ULI358U-AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
Chapter 2: Historical Foundations of American Foreign Policy
Introduction
America’s Founding Fathers shared four main ideas, which they envisioned should guide American foreign policy for the long haul. First, although American society was mostly made up of European settlers, it was also distinct from Europe, a new nation in the New World. Second, given its distinctiveness and unique geographic advantage of being far away from Europe, the United States should pursue a policy of non-involvement in European affairs and should not be entangled in European alliances. Third, the United States should be a “shining city upon a hill”, a beacon of hope for the rest of the world to look up and emulate. Lastly, the United States has a God-given mission, a “manifest destiny” to expand across the North American continent and establish an exemplary republic. These ideas evolved and transformed over time shaping the four American foreign policy traditions (Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, and Wilsonian), with the notion of American exceptionalism always in the background, providing the ideological framework and justification.
Ideas and Traditions in American Foreign Policy
The founding beliefs of American foreign policy can be summarized as follows. First, America forms a distinct society from European society at the time of its independence. Second, America should not get involved with European wars, but trade with all.
Third, the United States should be a beacon of hope for the rest of the world. This idea of “shining city on a hill” is very important for the founding fathers and has shaped the way that the United States perceived itself for its first century and beyond. Lastly, the manifest destiny: The notion of manifest destiny is that it is the destiny of the United States and a God-given right to spread across the North American continent and create what Thomas Jefferson called “the empire of liberty.”
These four founding beliefs shaped how the United States pursued its foreign policy in the first hundred years of its existence. They operated within a broad social-political ideology that is generally referred to as “American exceptionalism”
America is an exceptional nation due to its unique geography, abundant natural resources, lack of aristocracy, the civic basis of its nationalism, a republican form of government, and its belief in liberty, individualism, and free enterprise. These give the United States a unique position in the world, the proponents of American exceptionalism would argue.
In the early years, two rival factions dominated the United States foreign policy and the kind of foreign policy the United States should pursue. These factions were gathered around Thomas Jefferson, on one hand, and Alexander Hamilton, on the other hand. Hamilton believed that the US was destined to be the dominant power in the Western
Hemisphere, but it was weak for the moment and therefore this weakness should necessitate the US to stay out of European wars and focus on domestic development. Hamilton argued that this required a strong federal government at home that focused on industrial development in alliance with England to support American commerce abroad and the development of a strong navy to protect American interests.
Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, opposed the idea of central power and argued for the creation of an agrarian republic. Thomas Jefferson also was suspicious of the alliance between commerce and industry. He was an idealist and pursued a pro-French foreign policy. This is partly because Thomas Jefferson was aligned with the French revolutionary ideas, and this idea led him to pursue a pro-French orientation.
The presidency of Thomas Jefferson was different. He was seen as a universalist American nationalist, that is, he saw the US as the centre of liberty in the world and equated American interests with the interests of the world.
Wilsonianism’s core feature is the belief of its proponents in the benevolent nature of American power. They argue that the American military, political, and economic power can and should be used to promote democracy and liberal values abroad. They argue that the best way to ensure American security and prosperity is to create an international system that is populated by states that share similar values and institutions like the United States.
The second is named after President Andrew Jackson. The Jacksonians are populist nationalists who argue in favour of a muscular foreign policy and a strong military to defend American interests. However, unlike Hamiltonians who are in favour of strong relations between business and the federal government, Jacksonians are distrustful of business elites and are only willing to use American military might to defend the homeland rather than pursue commercial interests abroad. Unlike Wilsonians, they also oppose the use of American military power to promote democracy and liberal values abroad.
The four American foreign policy traditions (Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, and Wilsonian) are the patterns of behaviour and ideas that are not limited to the presidencies of the presidents that they are named after.
American Foreign Policy in the Early Nineteenth Century
As pointed out before, Jefferson was very suspicious and sceptical of an alliance of industry and commerce and an alliance with England to support that. Such alliances, Jefferson believed, risked the idealistic nature of the American project. Jefferson engaged in one of the most important land deals in US history when he purchased the Louisiana territory in 1803 from France, which effectively doubled the size of the United States. It also ensured that no rival power would emerge on the North American
continent unlike in Europe. The Louisiana Purchase made both Jefferson’s and Hamilton’s dream come true. It made Jefferson’s dream come true because it enabled the United States to be free from European interference and ensure that no rival power would emerge on the North American continent.
The Louisiana Purchase was the first of several important land acquisitions that the United States carried out throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. The other notable land deals that expanded the United States are:
• the Florida Purchase in 1819 from Spain, • the annexation of Texas in 1845 before the Mexican-American War in 1846, • the Oregon Treaty in 1846 with Britain in which present-day states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and portions of Montana and Wyoming are ceded to the United States, • Mexican cession in 1848 to the United States that includes all of the present-day states of California, Nevada, and Utah, as well as portions of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, • the purchase of Alaska in 1867 from Russia, • the Annexation of Hawaii in 1898.
Another important development at this time was the War of 1812, which was an offshoot of the Napoleonic Wars and the European competition between Britain and France. It forced the US to act when economic means did not stop Britain and France to endanger American trade with Europe. Both countries imposed an embargo on American ships and seized cargo and sailors. This, the US argued, violated neutrality rights and forced the United States to declare war on Britain.
John Quincy Adams, the secretary of state for President James Monroe, played an important role in the development of American foreign policy after the War of 1812, including being the author of the famous Monroe Doctrine. Adams was very influential and a major actor in the continental expansion of the United States. He negotiated the purchase of Florida from Spain in 1819. He was also the negotiator for the Treaty of 1818 with Britain that set the US–Canadian border at the 49th parallel.
The Monroe Doctrine was a response to the fear of re- conquest of Latin America by European powers. The major principles of the Monroe Doctrine are as follows:
• First, no more colonization in the Western Hemisphere by European powers, and therefore there should be no re-conquest of the Latin American republics that declared independence. • Second, non-intervention by European powers in the Western Hemisphere in internal affairs of the newly-established republics.
• Third, in return, the US promises not to interfere in European relations. • Lastly, the principle of non-transference between European powers of colonies in the Western Hemisphere. In other words, no more trading colonies between the European powers.
Unlike the myth of the Monroe Doctrine, it did not have any legal status and was initially mostly ignored by the European powers. The reality is that the Monroe Doctrine was initially enforced by the British Navy because it did serve the British interests to keep the European powers outside of Latin America.
An important concept at this time, as mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, is manifest destiny. It was coined by John O'Sullivan in 1845 in a newspaper article and it argues that America has a God-given right to expand across the entire North American continent. It became a reality when technology made this expansion possible and with non-interference from the European powers, it also became politically feasible to do so. This is an era of hyper American nationalism; the US pursued its manifest destiny to go from "sea to shining sea" as the famous phrase of the time highlighted.
The Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848 that resulted in the annexation of California should be seen in this particular frame. The causes of the Mexican- American War are three-fold. First, President James Knox Polk embraced the idea of "manifest destiny" and offered the Mexican government to sell its large swathes of the southwest land in 1845, but Polk's offer met with the unequivocal refusal of the Mexican leadership avers that an increasingly large number of Americans marched towards the southwest of the country in search of fertile land and natural resources including coal, oil, and gold.
In 1848, the war came to an end with the advent of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which led Mexico to cede 1.36 million square kilometres of its territory to the US including today's Colorado, Arizona, California, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming, in return for $15 million US dollars and the handover of $3.25 million' worth debt from Mexico owed to American citizens. On the other hand, the US and Mexico signed a separate treaty called the Treaty of Velasco that granted the state of Texas its independence from Mexico and paved the way for its unification with the rest of the US territory.
This is the time in which the US also increasingly engaged in trade in the Pacific. The opening of Japan in 1854 is an example of this trend as well as increasing American trade and commerce and commercial interests in China.
The United States also signed treaties with China in 1844 (after the First Opium War) and in 1858 (after the Second Opium War) that granted the US same rights, concessions, and access to the Chinese market as the other Western powers.
American Foreign Policy in the Late Nineteenth Century: from the Civil War to the Spanish War
While the conflict was raging between the Unionists led by President Abraham Lincoln and the Confederacy forces led by President Jefferson Davis, averting an all-out destruction of the continent and preempting a potential foreign intervention by France and/or Britain made the Civil War diplomacy one of the top priorities of both belligerent parties. First, the rivalry over diplomatic recognition influenced Lincoln’s and Davis’s war strategies and foreign policy decision-making.
American Diplomacy during the Civil War (1861-1865)
The Civil War was not confined to the American territories as Great Britain sided with the South and embarked on providing the Confederacy forces with military and economic aid. Also, the crises over the British-flagged warships (e.g., Trent, Alabama, and Florida) complicated Unionists' diplomatic efforts, which could lead to a BritishUnion war as well as to Britain's swift recognition of the Confederacy government in the south.
Second, the spectre of foreign intervention taking advantage of the weakened Union and Confederacy forces and sapping economic resources animated diplomatic efforts led by both battling sides.
The Confederacy leadership came close to receiving recognition from the British government in October 1862 when Chancellor of the Exchequer William E. Gladstone delivered a speech in Newcastle lauding the Confederacy army and considered the separation of the Southern States from the North in the offing.
The period from 1865 to 1898 is generally seen as a much more inward look at American foreign policy, which ended with the 1898 SpanishAmerican war. But during these 30 years, from 1865 to 1898, trade and commerce expanded rapidly, making the US the largest economy in the 1890s.
The Spanish-American War of 1898
The causes of the 1898 Spanish-American War were the uprising in Cuba against the Spanish suzerainty and the sinking of the American battleship USS Maine. First, the Cuban bid for independence from Spain began in February 1895, which met with fierce clampdown by the Spanish forces on the island. Due to its proximity to the US, the Cuban struggle and Spain’s repressive measures to stifle the rebellion grabbed the headlines in American newspapers and engendered public sympathy for the Cuban rebellion.
Although Spain declared an armistice in April 1898 and conceded to grant Cuba autonomy, albeit limited, for self- governance, the US Congress demanded a full withdrawal of Spanish forces from Cuba, which led Spain to declare war on April 24, 1898. The US reciprocated with a declaration of war on Spain on April 25. The Spanish-
American War was decisive and short-lived, and ended on July 17, 1989, with the surrender of the Spanish forces in Cuba. Signed on December 10, 1989, the Treaty of Paris officially terminated the SpanishAmerican War. Chavez asserts that the Treaty of Paris pronounced the end of the Spanish rule over Cuba and the US assumed control of the erstwhile Spanish dominions including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines in exchange for $20 million US dollars.
The Spanish-American War of 1898 is crucial and it is a turning point in American foreign policy. First, it led to the establishment of a formal colonial empire with the purchase of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico from Spain. It led to the annexation of Hawaii. It also led to the creation of protectorates in the Caribbean, most importantly in Cuba. The Spanish-American War also led the way for the informal empire of Theodore Roosevelt. This informal empire was based on trade and American economic might particularly in Central America and in the Caribbean. Both the formal and informal empire enabled the United States to have military bases in the Pacific to be able to play a significant role in opening up the Chinese market, which led to the open door policy of 1899, and argue against the creation of exclusive spheres of influence in Asia.
There are three important implications of the US-led open door policy. First, in the wake of the 1898 Spanish- American war, the US became an imperial power and supplanted its isolationist and regional foreign policy vision with a global one, and the open-door policy was the first port of call for the newfound informal empire. Second, the open door policy pronounced the US recognition of China's ascension to a major power status and of China's territorial integrity as well as its sovereignty. Third, since the Congress of Vienna, the open-door policy has been the first multilateral attempt to bring stability into international system by delineating each major power's sphere of economic and political influence in the world including those of the new major powers, i.e., the US, Japan, and China.
American Foreign Policy in the Early Twentieth Century
The American foreign policy from the SpanishAmerican War of 1898 and the 1899 open door initiative towards China to the inception of the First World War (WWI) in 1914 can be defined as the anti-Washington foreign policy.
Following the assassination of President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt assumed the highest office in the United States. Distinct from most of his predecessors, Roosevelt had imperialist tendencies. Historian Severine Antigone Marin compares President Roosevelt to Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm because both leaders had domineering personalities and were obsessed with big armies and believed in a strong state both at home and abroad.
While Roosevelt’s interest in the Pacific expansion declined following the end of the rebellion in the Philippines in 1901, he expressed his ardent ambitions on the Caribbean and increased the size of the US military in general and the naval forces in particular. President Roosevelt’s assertive foreign policy approach to Latin America and the Caribbean has often been characterized as the “Big Stick diplomacy,” which is derived from his famous statement on dealing with adversaries: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
Theodore Roosevelt's Big Stick diplomacy is also known as the "Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine". While the Monroe Doctrine was a passive US policy toward foreign powers in the Western hemisphere based only on rhetoric, President Roosevelt's big stick policy signalled the US willingness to become a policeman of the region and its resolve to go to war with the imperial powers overseas.
Throughout the nineteenth century, American and British leaders and business elite wanted to open more trade routes to ship goods quickly and cheaply between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Although there were efforts to build canals and ports in Latin America, it was not until the Roosevelt presidency that the US could compete with Britain, France, and Spain economically and militarily to control commerce in the Western Hemisphere. Leading the US efforts to build the Panama Canal in the early 1900s President Roosevelt attempted to make Latin America and the Caribbean the US backyard and sphere of influence. The succeeding US administration under Woodrow Wilson realized those significant political and commercial objectives when the US companies completed the Panama Canal in 1914.
Although the US stayed aloof from the 1904- 1905 war between Russia and Japan, the victorious latter asked the US help in mediating a peace treaty to officially end the Russo-Japanese War. President Roosevelt hosted warring parties in the US and crafted the Treaty of Portsmouth. Roosevelt himself wanted the Russo-Japanese War to end on a compromise that conferred both Russia and Japan a role to play in Northeast China to maintain the balance of power and equal economic opportunity for the competing powers in the region.
When Woodrow Wilson took over the presidency in 1913, he promised a less expansionist approach to American foreign policy than his predecessors Roosevelt and Taft had pursued. Wilson shared the core founding ideas that American values were superior to those of the rest of the world, and American democracy was the best system to promote for the sake of peace and stability. Wilson also agreed with Hamiltonians that the United States should continue to actively seek for economic interests abroad.
American foreign policy under Wilson changed its course as he differed from his predecessors in many ways. For example, Wilson's foreign policy toward Asia abandoned
Taft's "dollar diplomacy," a policy that essentially used the power of American military dominance as a threat to gain favourable trade terms. President Wilson prioritized diplomatic efforts to hold American interference in East Asia at a minimum.
While the Wilsonian tradition in American foreign policy was based on morality and restraint, Wilson found out after he became president that it was more challenging to avoid American interventionism in practice than in rhetoric.
Given the raging war in Europe after Wilson's 1916 reelection, it became increasingly difficult for Wilson to insist that the conflict growing overseas was not America's responsibility. Germany's military tactics in the First World War struck Wilson and Americans as morally reprehensible, which also put American free trade with the rest of the world at risk. Despite his reelection campaign promises on ethical foreign policy, President Wilson could only postpone American involvement in the war. Wilson's reluctance to enter the First World War was reflected in Congress, where 56 congressmen cast their votes against the war resolution.