, when 14 so-­ called “high-­value detainees” were transferred to Guantánamo from secret CIA prisons.96 Bush explained that in addition to Guantánamo, some suspected terrorist leaders and operatives captured during the war had been held and questioned outside the United States, in a separate program operated by the CIA, and using “an alternative set of procedures.” According to the president, “These procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution, and our treaty obligations.” President Bush further stated that the Department of Justice had “reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful” which is what the previously mentioned Yoo–Bybee memoranda were for.97

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Notwithstanding Bush’s assurances, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – among whose official duties is to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions and to supervise treatment of prisoners of war – found otherwise. In late 2006 ICRC officials traveled to Guantánamo and interviewed the previously mentioned fourteen “high-­value detainees.” The report, sent to the CIA’s acting General Council John Rizzo on February 14, 2007, concluded: The allegations of ill-­treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill-­treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-­treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.98 There is, unfortunately, much more to be written on the issue of human rights in the war on terror,99 but the main point to take away from this brief section is the fundamentally unilateral approach chosen by the Bush administration, in an effort – as they saw it – to save the United States and its allies from a worse fate. It was, in other words, benevolent hegemony. Furthermore, although the war on terror ended the brief fame human rights acquired in the 1990s, this does not amount to a break in American foreign policy tradition. Rather, the campaign against terrorism has marginalized human rights in much the same way that the fight against Communism did during the cold war.100 The Genocide Convention’s long journey The marginalization of human rights in the war on terror is not a unique case. The U.S. approach to human rights international law has been unilateral from the beginning. The case of the Genocide Convention is informative, in so far as it was the UN’s first human rights accord (before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and shepherded through the UN General Assembly by the U.S. delegation itself.101 On June 16, 1949, President Harry Truman sent the United Nation’s Genocide Convention to the Senate, unanimously adopted by the UN six months earlier. In a stunning setback for President Truman, the Senate would not ratify the Convention until February 11, 1986. Truman originally submitted the treaty to the Senate for hearings in early 1950, despite the opposition of the American Bar Association (ABA).102 In May 1950, the Senate subcommittee in charge of the hearing reported favorably on the Convention, albeit with four “understandings” and one “declaration” attached to it. The vote was never taken, however, because of North Korea’s invasion of South Korea, unleashing “powerful xenophobic forces which significantly bolstered the earlier anticommunist witch hunt.” In effect, anticommunist groups perceived the Genocide Convention as undermining American sovereignty.103 Under the leadership of Senator John Bricker (R-­OH), a new campaign against the United Nations and international law was mounted, including

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214   Resisting the laws of history proposing an amendment to the Constitution forbidding the right of the President to sign human rights treaties. The Eisenhower administration would put an end to the debate during their administration by conceding the point: On April 6, 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, hoped to make the argument moot by stating that the president would never sign a human rights treaty, much less submit one to the Senate for approval.104 Later presidents would advocate its ratification, but not until 1976 did the ABA reverse itself and recommend ratification by the Senate. Finally, President Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, eager to stop the continuous embarrassment of the United States at international meetings by the Soviet Union on the issue of human rights, successfully encouraged the State Department to move toward ratification. Reagan called for ratification on the eve of the 1984 election, and Abrams testified in the Senate to the symbolic importance of U.S. ratification. After much debate and after the House and the Senate had enacted implementing legislation, President Reagan signed the treaty into law in 1988.105 While this early case of the Genocide Convention can be explained in terms of international factors (the Korean War and cold war dynamics) as well as idiosyncratic domestic factors which are no longer relevant in the same way (the race issue), it is still the case that one of the constants in U.S. foreign policy since 1945 has been the intense opposition to ratifying human rights treaties. G. John Ikenberry argues that the challenges to contract level multilateralism mounted by the George W. Bush administration in the twenty-­first century constituted a new development in U.S. foreign policy. As should be clear by now, however, the United States has a long history of being ambivalent about contract level multilateralism. In many cases, the United States failed to ratify even the treaties it helped negotiate, such as the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Havana Charter on International Trade Organization, the Genocide Convention, the Kyoto Protocol, and the International Criminal Court.106 The international community’s expectation that the United States should conform to universal rules on the same basis as other states is apparently such an alien thought to G. John Ikenberry that he labels it “new multilateralism” as opposed to what David Skidmore labels it: “genuine multilateralism.”107 Inis Claude suggested in 1967 that the test of American support for international organizations would come when the United States found itself in a position of losing and of being asked to support programs and activities that it regarded as detrimental to its interests.108 While it is not really surprising that the United States would seek to escape the restraints of its own postwar order when this order was no longer dominated by the United States, it is surprising that a liberal hegemon viewing itself as an exceptional nation would pursue unilateralism in human rights, especially when this unilateral initiative was used not to promote human rights but rather to avoid treaties seeking to embed them in international politics.

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Rights jurisprudence Perhaps one way of solving this puzzle – both the puzzle of the general unilateral approach to human rights taken by the United States since World War II and the more specific puzzle of the ultimate breach of human rights (conducting torture) by the self-­appointed champion of human rights – is to look at how the United States approaches international human rights jurisprudence. The United States generally does not accept rights jurisprudence of other democratic countries, which sets it apart from those countries.109 Notwithstanding the internal differences on the Supreme Court, such as those between Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer for example,110 the general trend has been towards ignoring international human rights jurisprudence in domestic American law. Indeed, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada has openly criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for what she deems to be its failure to engage in a global human rights dialogue.111 This contrasts with the incorporation of the European Human Rights Convention into the domestic law of most European countries, (including the infamous anti-­European integrationist, the United Kingdom). When viewed from the perspective of American exceptionalism, the issue becomes less puzzling. The United States would find “constitutional cross-­ fertilization” completely unhelpful, and perhaps even detrimental, as it already has the most democratic, free, and just constitution – in its own view, of course.112 Judicial globalization becomes a threat to the integrity of the “exceptional” constitutional discourse revered by U.S. constitutional lawyers.113

Conclusion: Lodgian internationalism for the twenty-­first century With the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a debate commenced on whether the neoconservative mission to spread democracy at the point of a gun at the beginning of the twenty-­first century was, in fact, the natural conclusion to the Wilsonianism found at the beginning of the twentieth century.114 But the focus on spreading democracy at the point of a gun also seems entirely consistent with U.S. foreign policy during the cold war.115 Indeed, the debate could easily have concerned whether there was a natural continuity from the spreading of the Anglo-­Saxon civilizing mission advocated by the Puritans, through Thomas Jefferson, westward expansionists and 1890s imperialists to today’s “crusade” in the Middle East and Central Asia. Whether one argues that the war on terror was a perversion of Wilsonianism because the Bush administration showed contempt for international law,116 or one argues that this “liberal imperial ambition” of spreading democracy was at the core of both Wilsonianism and Bush’s foreign policies,117 I would argue that this debate misses the point. By using Wilsonianism as the baseline for comparison, this debate misses the extent to which the Bush foreign policy agenda was compatible with the foreign policy tradition that won out with

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216   Resisting the laws of history World War II: Lodgian, or unilateral, internationalism. Bush’s aversion to multilateralism in diplomacy and international constraints is indeed compatible with this foreign policy tradition. What was new was the overt flaunting of this fact – the lack of any diplomatic finesse whatsoever. Part of the reason why the Bush Doctrine engendered such dramatic opposition abroad was the fact that the doctrine did not even attempt to hide the administration’s efforts at exempting itself from international law.118 American exceptionalism and unilateral internationalism was laid bare by the Bush administration’s lack of diplomatic gloss. The United States is and always has been eager to lead the world, just so long as the world does not attempt to lead the United States. In this issue area – human rights – deemed to be an important part of the U.S. moral leadership in the world,119 the trend is consistent and clear: unilateralism is the preferred manner of conducting business.120

Notes   1 See, for example, John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), which prompted The New York Review of Books to call Gaddis an “unapologetic triumphalist.” See Tony Judt, “A Story Still to be Told,” The New York Review of Books (March 23, 2006).   2 Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National Interest (Summer 1989). Fukuyama’s article, of course, had a question mark after it. Nonetheless, Fukuyama predicted the end of history in terms of the ideological victory of economic and political liberalism over any other ideological competitors.   3 George Bush: “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union,” January 28, 1992. Italics mine. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/ ?pid=20544.   4 Edward C. Luck, Mixed Messages, (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999) p. 17.   5 Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs, 70(1), 1990–91, pp. 23–33.   6 Samuel P. Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 1999), p. 43.   7 Ibid, p.  42. Robert Kagan also notes this in his article “Not Fade Away,” The New Republic (January 11, 2012). URL: www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/magazine/99521/america-­world-power-­declinism#.   8 George Will, “The End of our Holiday from History,” The Washington Post, September 12, 2001.   9 In particular, the thesis that the George W. Bush administration proved to be a clear break with its predecessor’s foreign policies is widely accepted. See, for example, Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution on Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003); James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004). For a contradictory view, see Melvyn P. Leffler, “9/11 and American Foreign Policy,” Diplomatic History, 29(3), 2005, pp. 395–413. 10 See Richard K. Betts, “U.S. National Security Strategy: Lenses and Landmarks,” paper presented for the launch conference of the Princeton Project “Toward a New National Security Strategy,” (November 2004), p. 5. URL: www.princeton.edu/~ppns/ papers/betts.pdf.

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American exceptionalism reaffirmed   217 11 There was much speculation on whether the United States would retreat into “isolationism” after the end of the cold war. John Lewis Gaddis, for example, speculated on whether the very success of the United States in ending the cold war would push it back into a “kind of pre-­Cold War isolationism.” See Gaddis, “The Cold War, the Long Peace, and the Future,” in Michael J. Hogan, ed. The End of the Cold War: Its meanings and implications (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p.  37. Patrick J. Buchanan, of course, advocated exactly this kind of strategy in A republic, Not an Empire: reclaiming America’s destiny (Washington, DC: Regnery Pub., 1999). 12 For instance, at the 2013 annual meeting of AIPAC (American-­Israel Public Affairs Committee), its president Michael Kassen criticized the “growing allure of isolationism,” which to Kassen meant U.S. waning support for Israel. See Jacob Heilbrunn, “Israel’s Fraying Image,” The National Interest (May–June 2013). URL: http://nationalinterest.org/article/israels-­fraying-image-­8378?page=3. 13 The post-­cold war era, in fact, saw many volumes being published on the topic of why the United States remained so ambivalent about its multilateral commitment. See, for example, Margaret P. Karns and Karen A. Mingst, ed. The United States and Multilateral Institutions (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990); Luck, Mixed Messages; Gwyn Prins, ed., Understanding Unilateralism in American Foreign Relations (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2000); Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman, eds. Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002); David M. Malone and Yuen Foong Khong, eds. Unilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003); Rosemary Foot, S. Neil MacFarlane, Michael Mastanduno, eds., US Hegemony and International Organizations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Michael Ignatieff, ed. American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 14 “Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters,” January 28, 1991, George H. W. Bush, Public Papers of the Presidents: 1991 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1992), 1: 70–2. See Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 11. 15 Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” p. 27. 16 George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), pp. 399–400. My italics. 17 Sarah E. Kreps, “Multilateral Military Interventions: Theory and Practice,” Political Science Quarterly, 123(4), 2008–2009. 18 See Ibid. for definitions, and Chapter 4 in this book for my discussion on how to define “multilateral.” 19 William J. Durch, “Keeping the Peace: Politics and Lessons of the 1990s,” in William J. Durch, ed. UN Peacekeeping, American Politics, and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), p. 2. 20 Ibid. 21 Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, p. 416. 22 This gave Saddam Hussein a time limit for complying with previous UNSC resolutions. See also Edward C. Luck, “The United States, International Organizations, and the Quest for Legitimacy” in Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman, eds. Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), p. 59. 23 Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, p. 356. 24 Luck, “The United States, International Organizations, and the Quest for Legitimacy” p. 64. 25 Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” p. 25. 26 This issue took on a new meaning with the botched humanitarian intervention in 1993 in Somalia. Ivo H. Daalder, “Knowing when to say No: U.S. Policy for Peacekeeping,” in

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218   Resisting the laws of history Durch ed. UN Peacekeeping, American Politics, and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s, p.  36. This was the first comprehensive statement on US policy toward multilateral peace operations, and was much more circumscribed than what had been announced upon Clinton taking office. 27 William Jefferson Clinton, Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 1997. 28 William Kristol and Robert Kagan, “Toward a Neo-­Reaganite Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, 75(4), 1996, pp. 18–32. Retrieved February 19, 2014, from www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/52239/william-­kristol-and-­robert-kagan/toward-­a-neo-­ reaganite-foreign-­policy. 29 John Weston quoted in Luck, Mixed Messages, p. 15. On the issue of being personally likable, Europeans seemed to have a fascination with Clinton, apart from the political fact that he was a Democrat and therefore closer to most European mainstream parties than most Republicans. Clinton was also preoccupied with being liked. In his memoirs, Clinton recalls going to a jazz club in Prague with Václav Havel, where Clinton jammed with the band (playing “Summertime” and “My Funny Valentine”) while Havel played the tambourine. See My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), p. 137. 30 Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “Unilateralism in Historical Perspective,” in Gwyn Prins, ed., Understanding Unilateralism in American Foreign Relations (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2000), p. 25. 31 Margaret P. Karns and Karen A. Mingst, “The United States and Multilateral Institutions: A Framework for Analysis” in Margaret P. Karns and Karen A. Mingst, eds. The United States and Multilateral Institutions, p. 6. 32 Durch, “Keeping the Peace: Politics and Lessons of the 1990s,” p. 10. 33 Karns and Mingst, “The United States and Multilateral Institutions: A Framework for Analysis” p. 2. The United States rejoined in 2003. 34 Ibid., p. 17. 35 John R. Bolton, “Unilateralism is not Isolationism,” in Gwyn Prins, ed., Understanding Unilateralism in American Foreign Relations, p. 76. 36 Ibid. 37 Quoted in Uri Friedman, “ ‘American Exceptionalism,’ A Short History,” Foreign Policy (July/August 2012). URL: www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/18/american_exceptionalism. Of course, in the case of intervening in the Balkans, President Clinton was correct, as the European allies could not seem to do this on their own. 38 Quoted in Charles William Maynes, “Two Blasts Against Unilateralism,” in Prins, ed., Understanding Unilateralism in American Foreign Relations, p. 45; Malone and Khong, eds., Unilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy, p. 14. 39 Not that the skepticism toward the UN was simply a Republican trait – the Foreign Relations Act for Fiscal Years 1994 and 1995 – passed by a Democratic Congress – stipulated that the United States should unilaterally limit its payments for UN peacekeeping to 25 percent of total costs, while the United States was falling behind in its arrears payments to the UN. See Durch, “Keeping the Peace: Politics and Lessons of the 1990s,” p. 15. 40 Helms spoke to the UNSC at the conclusion of negotiations to assure a commitment from the UN to undertake operational reforms in order to receive funding which the U.S. Congress had withheld pending reform. This effort was a partnership with then Senator Joe Biden (D-­DE) and became known as the Helms–Biden agreement. Address by Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, before the United Nations Security Council, January 20, 2000. URL: www.jessehelmscenter.org/jessehelms/documents/ AddressbySenatorJesseHelmstoUNSecurityCouncil.pdf. 41 Its full name was the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996. See Maynes, “Two Blasts Against Unilateralism,” in Prins, ed., Understanding Unilateralism in American Foreign Relations, p. 46.

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American exceptionalism reaffirmed   219 42 Ibid., p. 47. 43 David Skidmore, “Understanding the Unilateralist Turn in US Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy Analysis, 1(2), p. 211. 44 Tom J. Farer, “The interplay of domestic politics, human rights, and U.S. foreign policy” in Thomas G. Weiss, Margaret E. Crahan and John Goering, Eds., Wars on Terrorism and Iraq. Human Rights, Unilateralism, and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 31. 45 Thomas G. Weiss, Margaret E. Crahan and John Goering, “The serendipity of war, human rights, and sovereignty” in Wars on Terrorism and Iraq. Human Rights, Unilateralism, and U.S. Foreign Policy, p.  5. Granted, this only holds once the Bush administration made the conflict a priority, which it did not do in the beginning. Indeed, the U.S. involvement in the Israel–Palestine conflict was initially scaled back; specifically the Clinton-­created position of special Middle East envoy that Dennis Ross had held was eliminated. 46 See Daalder, “U.S. Policy for Peacekeeping,” in Durch, ed. UN Peacekeeping, American Politics, and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s, p. 40. 47 Whereas Sarah Krebs finds a slight increased rate of multilateral military interventions on the part of the United States in the 1990s, David Skidmore finds the opposite. See Krebs, “Multilateral Military Interventions: Theory and Practice” and Skidmore “Understanding the Unilateralist Turn in US Foreign Policy,” pp. 207–28. 48 In the early 1990s, there was initially a debate over whether the end cold war meant the world was now multipolar or unipolar. See Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment.” Unipolarity, connoting an international system with only one powerful state, theoretically allows this state to act as it wishes upon the system. Whereas realists would predict that eventually, another state or a coalition of states will rise to counterbalance the unipole (see, for example, Kenneth Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” International Security, 25(1), 2000), neoconservatives advocated the United States perpetuating its “unipolar moment” in order to act as the world’s “benevolent hegemon” for as long as possible. See, for instance, Kristol and Kagan, “Toward a Neo-­Reaganite Foreign Policy.” As opposed to a normative argument, authors William Wohlforth and Stephen Brooks have argued that it seems theoretically unlikely that another power will be able to balance against the United States for purely geographic and material reasons. See “American Primacy in Perspective,” Foreign Affairs (July/August 2002). 49 Robert Kagan, “The Benevolent Empire,” Foreign Policy, 111, 1998, pp. 24–35. For a contrary view, see Charles William Maynes, “The Perils of (and for) an Imperial America,” Foreign Policy, 111, 1998, pp. 36–49. 50 Kristol and Kagan, “Toward a Neo-­Reaganite Foreign Policy.” 51 For a critical examination of neoconservative thought by a previous neoconservative, see Francis Fukuyama, America at a Crossroads: democracy, power, and the neoconservative legacy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006). 52 Kagan and Kristol, “Toward a Neo-­Reaganite Foreign Policy.” 53 Quoted in Friedman, “ ‘American Exceptionalism,’ A Short History.” 54 Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment.” 55 Patrick E. Tyler, “Pentagon Imagines New Enemies to Fight in Post-­Cold-War Era,” The New York Times, February 17, 1992; William Burr, “Prevent the Reemergence of a New Rival,” The Making of the Cheney Regional Defense Strategy, 1991–1992. National Security Archive (Washington, DC: The George Washington University, 2008). URL: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb245/. 56 Betts, “U.S. National Security Strategy: Lenses and Landmarks.” 57 Hans J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), cited in Ambrosius, Wilsonianism, p. 16. 58 George W. Bush, “First Anniversary September 11, 2001,” September 11, 2002. URL: www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/print/20020911–03.html.

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220   Resisting the laws of history 59 “George W. Bush On the Issues Of Foreign Policy.” URL: www.4president.org/ issues/bush2000/bush2000foreignpolicy.htm. 60 John Hutcheson, David Domke, Andre Billeaudeaux and Philip Garland, “U.S. National Identity, Political Elites, and a Patriotic Press Following September 11,” Political Communication, 21, 2004, pp. 29. 61 Ibid., p. 2. 62 Quoted in Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound, 37. 63 Bill Clinton wrote in his memoirs that he failed to intervene in Rwanda mainly because “we were so preoccupied with Bosnia, with the memory of Somalia just six months old, and with opposition in Congress to military deployments in faraway places not vital to our national interests that neither I nor anyone on my foreign policy team adequately focused on sending troops to stop the slaughter.” He called it “one of the greatest regrets of my presidency.” My Life, p. 167. 64 Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound, p. 65. 65 Ibid., p. 67. 66 “President Bush Addresses the Nation,” Washington Post (September 20, 2001). URL: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-­srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html. 67 See for instance his speech at the West Point graduation ceremony in 2002. URL: http://georgewbush-­whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/06/ print/20020601–3.html. 68 Bush, “President Bush Addresses the Nation.” 69 Hutcheson et al., “U.S. National Identity, Political Elites, and a Patriotic Press Following September 11,” p. 30. 70 John Updike, Rabbit at Rest (New York: Random House, 1990). Quoted in Samuel P. Huntington, “The Erosion of American National Interests,” Foreign Affairs, 76(5), pp. 28–49. 71 Hutcheson et al., “U.S. National Identity, Political Elites, and a Patriotic Press Following September 11,” p. 36. 72 Ibid., p. 41. 73 Ibid., p. 46. 74 Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, “How the United States is perceived in the Arab and Muslim Worlds,” November 10, 2005. URL: www.pewglobal. org/2005/11/10/how-­the-united-­states-is-­perceived-in-­the-arab-­and-muslim-­worlds/. 75 Al Kamen, “Over Here, an Earful,” The Washington Post (October 7, 2005). URL: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-­dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100601803. html. 76 Cited in Craig Hayden, “Promoting America: U.S. Public Diplomacy and the Limits of American Exceptionalism,” in Jason A. Edwards and David Weiss, eds. The Rhetoric of American Exceptionalism (Jefferson, North Carolina: MacFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2011), p. 202. 77 “Full Text: George W. Bush’s Address on the Start of War.” The Guardian (Thursday March 20, 2003). URL: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/mar/20/iraq.georgebush. 78 The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Midterm Election Preview: Americans thinking about Iraq but worried about the Economy,” (October 10, 2002). For commentary and link to report, see “Most Americans Support War with Iraq, Shows New Pew/CFR Poll – Commentary by Lee Feinstein,” (October 10, 2002). URL: www. cfr.org/publication/5051/most_americans_support_war_with_iraq_shows_new_pewcfr_ poll_commentary_by_lee_feinstein.html Some senators were critical however, notably Robert C. Byrd (WV), Barbara Boxer (CA), Paul Sarbanes (MD), Durbin (IL), and Paul Wellstone (MN), according to Bob Woodward. See Plan of Attack (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004). 79 For instance, in order to support the war in Iraq one would have to agree on the legitimacy of the use of military force to cause regime change, as well as agree on the

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American exceptionalism reaffirmed   221 legitimacy of this act despite possible (and after March 2003, actual) lack of procedural or operational multilateralism. For opponents to the war, the theory of public manipulation by the Bush administration has been popular; see for example, Miriam Pemberton and William D. Hartung, eds. Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War (Boulder, Colo: Paradigm Publishers, 2008); James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies (New York: Doubleday, 2004). For a comparative perspective on media coverage leading up to the war, see Alexander G. Nikolaev and Ernest A. Hakanen, eds. Leading to the 2003 Iraq War: The Global Media Debate (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). 80 First, Congress – specifically the Senate Intelligence Committee – had great difficulty in obtaining the information (specifically, the National Intelligence Estimate) it needed from the Bush administration. On September 5, 2002 the Senate Intelligence Committee called Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to a closed session to testify on Iraq. The committee had asked to see the (classified) National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the rationale for invading Iraq, but none had been produced. Senators Bob Graham (D-­FL), Carl Levin (D-­MI, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee), and Richard Durbin (D-­IL) on the committee then requested that one be prepared, so the committee could evaluate the rationale behind a war. Three weeks later, on October 2, a ninety-­page long NIE was used to brief the Senate Intelligence Committee, with DCI Tenet concluding that Iraq had sufficient stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and enough of a restored nuclear capacity to constitute a threat to the United States and justify the use of military force to eliminate those threats. The report also stated that Saddam Hussein had shown little interest in attacking the United States, had few if any contacts with al Qaeda and little interest in assisting Bin Laden. Since the Bush administration wanted a vote on its resolution before the midterm elections in November, this left very little time for debate and discussion. Second, the declassified summary of the NIE released to the public (and the rest of Congress) on October 4, titled “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destructions Program” had left out Hussein’s lack of incentive to attack the United States as well as the absence of any connection with al-­Qaeda. Senator Graham was furious, arguing that this amounted to propaganda. See Bob Graham, Intelligence Matters, (New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 179–83. 81 President Bush on October 7, 2002, quoted in Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 200. 82 The Pew Research Center for People and the Press, “Americans Thinking About Iraq, But Focused on the Economy,” October 10, 2002. URL: http://people-­press.org/ reports/display.php3?ReportID=162. 83 The Senate voted 77–23 to authorize the President to attack Iraq. The Senate was 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 1 Independent. The House passed the authorization 296–133. The House was 221 Republicans, 212 Democrats, and 2 Independents. 84 The Gulf War resolution passed 250–183 in the House and 52–47 in the Senate. 85 It was reported that the reason the United States returned to the Security Council in the spring of 2003 was because of the urgings of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The United States, Great Britain, and Spain withdrew their resolution on Iraq once it became clear that France and Russia would veto it. See, for example, Woodward, Plan of Attack; Mark Danner, “The Secret Way to War,” The New York Review of Books, June 9, 2005. On the difficult relationship between the Bush administration and the UN Security Council and its inspection team, see David Usborne and Andrew Grice “Bush Presses UN to Speed Pace of Inspections,” The Independent January 17, 2003; Judith Miller and Julia Preston, “US is Misquoting My Iraq Report, Says Blix” Sydney Morning Herald February 1, 2003; Andrew Buncombe “CIA ‘Sabotaged Inspections and Hid Weapons Details,’ ” Independent February 14, 2003. URL: www. globalpolicy.org/previous-­issues-and-­debate-on-­iraq/weapons-­inspection-program. html. The so-­called preemptive doctrine of the Bush administration was in actuality a doctrine of preventive war. See Betts, “U.S. National Security Strategy: Lenses and Landmarks,” p. 25.

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222   Resisting the laws of history   86 Susan Brewer, Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda From the Philippines to Iraq. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).   87 Treaties signed but yet to be ratified by the United States: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Neither signed nor ratified: Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance; Mine Ban Treaty; Convention on Cluster Munitions; Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD); Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.   88 Malone and Khong, Unilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy, p. 7; Michael Ignatieff, ed., American Exceptionalism and Human Rights.   89 Malone and Khong, Unilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy, p. 7.   90 136 Cong. Rec. S17486–92 (101st Cong., 2d Sess. Oct. 27, 1990).   91 See Hilde Eliassen Restad, “The War on Terror from Bush to Obama: On Power and Path Dependency,” NUPI Working Paper 798 (Oslo: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 2012).   92 Nancy Arnison, “American Exceptionalism and International Human Rights,” Journal of Lutheran Ethics 9(2), 2009. URL: www.elca.org/What-­We-Believe/Social-­Issues/ Journal-­of-Lutheran-­Ethics/Issues/February-­2009/15-American-­Exceptionalism-and-­ International-Human-­Rights.aspx.   93 Ibid.   94 Mark Danner. “U.S. Torture: Voices from the Black Sites.” The New York Review of Books (March 12, 2009). URL: www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/apr/09/us-­ torture-voices-­from-the-­black-sites/?page=1; Jay Scott Bybee. “Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President. Re: Standards for Interrogation Under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340–2340A.” August 1, 2002.   95 Restad, “The War on Terror from Bush to Obama”; John Yoo, “Memorandum for William J. Haynes IT, General Counsel of the Department of Defense. Re: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States.” March 14, 2003.   96 Bob Woodward, “Guantánamo Detainee was Tortured, Says Official Overseeing Military Trials,” The Washington Post (January 14, 2009). URL: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-­dyn/content/article/2009/01/13/AR2009011303372. html?hpid=topnews.   97 Danner, “U.S. Torture: Voices from the Black Sites.”   98 Restad, “The War on Terror from Bush to Obama,” p. 23; International Committee of the Red Cross, “Report on the Treatment of Fourteen “High Value Detainees” in CIA Custody,” p. 26. (Washington, DC, February 2007). URL: www.nybooks.com/ media/doc/2010/04/22/icrc-­report.pdf.   99 See, for example, Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007); and Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals (New York: Random House, 2008). On the issue of Guantanamo Bay prison and its questionable legal practices, see Clive Stafford Smith, The Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice In Guantanamo Bay (New York: Nation Books, 2007). 100 Apart, of course, from their brief fame under President Jimmy Carter, as expressed in his Presidential Directive 30 in 1978. Jack Donnelly, “International Human Rights” in Thomas G. Weiss, Margaret E. Crahan and John Goering, Eds., Wars on Terrorism and Iraq. Human Rights, Unilateralism, and U.S. Foreign Policy, p. 98; Jennifer K. Harbury, Truth, Torture, and The American Way. The history and consequences of U.S. involvement in torture (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2005). On the issue of human rights in the war on terror, see Mark Danner, Torture and Truth. America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror (New York: New York Review of Books, 2004).

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American exceptionalism reaffirmed   223 101 William Korey, “Genocide Treaty Ratification: Ending an American Embarrassment,” in Warren F. Kimball, ed. America Unbound: World War II and the Making of a Superpower (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), p. 161. 102 The ABA argued first that genocide and human rights generally were domestic, as opposed to international, concerns; second, that due to the federal character of the United States, ratification would upset the balance between federal and state jurisdiction, since murder was a state concern and not a federal one. There were also fears in certain circles that the Convention would apply to racial violence, such as lynchings. Ibid., p. 163. 103 Ibid., p. 165. 104 Ibid., p. 166. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson would make half-­hearted attempts at correcting the PR mistake committed by the Senate by submitting less controversial human rights treaties for ratification, whereas Presidents Nixon and Carter would forcefully argue for ratification of the Genocide Convention itself. Indeed, under Carter, the State Department started delivering annual reports of human rights conditions in states receiving U.S. assistance as well as in UN member states to Congress in 1977. 105 Senator Jesse Helms (R-­NC), leading a group of conservative senators, insisted upon amendments, one of which was that the ICJ not be given any authority under the treaty provisions except with formal United States approval. 106 Malone and Khong, eds., Unilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy, p. 5. 107 Skidmore, “Understanding the Unilateralist Turn in US Foreign Policy,” p. 213. 108 See Inis Claude, The Changing United Nations (New York: Random House, 1967). One could argue Claude failed to distinguish between short- and long-­term gains and losses. The United States, according to Ikenberry, had to acquiesce in certain short-­ term losses in order to gain its long-­term advantages. I thank John M. Owen for pointing this out. One might posit, however, that the real test to the U.S. multilateral commitment would come when the long-­term advantages changed/were less than expected. This is not to deny that the other great powers did not also take advantage of their position. Edward Luck notes that during the first half century of the UN, France, the Soviet Union, and China all exhibited “exceptionalist” attitudes toward the world body. See Mixed Messages, p. 17. 109 See Ignatieff, “Introduction”; Harold Hongju Koh, “America’s Jekyll-­and-Hyde Exceptionalism”; and Frank I. Michelman, “Integrity-­Anxiety?,” all in Ignatieff, ed. American Exceptionalism and Human Rights 110 Justice Breyer generally is not against utilizing foreign jurisprudence when hearing certain cases, whereas Justice Scalia is very much opposed to this. In a debate with Justice Breyer at American University in January 2005, Justice Scalia said, “you talk about it’s nice to know that, you know, that we’re on the right track, that we have a same moral and legal framework as the rest of the world. But we don’t have the same moral and legal framework as the rest of the world, and never have. If you told the framers of the Constitution that we’re after is to, you know, do something that will be just like Europe, they would have been appalled. And if you read the Federalist Papers, it’s full of, you know, statements that make very clear they didn’t have a whole lot of respect for many of the rules in European countries. Madison, for example, says – speaks contemptuously of the countries on continental Europe, quote, “who are afraid to let their people bear arms,” end quote.” See full transcript at: http://domino.american.edu/AU/media/mediarel.nsf/1D265343BDC2189785256 B810071F238/1F2F7DC4757FD01E85256F890068E6E0?OpenDocument. 111 Anne-­Marie Slaughter, “A Brave New Judicial World,” in Ignatieff, ed. American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, p. 278. 112 The term “constitutional cross-­fertilization” is from ibid., p. 286. 113 Frank I. Michelman, “Integrity-­Anxiety?” in Ignatieff, ed. American Exceptionalism and Human Rights.

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224   Resisting the laws of history 114 Henry Kissinger cited in G. John Ikenberry, Thomas J. Knock, Anne-­Marie Slaughter and Tony Smith, The Crisis in American Foreign Policy: Wilsonianism in the twenty-­first century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 3. The difference between the foreign policy ideas of Bush 43 during the presidential campaign and those espoused after 9/11, are startling in terms of their divergence on the view toward military interventions. Bush 43’s views on unilateralism seem not to have changed, however. 115 See Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of our Times (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005) for an argument that connects interventionism in the Third World with American and Soviet ideological nationalism. His book focuses mostly on the 1970s and 1980s. 116 Thomas J. Knock, “Playing for a Hundred Years Hence: Woodrow Wilson’s Internationalism and His Would-­Be Heirs” and Anne-­Marie Slaughter, “Wilsonianism in the Twenty-­first Century” in Ikenberry et al., The Crisis in American Foreign Policy: Wilsonianism in the twenty-­first century. They both argue this was a perversion because Wilsonianism was more about a rule-­based international system than it was about spreading democracy. Thus, Bush violated the more important tenet of Wilsonianism in order to pursue a second-­order goal. 117 Tony Smith, “Wilsonianism after Iraq: The End of Liberal Internationalism?” in Ibid. 118 See Harold Hongju Koh, “America’s Jekyll-­and-Hyde Exceptionalism,” in Ignatieff, ed. American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, pp.  124–8; George W. Bush, National Security Strategy of the United States of America 34 (2002). 119 For a proponent of this argument, see Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World: America’s Vision for Human Rights (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 2005). 120 Anne-­Marie Slaughter concedes this point, but in her essay “A Brave New Judicial World,” in Ignatieff, ed. American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, she argues that the future trend is for American judges to become part of the judicial globalization going on in other parts of the world.

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8 American exceptionalism today

American exceptionalism profoundly affects how the United States acts in the world. The three ideas that make up American exceptionalism – the belief in America’s superiority, its historical mission, and that the United States shall rise to power but never decline – prove different points of departure for international interaction that nevertheless all pull in the same direction. In this chapter, I will first discuss how American exceptionalism affects the modern transatlantic relationship, specifically multilateral cooperation. Second, I will address the thesis that the financial crisis of 2008 and President Obama’s “academic” understanding of American exceptionalism heralds the so-­called “end of American exceptionalism.” Finally, I will summarize the arguments made in the book.

The New World vs. the Old World Looking at the different understandings of multilateralism found in the United States and in Europe illustrates both the first and the second part of the definition of American exceptionalism: The American kind of multilateralism must be distinct from all others, because the United States is a superior country with a unique mission in world history. One of the ironies of the staunch belief in American exceptionalism displayed throughout American history is this belief ’s disbelief that it resembles anything akin to the despised “nationalism” found in the Old World. As we know, the first part of the definition of American exceptionalism is that the United States is most definitely distinct from old Europe. Interestingly, and as Stanley Hoffmann has pointed out, this means that, while Americans dislike the kind of nationalism they associate with Europe, they fail to recognize their own nationalism and its effects. Rather, . . . their own nationalism has always seemed to them either mild and harmless – a happy celebration of emancipation for virtue – or refined and enlightened – a lofty dedication to the promotion of certain ideals of which the American nation is merely the carrier.1

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226   Resisting the laws of history Certainly, Americans recognize that in their own history there was a “lapse from mildness and an abuse of mission during the period of imperial expansion, but they see their imperialism as limited in time and reluctant at heart, and they find neither redeeming feature in Europe’s.”2 There had to be a conscious construction of difference for this to be so. As historian Akira Iriye points out, the United States was a part of the West – “forged in Enlightenment thought, developing through the era of the Industrial Revolution, and extending its ‘informal empire’ to the Middle East, the Pacific, and Latin America . . .”3 Defining colonialism and imperialism in the “European” way – extending formal control over another territory and its peoples – meant the exemption of the United States from such sins. Not just a historical construction of difference, one sees this blind spot fully operational in the manner in which the United States portrays its present day foreign policies. It would never occur to a U.S. policymaker to liken U.S. policies to those of British colonialist policies in, for instance, Egypt, Palestine or Jordan since the late 1800s, yet a fruitful comparison could most certainly be made.4 Because the United States is doing it, it must mean it is different from what the Old World once did. The strong belief in American exceptionalism, whether one wants to refer to it as a national identity, a civic form of nationalism, or a national narrative, is not mere patriotism.5 Yet Americans have tended to exempt themselves from the sins of nationalism, to “interpret its role in terms that transcend the nation.”6 To illustrate, a senior Clinton official wrote entirely without irony – in an article lamenting the rise of nationalism – that “Americans should not deny the fact that of all the nations in the history of the world, theirs is the most just, the most tolerant, the most willing to reassess itself, the best model for the future.”7

Whose mission? American exceptionalism means leading the rest of the world toward the end of history. This is the American mission. And this is one of the most difficult aspects of American exceptionalism for non-­Americans to grasp. When Francis Fukuyama announced the “end of history” after the end of the cold war, many – most certainly many Europeans – viewed it as American arrogance and perhaps even ignorance. To Europeans it was in fact their political project that was leading the world to the end of history. While the war on terror and the era of the Bush, Jr. administration seemed to herald a uniquely difficult phase in the United States–European relationship the tension that was revealed was not new. The relationship between Europe and the United States has been a complicated one since the very beginning. Their push-­ and-pull relationship since the end of the cold war starkly illuminates the fundamentally different ways in which they view themselves as well as their roles in international politics. Particularly, it illuminates the way American exceptionalism and a unilateral foreign policy impacts this close alliance. The consistent safeguarding of sovereignty and continuous unilateralism of the United States contrasts starkly with the European postwar project, which has been about states

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American exceptionalism today   227 “getting over themselves” and delegating power to a “higher” entity in both legal and moral terms.8 For the United States, however, this higher entity is itself, “bound to lead” the other states but in an international order of sovereign states, not in some version of a world federation.9 The discord in the transatlantic music heard after 9/11 was, in other words, not really about European dislike of President Bush and deep skepticism of neoconservatism (well, at least not all of it). It was, rather, yet another example of American exceptionalism’s inherent skepticism toward “Old Europe,” as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld so memorably put it.10 As argued by Danish political scientist Vibeke Schou Tjalve, the European and American projects have fundamentally diverged since the end of World War II. (One might add that these two projects never really overlapped.) The European postwar order has in many ways tried to transform sovereign states into legal and organizational networks. Hard power (i.e., the state and its abilities) was, after World War II, seen as the problem by European countries, and soft power (persuasion and cultural pull-­factors) the solution. According to this skeptical perspective on the state, multilateralism – the act of coordinating policies between states – becomes a goal in itself. As exemplified by the development of the European Union since the 1950s, Europeans do not simply view multilateralism as a means to something else. After the European experiences at the beginning of the twentieth century, anything that circumscribes state power is a good thing; anything that creates cooperation and communication is a good thing. Europeans have a justifiable fear of the unrestrained state and its concomitantly destructive capabilities in international politics.11 But a world federation is not a project that has ever appealed to Americans, despite the myth of Wilsonian internationalism that persists in the United States. What Tjalve calls the “complementary logic” – meaning the assumption that Europe and the United States want the same things and that their goals are complementary, even though their means might diverge – is an illusion that both sides of the Atlantic must rid themselves of. Certainly they can agree on aiming for a peaceful and democratic global order. But a global order consisting of what, exactly? Supranational institutions or sovereign liberal states? The issue is not that the European Union and the United States are, in effect, competing over the status as leader of the Western world. The European Union does not represent an alternative pole in the international power structure; rather it represents an alternative kind of power, Tjalve argues. Europe wants to “bind the national, transgress traditional means of power, governing instead through norm diffusion or ‘discursive seduction.’ ” The United States does not, as Robert Keohane has argued.12 As seen during the Bush, Jr. presidency, the idea that the new security threats facing the Western nations will bind them together in unity was also an illusion, as this new situation did not produce the same security policies on both sides of the Atlantic.13 Tjalve argues this is because the European states operate under the assumption that they face “risks,” while the United States operates under the assumption of facing “threats.” I believe this is a deep

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228   Resisting the laws of history expression of American exceptionalism. As seen in the previous chapters, the United States routinely perceives itself as facing threats to its way of life, as opposed to risks to its physical security. This is exactly how President Bush narrated the 9/11 attacks to his countrymen. Such a narrative is intimately linked to American exceptionalism because any non-­American belief system – be it Communism or radical Islam – poses an existential threat to the American body politic.14 This creates further distance between the two allies. From the American point of view, the new threats post-­9/11 are so existential and complex that the state must have maneuverability to react in any way necessary to prevent them from materializing, whether this reaction be unilateral or multilateral. The European perspective is that such a discourse invites power abuses by the state (for instance, opening up for a permanent state of emergency) and must be avoided.15 Indeed, as argued in the previous chapter, the manner in which the United States has conducted its war on terror makes it nigh impossible for credible U.S. leadership in one of the areas of international cooperation that it cares the most about – human rights. When Europeans thought of the Bush administration as an aberration from traditional American foreign policy, it was because they thought of the United States as the creator of the international system of global governance after World War II. What Europeans forget is what Tjalve calls “the fundamental schizophrenia” that characterizes America’s relationship with the rest of the world. This schizophrenia is not the traditional trope of the United States having been isolationist in some periods and internationalist in others, which I have argued is simply incorrect; rather, it refers to America’s constant goal of changing the world without changing itself. The rest of the world is welcome to give up its sovereignty and progress toward a world government, but the United States never will. For Europeans, the main sin of American exceptionalism is to transgress against the act of multilateralism – because multilateralism is an exercise in getting along and not waging war. In this view, gaining UN Security Council approval is not a means to an end but an end in itself, “the sine qua non for establishing an international legal order.”16 If the Security Council says no, the answer is no. No such verdict would trouble the minds of U.S. foreign policy makers. The United States, rather, sees multilateralism “as a means, not an end,” in the words of Clinton’s Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Multilateralism is only chosen when it “serves the central purpose of American foreign policy: to protect American interests.”17 This American worldview entails a special role to play for the United States, with rules that are a little bit different for the United States than for everybody else. The Bush administration, for example, was not worried its doctrine of preventive war18 would set a precedent for other nations, because they believed the dictates that apply to others do not bind the United States. Remarkably, in the U.S. exceptionalist perspective, that is not a double standard; it is benevolent hegemony.19 Or, as Richard Betts writes in his review of U.S. National Security Strategies from 1944 to 2002,

American exceptionalism today   229

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Rather than seeing a choice between nationalism and internationalism, makers of national security strategy have usually conflated them, assuming a natural identity of interest between Americans and other right thinking societies. Even to liberals, multilateralism has usually been a vehicle for American dominance (rationalized as leadership), not an alternative to it.20 Although the United States wants to lead the world and create liberal democratic rules that will create the end of history and bring about a peaceful international environment, it cannot see itself being subject to such rules itself (what Michael Ignafieff has referred to as “exemptionalism”21). As I have argued throughout this book, such a way of understanding exceptionalism – as a belief in one’s own uniqueness that naturally inspires unilateralism – is a good substitute for the old trope of isolationism. It provides us with a better way of conceptualizing the United States’ tortured relationship with the world since the eighteenth century.22 This is also why multilateralism in the way Europeans understands it is unlikely to be executed by the United States, and why Europe – and other states that have bought into the U.S.-led postwar order – often fail to grasp the U.S. approach to international cooperation. The United States thinks itself the beacon of liberty to the rest of the world, and carries upon its shoulders the task of ensuring the successful transition from history to post-­history, where liberal democracy reigns. This means that the United States is not part of the modernizing, democratizing, globalizing project. The United States is this project, as Tjalve points out. Where other states get confused is when they assume that the United States not only created, but also subjected itself, to the postwar international order.23 Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have fallen victim to this misunderstanding when he, on September 11, 2013, wrote an instantly (in)famous op-­ed in The New York Times in which he straight-­forwardly told Americans that “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional.”24 Putin was referring to President Obama’s address to the nation the night before on the situation in Syria and the alternative responses to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-­Assad on his own people. Here, President Obama said: America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong, but when with modest effort and risk we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.25 Again, an American president was arguing for military action taken without UN Security Council authorization, if need be. This is what the Russian president was arguing against – ironic though it may have been.

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230   Resisting the laws of history The inherent tension in American exceptionalism – with specific consequences for foreign policy – is that this identity preaches universality along with its uniqueness. The United States is unique, but the world would benefit from being more like it. In this view, there is in fact no contradiction between hegemony and multilateralism. Multilateralism within the U.S.-dominated world order means obtaining agreement from others to do things the American way. As Henry Luce presciently wrote when announcing the “American Century” in 1941, the United States would be the “Good Samaritan” that saved the world from fascism, and indeed – in the American narrative – it has continued to save the world from Communism and now from “evil-­doers” (as Bush told Americans on September 16, 2001).26 In order to fully appreciate the meaning and direction of U.S. foreign policy – and perhaps to prepare us for the next American mission to save the world – we must contend with the powerful, popular, and pervasive belief in American exceptionalism that exists in the United States.

The end of American exceptionalism? Of course, not only the assumption of exceptionalism, but also the questioning of this assumption, have been an important part of figuring out America’s role in the world. The belief in America’s rejection of the natural law of empires rising and falling explains why cyclical economic decline spurs a heated debate over “the end of exceptionalism.” The United States has, since its ascendancy to super- and now hyper power at least twice questioned the third part of the definition of American exceptionalism: that the United States shall rise to power, but never fall. The first modern existential crisis came in the troubled decade of the 1970s, when the United States seemed poised to lose the cold war because of relative economic decline vis-­à-vis Japan and the European Economic Community, and because the Soviet Union was about to achieve relative nuclear parity with the United States. The relative international decline of the United States was exacerbated by a series of domestic scandals, making the country seem internally weak as well. In the wake of the failed and highly controversial Vietnam War, American voters were faced with the executive abuses that became known as the Watergate scandal, adding insult to an already injured body politic. In 1974, President Richard M. Nixon resigned in disgrace as a result of these abuses of power. In 1975, sociologist Daniel Bell wrote a National Affairs essay titled, “The End of American Exceptionalism,” questioning the validity of (the objective truth of ) American exceptionalism in light of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. “Today,” Bell wrote, “the belief in American exceptionalism has vanished with the end of empire, the weakening of power, the loss of faith in the nation’s future.”27 Just as Bell asked in his seminal essay how, exactly, it was possible for the United States to have gone so far down the road to perdition in Vietnam, thirty years later many Americans wondered how, exactly, the United States had ended

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American exceptionalism today   231 up here again. Going from being the sole superpower embraced by the world in the wake of 9/11, the United States had slipped into both economic recession as well as two wars that looked eerily like Vietnam, with no “peace with honor” in sight.28 When President Obama entered the White House in January 2009, he was thus taking over at a time of national distress much like the mid-­1970s. The financial crisis that began in 2007–2008 was the most severe the country had experienced since the Great Depression.29 The war on terror seemed poised to fail, unable as it was to deliver the culprit of the attacks of September 11, 2001 or deliver freedom and democracy – as the invasions apparently were supposed to do – to either Iraq or Afghanistan.30 When President Obama was asked in Strasbourg in 2009 whether he believed in American exceptionalism, it was perhaps no accident that he chose to highlight Greek and British exceptionalism – singling out two historic empires on which the sun had long since set. At the end of the first decade of the new millennium, the United States again seemed in decline, again waging imperial wars on the periphery; again mired in economic crisis; and again mistrusted around the world.31 Indeed, President Obama had as one of his main foreign policy goals the rekindling of frayed friendships across the Atlantic as well as the repair of relations with alienated non-­allies such as Pakistan. It was a time of national humility, practicality, and reaching out across the oceans. It was the diplomatic hangover after the halcyon days of the latest mission to save the world. But a foreign policy of cautious, piecemeal diplomacy rather than grandiose rhetoric and bombastic interventions made many Americans nervous. It seemed to fundamentally question the third part of the definition of American exceptionalism – that the United States shall forever rise to power, never to decline or fade into irrelevance. In 2010, New York Times journalist David Sanger and Washington Post journalist Kathleen Parker engaged in a rather remarkable exchange on NBC’s television show Meet the Press that displayed the anxiety the specter of decline inspires in Americans. Sanger, a seasoned U.S. foreign policy journalist, argued that President Obama’s foreign policy strategy was one of reaching out to allies, in effect signaling, “America does not have to be the exceptional nation, where everybody does it our way.”32 (This was a rather honest definition of what American exceptionalism entails.) Parker, a noted conservative columnist, shot back, “Most Americans do think we are exceptional” and would be concerned that if Obama assumes America is unexceptional when engaging with the world, “we are compromising our strength.” In other words, engaging in substantive multilateralism, or “leading from behind” as one White House official called the lead-­up to the intervention in Libya in the spring of 2011, means the negation of American exceptionalism. There is only one manner in which the United States can engage with the rest of the world: as the exceptional nation that leads the rest toward the end of history. In this context, it is to be expected that the ominous specter of relative U.S. decline brought anxiety over the validity of American exceptionalism to the fore of the presidential election of 2012. Questioning President Obama’s

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232   Resisting the laws of history belief in American exceptionalism quickly became a full-­fledged campaign strategy employed by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Writing in his book No Apology. The Case for American Greatness,33 that President Obama had toured the world “apologizing for America” in his first term, Romney promised to assert and promote American exceptionalism were he to be elected president. The Republican Party platform prominently included the phrase “American exceptionalism” by making it the title of its foreign policy platform, as well as including a sentence in the body of the text stating that the party believes in “American exceptionalism – the conviction that our country holds a unique place and role in human history.”34 The implication was that the other party and the other party’s candidate could not be trusted to do the same. Belief in American exceptionalism, then, became a stand-­in for a citizenship test as well as a term of polarization that was supposed to divide liberals and conservatives.35 But divide it did not. Rather, the challenge from the Republican Party became a competition between Republicans and Democrats as to who believed more in American exceptionalism. President Obama frequently used the phrase, responding to Republican critics in 2012 that, “My entire career has been a testimony to American exceptionalism.”36 In fact, in the battle over who believed more in American exceptionalism – measured by the crude tally of who used the phrase itself more – President Obama had won.37 Upon re-­election, President Obama made sure there would be no debate over his staunch belief in American exceptionalism during his second term. In his second Inaugural speech in January 2013, the president stated: What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: “We hold these truths to be self-­evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”38 Obama ended the speech by rallying his fellow citizens to the mission upon which the country was founded: “With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.” The conservative magazine The American Thinker’s response to the Second Inaugural was that although Obama had now made it clear he thought the United States was exceptional, this was a merely a sign of “diagnosable narcissism” as the reason for his conversion was his own reelection – in effect, Obama only thought “America is exceptional because it elected Barack Obama.”39 The election campaign of 2012 was an expression of national anxiety over decline, irrelevance, and the possible end of American exceptionalism. This national anxiety expressed itself in the most transparent of ways – who believes more in American exceptionalism? Tellingly, all political candidates answered the question in unison: “we do!” No one dared dissent.

American exceptionalism today   233

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American exceptionalism and the “tyranny of the majority” The lack of debate over the invasion of Iraq in 2002–2003, the telling debate during the 2008 presidential election over who can be defined as “American,” and the competition over who could say the words “American exceptionalism” most during the 2012 presidential campaign point to the significantly conformist effect of the widespread belief in American exceptionalism. Indeed, Alexis de Tocqueville did not just inaugurate the term “exceptional” when comparing the United States to Europe, he is also known for his astute observations on the potential for a “tyranny of the majority” that he saw in American society. Tocqueville’s argument was that while U.S. society was free and open to a degree not seen in Europe at the time, this was only true to a certain extent. A person could say or write almost anything they pleased, but only insofar as the person’s opinions stayed within the bounds defined by the majority. If someone were to stray beyond the bounds of the accepted views of the majority, he or she would quickly experience the limits of “freedom.” As Sean Wilentz writes, “It was an early description of the kind of self-­censorship that led to what the journalist and sociologist William H. Whyte would call ‘groupthink,’ a reluctance to break ranks or court disfavor, even in the absence of formal state censorship.”40 Building on Tocqueville, Louis Hartz’ classic work The Liberal Tradition in America argued that the real danger to American society lay in a “tyranny of unanimity” because of the hegemonic ideology of liberalism. In fact, Hartz was worried about “the consequences of American exceptionalism on both the domestic and international fronts.”41 Domestically, the liberal tradition showed its unanimous force when confronted by other internal ideological challenges, leading to the destructive nature of McCarthyism – a movement Hartz was partly responding to.42 Internationally, the liberal tradition would be equally intolerant and fail in its mission to impose liberal values everywhere, Hartz argued.43 When observing the absence of debate both in the media and in Congress in the run-­up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and indeed the Bush administration’s rhetoric aimed at the rest of the world, Tocqueville’s and Hartz’ insights echoed. As Hutchinson et al. point out, the linkage of national identity to national security after 9/11 contributed toward a national climate where dissent and opposition could become equated with anti-­Americanism. A startling example in this regard was provided by White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer warning that “people have to watch what they say and watch what they do” after television talk show host Bill Maher made comments critical of previous U.S. responses to terrorism. Indeed, Attorney General John Ashcroft told a congressional panel that critics of the Bush administration “only aid terrorists” because such commentary “gives ammunition to America’s enemies, and pause to America’s friends.”44 This way of framing U.S. security policy constricts debate and dissent, and not just in the context of the war on terror. In 1995 a highly antagonistic and partisan Republican-­controlled House of Representatives chose not to vote against President Clinton’s war powers in regards to Bosnia because they did not want to be

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234   Resisting the laws of history seen as obstructionist and unpatriotic in national security matters.45 More recently, Republican senators on the Foreign Affairs Committee demanded in 2013 to know if Samantha Power, Obama’s nominee for UN Ambassador and the author of A Problem from Hell, a book chronicling American passivity in the face of various genocides around the world, would ever “apologize” for the United States. This led to what journalist David Remnick described as a “depressing Kabuki drama,” in which “Power seemed forced to prove her patriotic bona fides by insisting repeatedly that the U.S. was ‘the greatest country on earth’ and that, no, she would ‘never apologize’ for it.”46 It becomes hard to voice dissent, in other words, when what you are dissenting against is framed as “good” and “civilized.”

What I have argued In this book, I have argued for the profound influence of American exceptionalism on U.S. foreign policy. When writing on the Founding of the United States, authors often understandably concentrate on one big idea, be it federalism, republicanism, liberalism etc.47 One of the main points of writing this book has been to argue that three important ideas have influenced the American approach to the world: of the New World being superior to the Old World; of the New World pursuing a mission from God that shall save the Old World; and of this new country rising to power yet never declining. The belief in these three ideas has, I argue, made up an identity called American exceptionalism. Indeed, while scholars of American political development rarely focus on U.S. foreign policy, my argument is that the two must be considered together, for the development of the animating ideas behind American exceptionalism cannot be separated from the rise to power the United States has undertaken these last three centuries.48 Realist international relations scholars often focus on how the international system pushes states to act in certain ways. I agree with liberal and constructivist political scientists G. John Ikenberry, John Gerard Ruggie, and Jeffrey Legro that systemic attributes of international politics have provided only a limited guide to American foreign policy behavior, however.49 As Ruggie states, “structural and functional precepts become national interests only when they tap into, and resonate with, ideas, principles, and norms rooted in the nation’s sense of self.”50 As argued in this book, I disagree, however, with their claim that American identity has been the cause of the U.S. commitment to multilateralism.51 I disagree with this claim, first, because I disagree with their definition of American identity; and second, because I disagree with how they connect American exceptionalism to multilateralism.52 Indeed, in surveying the U.S. commitment to multilateralism, several studies have found this commitment to be selective at best, and the reason behind such selectivity to be American exceptionalism.53 In other words, I have argued that: American Exceptionalism  →  Multilateralism  →  Unilateralism

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American exceptionalism today   235 This book has attempted an ideational explanation for this phenomenon. The main theoretical point of the book has been to argue for the key importance of understanding a nation’s identity in order to understand how it defines its role in international politics. Material factors are of course of import in this regard, but the ways states deal with material factors depend critically on their self-­assessment and their view of their role in the broader world.54 As Legro puts it, “states have encountered international society in many different ways, and each nation has had its own unique notion of how to relate to the rest of the world.”55 I believe that we can better understand the long-­term trends in American foreign policy by taking the belief in American exceptionalism seriously. The broader claim that follows from this is that we cannot understand how any country – be it France, China, or Costa Rica – defines their interests and thus acts upon the world unless we understand its self-­conceptions, or “identities.” A legitimate question directed at my “identity approach” is, however, if the United States has always been defined by exceptionalism, how do we account for the variations in U.S. policy that do exist?56 Or, asked in a different way, if exceptionalism is a hegemonic mindset within the United States, why do leaders argue over it and take different approaches? Just to take one example, in the 1840s and 1850s there seemed to be two foreign policies – one for each section of the country – aimed not at foreign lands but at each other.57 First, my argument does not preclude the existence of groups opposing unilateral internationalism. U.S. history shows that there have been times of ferocious disagreement on U.S. foreign policy, such as when the Democrats and Grover Cleveland argued with the Republicans in the late 1800s over the level of overseas involvement; and, perhaps most famously, the fight over the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. While my argument entails simplification of both a complicated concept such as national identity and of a multifaceted foreign policy tradition, I still acknowledge the presence of dissent and of competing traditions. What is important to grasp about these debates, however, is that the disagreement was not on international engagement per se, but on how to engage with the world. The main point of my argument is that the unilateral internationalist tradition – the tradition Henry Cabot Lodge fought for in the battle over the League – is the one that consistently won out in these debates. American exceptionalism and unilateral internationalism have thus been hegemonic to the extent that they won the important policy debates, but this is not to say other ideas have not existed. It is to say, rather, that over these past three centuries competing approaches have lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the vast majority of Americans and the policymakers that count.58 My argument is not that American exceptionalism explains all of American foreign policy all of the time. Rather, I hope to have contributed to a different understanding of American foreign policy at important points in time, while acknowledging that reality is rarely as clean as any one theoretical explanation would like it to be.

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Continuity, not change I have also argued that the history of U.S. foreign policy exhibits more continuity than change because of the strong connection between American exceptionalism and unilateral internationalism. I have argued that American foreign policy has been steadier than is commonly recognized, in the sense that it has been constantly seeking unilateral maneuverability, even when engaging in so-­ called multilateral ventures. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the kind of multilateralism that the United States facilitated on the international level during World War II did not entail a fundamental turn-­around in U.S. ideas about foreign policy. There was little turn-­around toward multilateralism needed because the postwar order imposed few limitations on U.S. freedom of action. Rather there was a fundamental continuity in the manner in which the United States retained unilateral maneuverability and continued to pursue its mission to reform the world. I have called this unilateral internationalism. I believe this to be a significant point. Conventional liberal and constructivist literature in political science assumes multilateralism is “singularly compatible with American exceptionalism,” as Ruggie has argued. In fact, as I have argued in this book, American exceptionalism is uniquely compatible with unilateralism. American exceptionalism’s major significance for U.S. foreign policy is its ideational justification for unilateral internationalism, then. But American exceptionalism is more complicated than simply an inspiration for going out and conquering the world. One goal of this book has been to convey the sincere belief found in the United States that, most likely, there shall be no real need to conquer anything or anyone. Rather, Americans have always assumed, as did Woodrow Wilson, that people everywhere share American political and moral ideas – “that the people left to themselves would abandon their ‘wicked’ statesmen and espouse the cause of peace and reasonableness as understood in the liberal world, and above all, in the United States.”59 A more recent expression of this belief was seen in the run-­up to the war in Iraq. As Vice President Dick Cheney put it prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003: “Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”60 The operating idea here is that in every foreigner there is an American waiting to get out. Indeed, its teleological assumption of universality – what is America today will be the world tomorrow61 – would suggest that if Americans just had a bit more patience, they would not need to intervene quite so much in other states’ affairs. Ironically, what we see instead is not a humble aloofness or a patient multilateralism. Attempts to promote international institutions as an addition to, not replacement of, U.S. hegemony – as President Barack Obama very carefully hinted at in his speech at West Point in May 2014 – elicit exceptionalist cris de coeur.62 The thesis of the so-­called exemplary strain of American exceptionalism – the idea that the United States was merely showing an example for the world to emulate and had no interest in meddling in this world – can safely be put to rest.

American exceptionalism today   237 There is no sign of it in U.S. foreign policy history. Rather than an isolated and isolating city on a hill, the United States is eager to lead the world toward the end of history – whether the rest of the world feels like following or not.

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Notes   1 Stanley Hoffmann, Gulliver’s Troubles, Or the Setting of American Foreign Policy (New York: McGraw-­Hill Book Company, 1968), p. 101.   2 Ibid.   3 Iriye defines “informal empire” as “ad hoc systems of control exercised by the West over indigenous peoples for facilitating trade.” He also notes that at this time “few European nations were intent upon systematically extending formal control over other parts of the globe. In this sense, too, America was still part of the West.” See Akira Iriye, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations Volume III (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 7.   4 See, for example, Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2005); Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East (New York: Vintage Books, 2005).   5 As the International Social Survey Program on national identity points out, “Patriotism is love of one’s country or dedicated allegiance to same, while nationalism is a strong national devotion that places one’s own country above all others.” See Tom W. Smith and Seokho Kim, “National Pride in Cross-­national and Temporal Perspective,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 18, 2006, pp.  127–36. See also Graham E. Fuller, “America’s Uncomfortable Relationship with Nationalism,” Foreign Policy Brief, The Stanley Foundation (Muscatine, IA: July 2006). URL: http://reports.stanleyfoundation.org.   6 Hoffmann, Gulliver’s Troubles, p. 101.   7 David Rothkopf, “In Praise of Cultural Imperialism?” Foreign Policy, 107, 1997, p. 49. Rothkopf was Clinton’s Deputy under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Policy.   8 Vibeke Schou Tjalve, “Efter Bush: Stadig Multilateralisme, American Style?” Internasjonal Politikk, 66(2), 2008, pp. 87–317. In English: “After Bush: Still Multilateralism, American Style?” Translations mine.   9 Ibid., p. 288. See Joseph S. Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990). 10 John Hooper and Ian Black, “Anger at Rumsfeld attack on ‘old Europe,’ ” The Guardian (January 24, 2003). URL: www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/24/ germany.france. 11 Tjalve, “Efter Bush: Stadig Multilateralisme, American Style?” pp. 305–6. 12 Robert Keohane, “Ironies of Sovereignty: The European Union and the United States” in J. H. H. Weiler, Iain Begg, and John Peterson, eds., Integration in an Expanding European Union (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-­Blackwell, 2003). 13 Tjalve, “Efter Bush: Stadig Multilateralisme, American Style?” p. 289. 14 Michael C. Desch also argues along these lines, but uses the terms Liberalism and Illiberalism. See “America’s Liberal Illiberalism: The Ideological Origins of Overreaction in U.S. Foreign Policy,” International Security, 32(3), 2007–2008, pp. 7–43. 15 Tjalve, “Efter Bush: Stadig Multilateralisme, American Style?” p. 290. 16 Robert Kagan, “Multilateralism, American Style,” The Washington Post, September 13, 2002. 17 Warren Christopher, “Building Peace in the Middle East.” Address at Columbia University, New York, (September 20, 1993). Quoted in Ivo Daalder, “Knowing when to say No: U.S. Policy for Peacekeeping,” p. 55 in UN Peacekeeping, American Politics,

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238   Resisting the laws of history and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s. William J. Durch ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, pp. 35–68. 18 The discussion of whether the Bush administration’s preventive war against Iraq constituted a “revolution” in U.S. foreign policy can be seen in, for example, John Lewis Gaddis, Surprise, Security and the American Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); Melvyn P. Leffler, “9/11 and American Foreign Policy,” Diplomatic History, 29(3), 2005. 19 Robert Jervis, “The Compulsive Empire,” Foreign Policy, July 1, 2003. URL: www. foreignpolicy.com/articles/2003/07/01/the_compulsive_empire. 20 Richard K. Betts, “U.S. National Security Strategy: Lenses and Landmarks,” paper presented for the launch conference of the Princeton Project “Toward a New National Security Strategy,” (November 2004), pp.  3–4. URL: www.princeton.edu/~ppns/ papers/betts.pdf. 21 Michael Ignatieff, ed. American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 22 Tjalve, “Efter Bush: Stadig Multilateralisme, American Style?” p. 291. 23 Robert Kagan has argued this is mostly a product of the different levels of power the United States possesses versus the European Union, which is also what realists would argue. See Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Knopf, 2003). 24 Vladimir V. Putin, “A Plea for Caution on Syria,” The New York Times (September 11, 2013). URL: www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-­plea-for-­caution-from-­ russia-on-­syria.html?_r=0. 25 “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on Syria,” The White House (September 10, 2013). URL: www.whitehouse.gov/the-­press-office/2013/09/10/remarks-­ president-address-­nation-syria. 26 Meghana V. Nayak and Christopher Malone, “American Orientalism and American Exceptionalism: A Critical Rethinking of US Hegemony,” International Studies Review, 11(2), 2009, p. 271. 27 National Affairs, 41, 1975, p.  197. URL: www.nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/ detail/the-­end-of-­american-exceptionalism. 28 As President Richard M. Nixon declared upon the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 between the United States and the parties to the Vietnam War. 29 John Hilsenrath, Serena Ng and Damian Paletta, “Worst crisis since ‘30s, with no end yet in sight,” The Wall Street Journal (September 18, 2008). URL: http://online.wsj. com/article/SB122169431617549947.html. 30 George W. Bush, “Rights and Aspirations of the People of Afghanistan,” The White House Archives (July 8, 2004). URL: http://georgewbush-­whitehouse.archives.gov/ infocus/afghanistan/20040708.html; George W. Bush, “Remarks by the President at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy,” United States Chamber of Commerce, Washington, DC (November 6, 2003.) URL: http:// georgewbush-­whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031106-2.html. 31 Indeed, the presidency of George W. Bush inspired another round of “declinist” books on the U.S. empire, just as the 1970s did. For some prominent examples, see G. John Ikenberry, ed. America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power (Ithaca, NY: University of Cornell Press, 2002); Andrew J. Bacevich, Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002); Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of American Empire (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004); Chalmers Johnson, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of Empire (New York: Metropolitan/Owl Book, 2004). 32 Meet the Press, NBC, April 11, 2010. 33 New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2010. 34 2012 Republican Party Platform, “We Believe in America,” (August 27). URL: www. gop.com/2012-republican-­platform_exceptionalism/ Although the sentiment embodied

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American exceptionalism today   239 by American exceptionalism had been around since before the Founding of the Republic – as this book has shown – the specific term “American exceptionalism” had not been used by presidential candidates until now. A term previously reserved for the halls of academe all of a sudden went viral. 35 See James W. Ceaser, “The Origins and Character of American Exceptionalism,” American Political Thought, 1(1), p. 2. 36 Quoted in Uri Friedman, “ ‘American Exceptionalism,’ A Short History,” Foreign Policy (July/August 2012). URL: www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/18/ american_exceptionalism. 37 Robert Schlesinger, “Obama has Mentioned American Exceptionalism More than Bush,” U.S. News and World Report (January 31, 2011). URL: www.usnews.com/ opinion/blogs/robert-­schlesinger/2011/01/31/obama-­has-mentioned-­americanexceptionalism-­more-than-­bush; Frank Rich, “What Makes Us Exceptional,” New York Magazine (July 22, 2012). URL: http://nymag.com/news/frank-­rich/american-­ exceptionalism-2012-7/. 38 Barack H. Obama, “[Second] Inaugural Address by President Barack Obama,” The White House (January 21, 2013). URL: www.whitehouse.gov/the-­press-office/2013/01/21/ inaugural-­address-president-­barack-obama. 39 Peter Wilson, “Obama’s Rebirth as an American Exceptionalist,” The American Thinker (February 1, 2013) URL: www.americanthinker.com/2013/02/obamas_ rebirth_as_an_american_exceptionalist.html#ixzz2S39e1QKe. 40 Sean Wilentz, “Discovering Tocqueville,” The American Prospect (February 28, 2010). URL: http://prospect.org/article/discovering-­tocqueville-0. 41 Nayak and Malone, “American Orientalism and American Exceptionalism,” p. 269. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 John Hutcheson, David Domke, Andre Billeaudeaux and Philip Garland, “U.S. National Identity, Political Elites, and a Patriotic Press Following September 11,” Political Communication, 21, 2004, p. 47. 45 Ryan C. Hendrickson, The Clinton Wars: The Constitution, Congress, and War Powers (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002), p. 98. 46 David Remnick, “Going the Distance,” The New Yorker (January 27, 2014), URL. 47 See, for instance, on federalism, Martha Derthick, Keeping the Compound Republic (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2001); on the concepts of nature and history’s import for the Founding, see James W. Ceaser, Nature and History in American Political Development: A Debate (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006); on liberalism, see Louis Hartz’ classic book, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1955). For an interesting overview of the two schools within political science studying American Political Development – historical institutionalism and the ideational approach – and how they can communicate with each other, see Brian J. Glenn, “The Two Schools of American Political Development,” (2004). Division II Faculty Publications. Paper 76. URL: http://wesscholar.wesleyan. edu/div2facpubs/76. 48 Michael H. Hunt also argued that three ideas were the original movers of U.S. foreign policy, namely visions of national greatness, an imbedded racial hierarchy, and fear of revolutionary unrest. See Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987). 49 Particularly as this pertains to the remaking of the international order such as in 1919, 1945, and 1989, as they point out. Indeed, Kenneth Waltz was relegated to saying about the end of the cold war that balancing would at some point occur against the United States, but it was impossible to say when. See “Structural Realism After the Cold War,” International Security, 25(1), 2000, pp. 5–41. 50 John Gerard Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity (New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 203.

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240   Resisting the laws of history 51 G. John Ikenberry, “Multilateralism and U.S. Grand Strategy,” in Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman, eds., Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002). Legro would disagree with this as well, as he does not see “identity” as causing “internationalism.” See Legro, p. 81. 52 In Winning the Peace, Ruggie compares the American conception of political community, based on a universal foundation, with America’s multilateralist vision as reflecting an analogous idea: the willed formation of an international order premised on “this universal foundation open in principle to anyone.” (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 25. 53 Stewart Patrick and Shepard Forman, eds., Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), p. 7; Rosemary Foot, S. Neil MacFarlane, and Michael Mastanduno, eds., US Hegemony and International Organizations. The United States and Multilateral Institutions (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 268. 54 Jeffery W. Legro, Rethinking the World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), p. 8. Thus, I am agreeing with Legro on the importance of focusing on a “neglected dimension of foreign policy, specifically, national ideas about how to approach international society.” 55 Ibid., p. 9. 56 I wish to thank Jeff Legro for probing questions and comments on this issue. 57 Robert Kagan, Dangerous Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), esp. chapter 7, “The Foreign Policy of Slavery.” 58 One could also say that the effort at reinterpretation affirms the hegemony in the first place. 59 Quoted in Hans Kohn, American Nationalism: An Interpretive Essay (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957), p. 205. 60 Interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, NBC, “Meet the Press,” March 16, 2003. URL: www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/cheneymeetthepress.htm. 61 Odd-­Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third world interventions and the making of our times. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 9. 62 David Rothkopf, “Clean Up on Aisle One,” www.foreignpolicy.com (May 28, 2014). URL: www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/28/clean_up_on_aisle_one_obama_ west_point_speech; David Brooks, “The Autocracy Challenge,” The New York Times (May 29, 2014). URL: www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/opinion/brooks-­the-autocracy-­ challenge.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss.

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Index

Abrams, Elliot 214 Acheson, Dean 174, 177 Adams, John Quincy 27, 33, 35, 61, 72, 73, 76, 77, 91n102, 92n120, 93n134 Adams-Onís Treaty (1819) 76 Adet, Pierre 70 Adler, Selig 61, 64–5, 139–40, 141 Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy 186n76 Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations 163 Afghanistan 115, 231 al-Qaeda 210 Albright, Madeline 203, 204 Algeciras Agreement (1906) 82 alliances 59, 61, 62, 71; avoidance of entangling 60, 68, 70, 71, 72–3, 90n93, 108; with France 63, 68, 69, 70, 71, 80, 90n87, 91n100, n102, 106, 109, 136, 138; with Great Britain 81, 106, 109, 136, 138 aloofness 7, 10, 27, 28, 59, 66, 67–8, 69, 78, 83, 99, 102, 106, 108–9, 110, 111, 118, 129, 133, 136, 137 Ambrosius, Lloyd E. 130, 131 America First Committee 155 American Bar Association (ABA) 172, 213, 214, 223n102 American Institute of Public Opinion (AIPO) 156, 157 American Revolution 28, 31, 32, 35, 37, 47, 60, 69 The American Thinker magazine 232 Anglican Church 36 Anglo-American Treaty of Guarantee (1919) 178 Appleby, Joyce 47 Arab Spring 2 arms control 129, 148n60, 203–4, 207

Aron, Raymond 193n184 Articles of Confederation (1781) 77 Ashcroft, John 233 Asia 56, 71, 77, 93n142, 95n176, 140, 155, 203 al-Assad, Bashar 229 assertive internationalism 79 Atlantic Charter 154, 158–9, 184n49, 186n76 Atlantic Conference (1941) 174 Austin, Warren 165, 187n85 Baker, Ray Stannard 153 balance of power, European 58, 63, 69, 101 Baltimore, Lord 30 Barkley, Alben 187n85 Beaumont, Gustav de 44 Belgium 176 belief in American exceptionalism 14–15, 17, 18, 27, 225, 226, 233 Bell, Daniel 33, 230 Bell, Edward Price 61 Bemis, Samuel Flagg 56, 68, 75 Berlin Conference (1884) 81 Betts, Richard K. 177, 178, 206, 228–9 Bevin, Ernest 176 Bhutan 62 Biden, Joe 218n40 Bill of Rights 103 Biological Weapons Convention 207 bipolar international structure 101 birtherism 19n2 Bismarck, Otto von 76 Black Hawk down incident (1993) 201 Blair, Tony 210 Blum, John Morton 168, 174 Bolton, John 202 Borah, William 133, 134, 136, 137, 140, 155

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Index   261 Borgwardt, Elizabeth 104, 109–10, 184n46 Bosnia 115, 202, 207, 220n63, 233–4 Boston Gazette 83 Boxer Rebellion 82 Bozeman, Theodore Dwight 53n128 Brands, H. W. 68 Braumoeller, Bear F. 62, 142 Bretton Woods 105, 114, 145, 173, 174–5, 176 Breyer, Stephen 215, 223n110 Bricker, John 213 Britain see Great Britain British Empire 35 Brubaker, Rogers 12 Brussels Pact (1948) 176 Bryan, William Jennings 42 Bryce, James 36, 37, 41, 45 Burke, Edmund 29–30, 39 Burma 62 Burnaby, Andrew 45 Bush, George H. W. 198, 204; and Gulf War 199, 210; and multilateralism 200, 201, 205; National Security Directive (NSD) 74 (1992) 200, 201; new world order 199, 201 Bush, George W. 5, 6, 13, 197, 198, 204, 205, 215–16, 228, 230; on CIA interrogation procedures 212; and war on terror 6, 208, 210, 211 Bush (George W.) administration 58, 205, 210, 226, 227–8; rejection of treaties 113, 207, 214; unilateral internationalism 206, 216; unilateralism 197, 198 Bush Doctrine 216 Bybee, Jay 212 Cadogan, Alexander 165, 187n88 Campbell, Thomas 168, 188n104 Canada 66, 67, 73, 77, 84, 91n113, 132 Canning, George 73 Cantril, Hadley 157 capitalism, promotion of 7 Caribbean 66, 78 Carr, E. H. 106 Carter, Jimmy 202, 223n104 Castro, Cipriano 82 Catholics 34 Chamberlain, Neville 150n84 Chemical Weapons Convention (1997) 203 Cheney, Dick 236 China 62, 142; Boxer Rebellion 82; and Lend-Lease assistance 260; Open Door towards 76, 137; and UN 202

chosenness 28, 30, 32–3, 44, 100 Christianity 36, 64 Christopher, Warren 228 Churchill, Winston 158, 159 CIA interrogation procedures 212–13 “city upon a hill” vision 7, 11, 15, 27, 30, 159 civic nationalism 103, 107, 117, 122n32, 226 Civil War 41–2, 76, 81 civilization 39, 40, 42, 75, 132, 215 classical realism 100–1, 105, 106 Claude, Inis 143, 162, 214 Clay, General Lucius 177 Cleveland, Grover 67, 235 Clinton, Bill 198, 201, 204, 205, 218n29, 233; and military intervention 202, 204, 207, 220n63; Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 25 201 Clinton administration 116, 197–8, 205 Clinton, Hillary 1 Coe, Kevin 6 Cohen, Warren I. 179 Cohrs, Patrick 138–9 cold war 101, 103, 105, 114, 153, 176, 214; end of 17, 58, 103, 197, 198–9, 217n11 Colombia 82, 207 colonialism 42, 74–5, 226 commerce 77 Communism 123n44, 199, 230; collapse of 197 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty 207 Congress 158; and international organizations 175, 203; and Iraq war 209, 210, 221n80; and Treaty of Versailles 109 Connally, Tom 164, 172, 177, 187n85, 188n100 Constitution 33; Three Fifths Compromise 34 Constitutional Convention 37 constructivist theory 13, 102–3, 104, 106, 107–9, 117, 123n48, 234, 236 containment 102, 105 Continental Congress 71 continental expansion 4, 9, 16, 20n20, 38–9, 40, 42, 57, 58, 73–5, 91n120, 108; as domestic policy 64, 65; as isolationism 64–7 contract multilateralism 113, 203–4, 214 Convention on the Eliminations of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1994) 211

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262   Index

Dawes Plan (1924) 108, 138, 139 Declaration of Independence 33, 34, 60, 69, 103 decolonization 166, 202 DeConde, Alexander 40, 69, 70 Defense Planning Guidance (1992) 205 defensive realism 101, 102, 120n16 democracy, promotion of 7, 204, 206, 215 Democratic Party 133–4, 164, 205, 232 Democratic Republicans 70 Denmark 177 Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement (1940) 159–60, 183n37 diffuse reciprocity 112, 117 disarmament 137, 148n60, 165, 186n76 Divine, Robert 104, 109, 136, 159–60, 184n55 Doenicke, Justus 184n49, 185n60 Dole, Robert 201 Dominican Republic 82, 115 Dulles, John Foster 120n12, 169, 170, 171, 214 Dumbarton Oaks Conference (1944) 162, 165–6, 185n63 Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste 9, 131, 134

Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy 9, 68, 81 end of history thesis 197, 226 energy conservation 202 English exceptionalism 36, 42 English nationalism 36 Enlightenment 28, 31, 33, 35, 103, 226 equality 30, 113, 117 ethnic nationalism 122n32 Eurocentric exceptionalism 36 Europe 4, 32, 61, 66, 73, 102, 103, 138, 139, 143, 144–5, 226–7; balance of power 58, 63, 69, 101; reform of 36, 130, 131 European Convention on Human Rights 215 European Union 227 exceptionalism: belief in 14–15, 17, 18, 27, 225, 226, 233; and continental expansion 73–5; end of 230–2; English 36, 42; Eurocentric 36; exemplary 7, 8, 9, 11, 16, 27, 28–35, 57, 60, 61, 66, 67, 68, 74, 146n8, 236; geographic 46, 60, 64; and human rights 211–15; missionary 7–8, 9, 16, 27, 28–9, 35–42, 57, 60, 65, 66–7, 68, 74, 81, 146n8; moral 57, 60, 64; objective definition of 4, 17, 18; political 28, 31–3, 44, 46, 60, 154; religious 28, 29–30, 44, 46; secular 28–9, 30–1, 42, 26; and unilateralism 105–11, 118, 154; and war on terror 208–10 exemplary identity 7, 8, 9, 11, 16, 27, 28–35, 56, 60, 61, 66, 67, 68, 74, 146n8, 236 “exemptionalism” 194n200, 211, 229 expansionism 59, 66, 73–5, 77–8, 143, 226; economic 57, 74, 143–4; overseas 75–7, 78, 92n127, 108, 140; see also continental expansion; empire; imperialism

economic expansionism 57, 74, 143–4 economic isolationism 62, 140 economic multilateralism 110, 111, 114, 145, 172–6 economic nationalism 129, 142, 154, 181n5 economic opportunity 28 Edwards, Jonathan 45 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 120n12, 214 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 45 empire 58, 77–9, 93n142, 117, 118, 127n107; informal 93n142, 226, 237n3

federalism 103 Federalists 70 financial crisis (2007—2008) 231 Finland 177 First International Peace Conference (Hague, 1899) 82 Fischer, David Hackett 43 Fleischer, Ari 233 Floridas 72, 73, 76, 90n87 Forrestal, James 189n115 Fortress America 68 Founding Fathers 15, 16, 32–3, 35, 37, 40,

Cooper, Frederick 12 Cooper, John Milton 140 Costigliola, Frank 140 Coughlin, Charles 142 creed 33–4 Crèvecoeur, Hector St. John de 30 Croly, Herbert 134 Cronin, Bruce 117, 171 Cuba 66, 72, 73, 76, 77, 82, 84, 95n176, 174, 202, 203 Cushing, Caleb 76 cyclical thesis of foreign policy 3, 8–9, 10, 57, 67 Czechoslovakia: coup d’état (1948) 176; Nazi invasion of 155

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Index   263 42, 60; as internationalists 69–73; and isolationism 61, 63–4, 68; realist/idealist debate 87n36 France 18, 37, 45, 58, 66, 83, 139, 156; alliance with 63, 68, 69, 70, 71, 80, 90n87, 91n100, n102, 106, 109, 136, 138; and Brussels Pact (1948) 176; fall of (1940) 153, 154, 155; navy 82 Frankfurter, Felix 139 Franklin, Benjamin 37, 39 Franks, Sir Oliver 177 free market ideology 110 “free security” thesis 58, 60, 63, 80, 86–7n20 French Revolution 33, 47, 70 Frieden, Jeffrey 137 Fukuyama, Francis 197, 226 Fulbright, J. William 163 Gaddis, John Lewis 123n44 Gamble, Richard 42, 43, 46 Gardner, Lloyd 74 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 114, 126n88, 141, 173, 175, 191n157, n165 generalized rules of conduct 112, 116, 117 Geneva Conventions 211, 212, 213 Genocide Convention 206, 213–14, 223n104 geographic exceptionalism 46, 60, 64 George, Walter 187n85 Germany 6, 42, 82, 142, 143, 145, 176, 177 Gilbert, Felix 63, 71 Gildersleeve, Virginia 168, 188n100 Gillette, Guy 165, 187n85 Good Neighbor policy 141, 151n96 Grayson, William 71 Great Awakening 45 Great Britain 18, 63, 69, 70, 73, 116, 132, 138–9, 145, 162, 173; alliance with 81, 106, 109, 136, 138; and Brussels Pact (1948) 176; and France rivalry 58; ideas on postwar organization 187n83; imperial preference system 174, 184n45; and India 159;and Iraq war 210; and Jay Treaty (1794) 90n96; and Lend-Lease agreement 158–9, 160, 174; navy 82; trade practices 173, 174; war with (1812) 33, 73, 83, 91n113; and World War II 153, 155, 156, 157, 159–60 Great Depression 104, 110, 119n2, 129, 139, 140, 154 great power internationalism 90n85

great power status 3, 12, 13, 19, 66, 74, 100 Greene, Jack P. 30, 31, 39, 47 Grenada 115 Gromyko, Andrei 165, 166, 187n88 Guantánamo 212, 213 Gulf War 200–1, 202, 210 Haas, Ernst 161 Hague Convention 82 Haiti 82, 115, 207 Hakluyt, Richard 30–1 Hamilton, Alexander 37, 70, 71, 76, 90n94, 132 hard power 227 Harding, Warren G. 134, 136, 137, 138 Hartz, Louis 33, 233 Havana Charter 214 Hawaii 76, 78, 95n176 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 45 Hay, John 77 Hayes, Rutherford B. 76 Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST) 119n2, 120n15 hegemony 10, 40, 68, 93n142, 110, 117, 118, 131, 153, 173, 179, 180, 185n69, 230; benevolent 201–6; and consent 161; extraregional 127n105 Helms, Jesse 203, 211 Helms—Biden agreement 218n40 Helms—Burton Act 203 Hendrickson, David 78 Herring, George C. 139, 141, 145n3 Hietala, Thomas 76, 81 Hilderbrand, Robert 165, 187n83 Hitler, Adolf 143, 155, 160 Hoffman, Stanley 8, 64, 67, 225 Hofstadter, Richard 1, 41 Hoover, Herbert 136, 138, 141 Hopkins, Harry 188n98 Houdetot, Elisabeth d’ 39 Hughes, Charles Evans 84n4, 133, 137, 138–9, 141, 144–5 Hughes, Karen 209 Hull, Cordell 161, 163, 164, 166, 173, 174, 188n100, n104, 191n157 human rights 110, 161, 198, 204, 206, 216, 223n102, n104, 228; international jurisprudence 215; unilateralism 211–14, 215 Humphreys, Colonel David 32 Hunt, Michael 66, 117 Huntington, Samuel P. 13, 14, 197, 205 Hutcheson, John 208, 233

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264   Index Iceland 177 idealism 20n12, 63, 101, 106, 134, 138 ideational factors 13, 14, 33–4, 101, 102–3, 106, 107–8 Ignatieff, Michael 211, 229 Ikenberry, G. John 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 118, 122n29, 173, 176, 178, 179, 180, 194n203, 214, 234 immigration 50–1n61, 124n62 imperial preference system 174, 184n45 imperialism 41–2, 74–5, 81, 112, 226 independent internationalism 119n3, 152n118 India 159 indivisibility 112, 117 Industrial Revolution 226 Informal Political Agenda Group 164 Ingersoll, Captain Royal 142 integrationist states 122n28 International Atomic Energy Agency 202 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development see World Bank International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 213 International Court of Justice (ICJ) 110, 161, 164, 167, 168, 172, 180 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1992) 211 International Criminal Court (ICC) 116, 207, 214 International Development Association (IDA) 192n167 International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) 202 international institutions 118, 180, 236; avoiding entanglements with 115; compliance with rules and procedures of 113, 117, 154; investment in 113, 117 International Labor Organization 202 international law 114, 206, 215, 216 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 126n88, 173, 174–6, 191n157, 191n166, 192n167, n170, 203; Articles of Agreement 114; share of votes 161 international order(s) 113, 125n84, 154; levels of 112–13 international organizations 113, 126n84, 180 international regimes 113, 125n84 International Telecommunications Union 202 International Trade Organization (ITO) 161, 175, 191n157, n165, 214

internationalism 7–8, 9, 10, 16, 27, 28, 56–7, 58, 59, 60, 62–3, 81, 108, 109, 122n28, 179–80; assertive 79; Founding Fathers and 69–73; great power 90n85; independent 119n3, 152n118; liberal 90n85; missionary 66–7, 74; Republican (1921—1929) 137–9; see also multilateral internationalism; unilateral internationalism interrogation procedures 212–13 interventionism 3, 7, 9, 67 interwar period: isolationism and 128–9, 136, 139–41, 144, 154–5; “neutral” nationalism 141–3; Republican internationalism in (1921—1929) 137–9 Iraq 115; invasion of Kuwait 200; weapons of mass destruction (WMD) 209, 210, 221n80 Iraq War (2003) 201, 209–10, 220–1n, 231, 233, 236 Iriye, Akira 150n84, 141, 226, 237n3 Irreconcilables 108, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137–8, 144 isolationism 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 27, 28, 56, 57, 58–9, 66, 83, 89n69, n74, 90n85, 99, 108, 143, 150n84, n88, 182n24; defining 61–3; economic 62, 140; and end of cold war 199, 217n11; Founding Fathers and 61, 63–4, 68; and interwar period 128–9, 136, 139–41, 144, 154–5; lingering myth of 67–9; military 61; “new” 139–40, 145n3; political 61, 62, 63, 140, 143; and public opinion 154–5, 156–7; Roosevelt, F. D. 182n16; security-related 62; Westward expansionism as 64–7 isolationist/internationalist dichotomy 7–8, 57, 60, 67; see also Chapter 3 Israel—Palestine conflict 204, 219n45 Italy 82, 142, 177 Jackson, Andrew 39, 92n120 James, Edwin L. 143 Japan 230; invasion of Manchuria 108, 141; isolationism 62; and Russia peace treaty (1905) 82; war with China 142 Jay, John 37 Jay Treaty (1794) 70, 90n96 Jefferson, Thomas 34, 70, 71, 77–8, 215; on chosenness of American people 32–3; on enslaved Africans 34; entangling alliances, warning against 68, 72–3, 108; First Inaugural Address (1801) 60, 63; on Native Americans 39;

Index   265

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on natural law of Old and New worlds 4, 81; on the Revolutionary War 47 Johnson, Hiram 133, 134 Jonas, Manfred 61, 71, 82, 91n100, 141, 150n83, n88, 155 Kagan, Robert 36, 42, 43, 91n115, 201, 204–5 Kaplan, Lawrence 68 Karns, Margaret 202 Kassenbaum Amendment (1983) 202 Kaufman, Burton Ira 72 Kellogg, Frank B. 108, 134 Kellogg—Briand Pact (1929) 140, 141, 150n83 Kennan, George 100, 101, 106, 159, 179 Kennedy, John F. 6, 15, 223n104; “city upon a hill” speech (1961) 15, 43 Keohane, Robert 114, 227 Keynes, John Maynard 159, 174, 175, 191n160 Khouri, Rami 209 Kimball, Warren 122n40, 142, 159, 184n45, n49 Kindleberger, Charles 119n2 Kirkpatrick, Jeanne 172 Kissinger, Henry 67, 101 Klingberg, Frank L. 9, 67 Knock, Thomas J. 133, 136 Knox, Philander 133, 134 Kohn, Hans 65 Korea 115; see also North Korea; South Korea Korean War 178, 213, 214 Kosovo 115, 126n93, 207 Krauthammer, Charles 68, 199, 200, 204 Kreps, Sarah 114–15 Kristol, William 201, 204–5 Kupchan, Charles 68 Kuwait, Iraqi invasion of 200 Kyoto Protocol 207, 214 La Follette, Robert 165, 187n85 LaFeber, Walter 56, 71, 73, 92n127 Lake, David 62 Latin America 73, 140, 141, 192n175, 226 Laurier, Sir Wilfred 61 Law of the Sea treaty 202 League of Nations 16, 21n20, 61, 99, 104, 108–9, 128, 130, 131, 132, 133–7, 138, 139, 141, 142, 144, 171, 214, 235; majority in favor of 134; reservations 118, 129, 135, 136, 137, 169–70, 171, 172

League of Peace 82, 132 League to Enforce Peace (LEP) 132, 133, 136 Lebanon 115 Leffler, Melvyn P. 123n44, 138, 139, 143, 190n150 Legalistic—moralistic tradition 100 Legro, Jeffrey 12, 62, 102–3, 106, 108–9, 111, 121n25, 122n28, 179, 234, 235 Leigh, Michael 156, 157–8 Lend-Lease Agreement 158–9, 160, 174, 183n36 Lerner, Max 28, 47 liberal internationalism 90n85 liberal theory 102–3, 104, 106, 107–9, 117, 234, 236 liberal tradition 107, 233 Libya 2, 3, 115, 231 Limerick, Patricia Nelson 74–5 Lincoln, Abraham 11, 34, 41 Lippman, Walter 134, 184n53 Lipset, Seymor Martin 17 Literary Digest 134 Locarno Treaty (1925) 108, 138, 139 Locke, John, Second treatise on government 46 Lodge, Henry Cabot 16, 72, 76, 78, 106, 109, 118, 128, 131–3, 134–5, 136, 137, 138, 145, 161, 169, 172, 177, 235 London Conference (1924) 138–9 London Economic Conference (1933) 142 Louisiana Purchase (1803) 72 Lowry, Richard 1 Luce, Henry 160–1, 230 Lundestad, Geir 105, 178, 185n67, 190n150 Luxembourg 176 McCarthyism 233 McCormick, Anne O’Hare 163 McCormick, Joseph 134 McCrisken, Trevor 38, 66 MacDonald, Ramsay 138 McDougall, Walter 8, 43, 61 Mackinac Declaration (1943) 164 McKinley, William 41–2, 77 Madison, James 69, 70, 72, 91n113 Madsen, Deborah 36 Mahan, Alfred Thayer 76, 82, 94n170, n171 Maher, Bill 233 Maier, Charles S. 93n142 Manchuria 108, 141 Mandela, Nelson 203

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266   Index manifest destiny 4, 9, 16, 38–40, 41–2, 44, 58, 64, 65, 66, 74, 75, 80–1, 88n49, n53, 100, 132 Marshall Plan 173, 178, 190n150, 191n165 Martin, Joseph 175 Marxist theory 28 Mason, George 60 Massachusetts Bay Company 36 Mead, Walter Russell 79, 92n128 Mearsheimer, John J. 13, 68 Mediterranean 71, 73 Meet the Press (TV show) 231 Melville, Herman 45 mercantilism 74 Mexican—American War (1846–1848) 40, 66, 77 Mexico 82 Middle East 2, 209, 215, 226 military intervention 198, 204; multilateral 114–15 military isolationism 61 militia tradition 92n127 millenialism 29, 31, 35, 40, 45, 67 Miller, Perry 36, 42, 43, 45, 53n129 Millikin, Eugene 175 Mingst, Karen 202 mission, sense of 5–6 missionary identity 7–8, 9, 16, 27, 28–9, 35–42, 57, 60, 65, 66–7, 68, 74, 81, 146n8 monetary cooperation 142 monetary multilateralism 114 Monroe, James 91n120 Monroe Doctrine 59, 63, 76, 88n38, 93n131, 102, 131, 134, 135, 144, 168, 200; nontransfer principle 73; Roosevelt Corollary (1904) 82; and UN Charter 170 Monten, Jonathan 68 Moore, John Bassett 137 moral exceptionalism 57, 60, 64 moralism 100, 106 Morgenthau, Hans 13, 100, 101, 106, 120n12, 206 Morgenthau, Henry 173, 174, 191n157 Morocco 82 Morris, Dick 1 Morse, Wayne 172 Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers (1943) 164 Motley, John Lothrop 41 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick 211 multi-ethnic nationalism 103, 104 multilateral internationalism 3, 11, 16,

62–3, 99, 129; see also turn-around thesis multilateralism 2, 8, 16, 90n85, 108, 115–17, 118, 125n76, 154, 179, 225, 227, 228, 230, 234; across issue areas 114–15; Bush Sr. 200, 201, 205; Clinton administration 197–8, 205; contract 113, 203–4, 214; defining 111–14, 115, 116, 118, 145n4; economic 110, 111, 114, 145, 172–6; European understanding of 229; foreign policy 113–14, 116; input 117; military 114–15; monetary 114; new 116, 118; nominal vs. qualitative definition of 114; nominal vs. substantive 112; old 116, 118; operational 114–15; ordering 113; output 117; post-cold war 199–201; procedural 114–15; security 110, 112, 114, 145, 176–9; substantive 3, 112, 116, 153; system 112–13; trade 114 Napoleonic Wars 80, 83 national identity 3, 11–14, 109, 226, 235; and war on terror 208 national interest 13, 14, 61, 100, 101, 110 National Pride in Comparative Perspective study (2006) 5 National Review Online 1, 4 National Security Strategies 206, 228–9 nationalism 4, 20n17, n23, 41, 47, 84n4, 128, 188n104, 225, 226, 237n5; civic 103, 107, 117, 122n32, 226; economic 129, 142, 154, 181n5; English 36; ethnic 122n32; multi-ethnic 103, 104; “neutral” 141–3 Native Americans 34, 39, 66, 75, 92n128 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) 105, 116, 145, 161, 176–8, 202 natural law 4, 39, 81 Nau, Henry 12 navies 73, 76, 78, 81–2, 108, 128, 131; disarmament 137 Nazis/Nazism 6, 155, 199 neoclassical realism 101–2, 121n17, 123n51 neoconservatives 201, 204, 205, 206, 219n48 neoliberalism 13 neorealism 13, 101, 102, 105–6, 120n16, 123n48 Netherlands 176 Neumann, Rico 6 neutrality 61, 62, 63, 91n100, 124n63, 130

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Index   267 Neutrality Acts (1930s) 128–9, 140, 142–3, 144, 151n104, 158, 183n36 New Deal 104, 124n61, 156; The New Republic 134 new world order 198, 199, 201 Newsweek magazine 208 Nicaragua 82, 172 Niebuhr, Reinhold 140–1 9/11 see September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks Nixon, Richard 176, 223n104, 230 Nixon shock 176 nominal multilateralism 112 non-conformism 44, 51n73 non-entanglement 59, 61, 102, 106, 140 non-intervention 61, 62, 63 nontransfer principle 73 the North 41 North Atlantic Treaty (1949) 176, 177; see also NATO North Korea 62, 207, 213 Northern Ireland 207 Northwest Ordinance (1787) 77 Norway 33, 177 nuclear deterrence 105 nuclear weapons 113, 178, 221n80, 230 Nuremburg trials 110 Nye, Gerald P. 140, 155 Nye Committee (1934–1936) 140 Obama, Barack 1–2, 3, 4, 15, 34, 229, 231, 231–2, 236 objective definition of exceptionalism 4, 17, 18 offensive realism 101, 102, 120n16 Olney, Richard 72 Onuf, Nicholas 69 Onuf, Peter 34, 39, 69, 78, 79 Open Door Policy 57, 82, 137, 144, 149n63 operational multilateralism 114–15 ordering multilateralism 113 Osgood, Robert 13, 100, 106 O’Sullivan, John 38, 65, 88n49 Pacific 78, 226 Paine, Thomas 31–2, 35, 56, 71; The American Crisis 32; Common Sense 32, 45; The Rights of Man 32 Palestine 204, 219n45 Pan-American Conference (1889) 81 Panama 82, 115, 200 Panama Canal Zone 78 Panay incident 142

Paolino, Ernest 78, 82 Paris Peace Conference (1919) 133 Parker, Kathleen 231 party affiliation 15 Pasvolsky, Leo 163, 166, 168, 187n88 Patrick, Stewart 68, 90n85 patriotism 4, 20n17, n23, 237n5 Pearl Harbor, attack on (1941) 61, 68–9, 84n4, 153, 155 Penn, Mark 1 Penn, William 30 periodic thesis of foreign policy 3, 8, 58 periodization 8–9 Perkins, Bradford 63, 68, 70 Perkins, Dexter 9, 60, 65 Permanent Court of Arbitration 82 Pew Global Attitudes survey 5 Philippines 41–2, 78, 95n176, 132, 174 Pickney, Charles C. 37 Pilgrims 55n149 Placentia Bay meeting (1941) 158 Poland 187–8n98; Nazi invasion of (1939) 155 political exceptionalism 28, 31–3, 44, 46, 60, 154 political independence 135, 170, 180 political isolationism 61, 62, 63, 140, 143 political mission 37–8 political multilateralism 110, 112, 114, 145, 162–72 Polk, James K. 76, 77 Ponnuru, Ramesh 1 Portugal 177 Power, Samantha 234 Pownall, Thomas 30 primacy, importance of 205 procedural multilateralism 114–15 protectionism 84n4, 146n6, 149n63, 150n89 Protestantism 34, 39, 42, 44, 67 providentialism 27, 32, 34, 40, 76 public opinion: isolationist 154–5, 156–7; and World War II intervention 154–8, 160, 182–3n25 Puerto Rico 78 Puritans 16, 28, 29, 31, 35–6, 37, 42–4, 45, 46, 47, 51n73, 215 Putin, Vladimir 229 Quakers 43 race 34, 50n56, 103 Reagan, Ronald 6, 15, 43, 106, 198, 202, 211, 214

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268   Index realism 13, 19–20n12, 120n16, 207, 234; classical 100–1, 105, 106; defensive 101, 102, 120n16; neo- 13, 101, 102, 105–6, 120n16, 123n48; neoclassical 101–2, 121n17, 123n51; offensive 101, 102, 120n16; and turn-around thesis 100–2, 103, 105–7 Reciprocal Trade Agreement (1934) 141, 151n95 reciprocity, diffuse 112, 117 Reed, James 134 Reformation 28, 29, 35 regional security organizations 165 religion 34, 42, 44, 103 religious exceptionalism 28, 29–30, 44, 46 Remnick, David 234 Republican internationalism (1921–1929) 137–9 Republican Party 15, 133, 134, 136, 164, 205, 232 revisionist school (history) 57–8, 58, 73–4, 119n2, 143 revisionist states 122n28 Reynolds, David 156, 158, 159 Rice, Condoleezza 207 Rio Treaty (1947) 192n175 Rizzo, John 213 Romney, Mitt 2, 232 Roosevelt, Franklin D. (FDR) 6, 16, 108, 118, 122n40, 130, 141–2, 150n84, 153, 156, 157, 158, 162, 164, 166, 180; Four Freedoms 159; Four Policemen principle 109, 163, 164, 186n74; and international monetary cooperation 142; isolationism 182n16; quarantine speech (1937) 142, 156; and World Court 141–2; World War II intervention 154, 184n49, n55; and public opinion 182–3n25, n35 Roosevelt, Theodore 42, 77, 78, 82, 90n85, 94n170, n171, 109; League of Peace proposal 82, 132 Root, Elihu 133, 136, 137 Rosenberg, Emily 48, 65 Ross, Dorothy 17 Royal American Magazine 79 Ruggie, John G. 68, 90n93, 102, 103, 104, 107, 108, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 125n76, 178, 179, 180, 190–1n151, 234, 236 Ruhr crisis 138, 144 rule of law 103, 117, 179, 204 Rumsfeld, Donald 227 Russell, Ruth 168

Russia 18, 82, 144; see also Soviet Union Rwanda 198, 207, 220n63 Saddam Hussein 200, 210 Samoa 81 San Francisco Conference (1945) 162, 163, 166–8 Sanger, David 231 Scalia, Antonin 215, 223n110 Schlesinger, Arthur 8, 105 Schlesinger, Stephen 166, 187n83, n97 Schonberg, Karl 12 Schurmann, Franz 140 Scowcroft, Brent 199, 200, 201 secular exceptionalism 28–9, 30–1, 42, 46 security 111, 116 security multilateralism 110, 112, 114, 145, 176–9 security policy 108, 129, 154, 198, 206, 227 security-related isolationism 62 Selective Service Act (1940) 158, 183n38 self-interest 13, 14 Senate Foreign Relations Committee 131, 134, 135, 169, 171, 177 separateness 10, 59, 67–8, 83, 86n15, 88n57, 89n69, 99, 100, 102 separatist states 122n28 Separatists 55n149 September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks 6, 197, 198, 206, 208–9, 228 Seward, William H. 37, 72, 77, 78 Sieyès, Abbé 33 Sino-Japanese War 142 Skidmore, David 113–14, 214 Slaughter, Anne-Marie 104, 109–10 slaves/slavery 41, 50n56, 74, 92n120 Smith, Adam, Wealth of Nations 30 Smith, Anthony 14, 36, 40 Smoot—Hawley Tariff Act (1930) 141, 181n5 social mobility 28, 30, 46 soft power 227 Somalia 115, 198, 201, 220n63 Sombart, Walter 28 the South 41 South Korea 213 sovereignty 112, 132, 134–5, 136, 168, 169, 226 Soviet Union 101, 105, 106, 116, 123n44, 176–7, 185n63, 187–8n98; disintegration of 197; FDR recognition of 141; mutual spheres of influence 102; nuclear weapons development 178, 230; and United Nations 162, 164, 165, 166

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Index   269 Spain 6, 37, 63, 66, 90n87 Spanish—American War (1898) 8, 56, 64, 68, 77, 78, 82, 95n176, 143 Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry (Nye Committee) 140 Stagg, J. C. A. 91n113 Stalin, Joseph 105 state structure 101–2 Statement of Thirty-One 136–7 Stephanson, Anders 29, 40, 47, 67 Stettinius, Edward 164, 165, 166, 170, 187n88, 188n100, 189n115 Stimson, Henry 84n4, 136, 137, 139, 189n115 strong identity 12 Strong, Josiah 42 substantive multilateralism 3, 112, 116, 153 Sudan 115 Sumner, William Graham 18 Syria 5, 229 system multilateralism 112–13 Taft, Robert 175 Taft, William Howard 132, 136 territorial integrity 135, 170, 180 terrorism 208; see also September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; war on terror Texas 65, 73, 91n120 Thiessan, Marc 205 threat perception: post 9/11 227–8; World War II 155–6 Time magazine 155, 208 Tjalve, Vibeke Schou 227–8, 229 Tocqueville, Alexis de 17, 28, 36–7, 44–5, 46, 54n139, 63, 233 torture 206, 210, 211–13 Trachtenberg, Marc 160 Tracy, Benjamin F. 82 trade 110, 141, 149n63, 173, 174, 175, 203 trade multilateralism 114 Transcontinental Treaty 91n120, 93n133 treaties: Bush administration rejection of 113, 207, 214; multilateralism as embodied in 114; reservations, understandings, and declarations (RUDs) 211; see also contract multilateralism; and individual treaties Treaty of Alliance (1778) 90n87 Treaty of Versailles (1919) 109, 129, 130, 133, 134, 135–6, 138, 144, 235; reservations issue 135, 136, 137 Tripartite Monetary Agreement (1936) 142 Truman, Harry S. 16, 101, 109, 170, 180, 213

Truman Doctrine 105 Tucker, Robert 78 turn-around thesis 11, 16, 99–111, 118, 140, 180; and cold war 101, 105; and constructivst/liberal theories 102–3, 104, 107–9; ideational factors and 102–3; and New Deal 104; and realist theories 100–2, 103, 105–7; and World War (II) 11, 16, 99, 101, 103, 106, 153, 236 Turner, Frederick Jackson 18 Tuveson, Ernest Lee 35, 40, 60, 67 Tyler, John 76 Tyrrell, Ian 6, 17–18, 36, 47 Uniform Code of Military Justice 212 unilateral internationalism 3, 9–11, 14, 59, 62–3, 79–83, 99, 110, 111, 112, 128, 129, 144, 145, 181, 198, 205, 235, 236; Bush Jr. administration 206, 216; Founding fathers 71; ideational origins of 80–3; Lodgian 16, 106, 109, 118, 133, 180; permissive factors 80 unilateralism 62, 118, 153, 154, 179, 226, 229; an UN Charter 114; Bush Jr. administration 197, 198; definitions of 90n85, 115, 126n96, 145n4; and hegemony 117; human rights 211–14, 215; post-cold war 197, 201; pre-World War II 102, 108 unipolar moment 197, 200, 201, 204, 205, 219n48 United Kingdom see Great Britain United Nations 104, 109, 117, 118, 145, 161, 162–72, 180, 199, 218n39, n40; and China 202; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 211–12; General Assembly 164, 165, 167, 171; General Secretariat 164, 168; Genocide Convention 206, 213–14, 223n104; and Gulf War 200, 202; peacekeeping missions 200, 201, 218n39; trusteeship system 168, 189n115; as un-American 201–3; Zionism is racism resolution (3379) 202 United Nations Charter 16, 109, 114, 161, 162, 184n46, 186n76; and collective security 169; and jurisdiction over domestic matters 169, 189n121; and Monroe Doctrine 170; ratification of 170–1; and right of withdrawal 169; and territorial integrity 170; and unilateralism 114

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270   Index United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 202 United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 114, 117, 164–5, 168, 171, 203, 210, 228; voting and veto rights 161, 165–6, 167, 168, 172, 188–9n115 United States: as able to resist laws of history 6, 16–17; as distinct from Old World 3–5, 35, 225–6; as superior to other nations 3–4, 15–16, 18, 29, 46, 225; unique role in world history 5–6, 16, 29, 225 United States Journal 4 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 171–2 universalistic worldview 31, 33, 38, 45, 48 Van Alstyne, Richard 40 Van Buren, Martin 92n120 Vandenberg, Arthur 159, 165, 167, 169, 177, 187n85, n87, 188n100, n107 Védrine, Hubert 197 Venezuela 82 Vico, Giambattista 6 Vietnam War 13, 115, 230 Virginia Cavaliers 43 Walker, Robert J. 76, 77 Walsh, David 134 Walt, Stephen 13 Waltz, Kenneth 101 Walzer, Michael 18 War of (1812) 33, 73, 83, 91n113 war on terror 2, 6, 17, 198, 206, 208–10, 211–13, 215, 226, 228, 231 Washington, George 32, 62, 108, 132; Farewell Address (1796) 60, 63, 70–2, 74, 90n92 Washington Conference on Samoa (1887) 81 Washington Consensus 192n170 Washington Naval Conference (1921–1922) 140 Washington naval treaties 108, 128, 141 Watergate scandal 230 weak identity 12 weapons of mass destruction (WMD): Iraqi 209, 210, 221n80; see also nuclear weapons Weeks, William Earl 31–2, 35, 93n131, n133, n134 Weinberg, Albert K. 4, 8, 38, 40, 53n120, 61, 73, 91n118, 92n127, 118 Welles, Sumner 159, 163, 164, 186n76

West Indies 90n87 Westad, Odd Arne 95n176 Westphalian state system 112–13 White, Wallace 187n85 Whitman, Walt 45, 83–4 Whyte, William H. 233 Widenor, William 131, 132 Wilentz, Sean 233 Wiley, Alexander 161 Will, George 197 Williams, William Appleman 40, 57, 58, 73, 74, 143 Wilson, Joan Hoff 119n3 Wilson, Woodrow 7, 16, 27, 56, 64, 82, 100, 108, 109, 124n63, 128, 178, 180, 236; as idealist 106, 130; and League of Nations 129, 130–1, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 144; and millenialist identity 67; missionary vision 37–8, 72; nationalist perspective 130; Peace without Victory speech (1917) 133, 134 Wilsonianism 101, 123n51, 215, 224n116 Winthrop, John 7, 15, 27, 29, 30; “A Modell of Christian Charity” 30 Wisconsin School (history) 40, 57, 58 Wolfowitz, Paul 179 Woods, Ngaire 175, 191n166 Woodward, C. Vann 63 World Bank 161, 173, 174–6, 191–2n167, 192n170, 202 World Court 137, 141–2, 167 World Trade Organization (WTO) 126n88 World Values Survey 5 World War I 16, 62, 102, 130, 140; peace negotiations 130–1; see also Treaty of Versailles World War II 8, 84n4, 104, 108, 153, 154–60; intervention in (Battle of the Atlantic) 160; and Congress 158; and destroyers-for-bases deal (1940) 159–60, 183n37; and fall of France (1940) 153, 154, 155; and Pearl Harbor attack (1941) 61, 68–9, 84n4, 153, 155; and public opinion 154–8, 160, 182–3n25; and threat perception 155–6); and turn-around thesis of foreign policy 11, 16, 99, 101, 103, 106, 153, 236 Yoo, John 212 Young Plan (1929) 108 Yugoslavia 126n92 Zakaria, Fareed 68, 101–2