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March 21 – June 9 2026, pp. 152 — Isolationism → open PDF p164 (file not included in this release)

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This is the first book to examine the full arc of American isolationism, from the founding era through the Trump presidency. Charles Kupchan tells the fascinating story of why isolationism dominated US statecraft for so long, uncovers isolationism’s enduring connection to American exceptionalism, and explains why an aversion to foreign entanglement is making a comeback. This fresh account of American history sheds revealing light on not only the nation’s past, but also where US grand strategy is headed and how the nation can find the middle ground between isolationism and strategic overreach.

Isolationism - Charles A. Kupchan Annotated.pdf (file not included in this release)

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Preface

Kupchan opens by arguing that isolationism is not a fringe aberration but a central, long-lasting strand in U.S. grand strategy from the founding through World War II. From Washington’s warning against permanent alliances onwards, Americans largely chose “strategic detachment”: avoiding binding security commitments overseas while focusing on building a continental republic.:contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}

He stresses two core claims that frame the whole book:

Isolationism was often a rational strategy that supported U.S. rise, especially in the 19th century.
The 1930s were the big exception, when clinging to isolationism became dangerous delusion in the face of revisionist powers.:contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}

The preface also connects this history to contemporary debates: Trump’s “America First,” public fatigue with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and new calls for restraining U.S. commitments. Kupchan wants readers to see today’s arguments not as something new but as the latest round in a recurring American conversation about how much the country should engage abroad.:contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}

Key takeaways

Isolationism is a long-running tradition, not a one-off mistake.
It is rooted in American exceptionalism and a desire to protect the domestic experiment in liberty.
Historically, isolationism helped the U.S. rise, but it failed catastrophically in the 1930s.
The book aims to help locate a prudent middle course between overreach and withdrawal.

Chapter 1 – American Isolationism: Past as Prelude?

Kupchan starts in the present: Trump’s use of “America First,” skepticism about alliances, and widespread public disillusionment with costly wars. He argues that this mood echoes earlier episodes when Americans questioned foreign entanglements after periods of overextension—such as after World War I and the Vietnam War.:contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}

He then rewinds through U.S. history to show that nonentanglement was once the norm, not the exception. From the founding until 1941, Washington largely avoided permanent alliances or peacetime troop deployments abroad, focusing instead on territorial expansion and domestic nation-building. He emphasizes how geography (two oceans, weak neighbors) and power asymmetries made isolationism a viable strategy.

Kupchan also introduces the book’s central conceptual contrast:

Isolationism = strategic detachment from security commitments overseas, especially Europe and Asia.
Liberal internationalism = post-1941 strategy of permanent alliances, forward deployments, and active management of the international system.

He frames the rest of the book as an answer to two questions:

Why did Americans embrace isolationism for so long?
Why did they abandon it in 1941—and why is the isolationist impulse re-emerging now?

Key takeaways

Today’s “America First” debates have deep historical roots.
For most of its history, the U.S. tried to avoid strategic commitments abroad.
Geography and relative power made isolationism feasible during the country’s ascent.
The post-1941 liberal-internationalist era is historically exceptional, not “normal.”

Chapter 2 – An Anatomy of Isolationism

This chapter is conceptual. Kupchan dissects what isolationism actually is—and what it is not. He defines isolationism as a grand strategy that aims to minimize security commitments overseas, avoid permanent military alliances, and limit military presence abroad. It does not necessarily mean autarky or complete disengagement: the U.S. could still trade, participate in diplomacy, and exert influence, but without binding security obligations.:contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}

He distinguishes several related but distinct ideas:

Realist isolationism – focuses on conserving power, avoiding overstretch, and relying on geography and deterrence.
Idealist isolationism – fears that foreign entanglements will corrupt the republic and undermine American democracy and values.
Unilateralism – acting alone even when engaged abroad; can coexist with internationalism (e.g., an interventionist but unilateral U.S.).
Non-interventionism – narrower opposition to military involvement in others’ domestic affairs; may coexist with alliances.:contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}

Kupchan then connects isolationism to American exceptionalism: the belief that the United States is a unique experiment in liberty that should be protected from the corruptions of Old World politics. Strategic detachment was meant to preserve that experiment and allow America to lead “by example” rather than through empire or constant intervention.:contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}

He also previews the central normative argument: isolationism was often prudential and beneficial as a strategy of ascent—allowing the U.S. to grow rich and powerful behind oceanic moats—but proves much less viable once the country becomes a great power facing transoceanic threats.

Key takeaways

Isolationism is about avoiding security commitments, not cutting off all contact with the world.
It has both realist (power-preserving) and idealist (republic-protecting) strands.
It is closely linked to American exceptionalism and fear of foreign corruption of domestic institutions.
Its effectiveness depends heavily on the distribution of power and technology in the international system.

Part I – The Era of Isolationism, 1789–1898

Chapter 3 – The Revolutionary Era: Contemplating Nonentanglement

Kupchan traces how the revolutionary generation wrestled with the foreign policy of a fragile new republic. The United States was weak, deeply indebted, and surrounded by imperial powers. The overriding strategic imperative was survival and consolidation at home, not foreign crusades.

Washington’s Farewell Address crystallized a cautious doctrine: permanent alliances with European powers should be avoided, though temporary arrangements might be acceptable in emergencies. This reflected lessons from the war for independence—reliance on France had been necessary but risky—and from the young republic’s vulnerability to European rivalries.:contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7}

Kupchan highlights intense partisan debates:

Federalists were more comfortable with limited ties to Britain for commercial and security reasons.
Jeffersonian Republicans feared entanglement and emphasized agricultural self-sufficiency and westward expansion.

Still, across factions, a broad consensus emerged that America should stay out of Old World power politics and focus on securing the continent. The idea of “nonentanglement” takes shape as an early version of isolationism.

Key takeaways

Early U.S. foreign policy was shaped by weakness and vulnerability, not confidence.
Washington’s warning against permanent alliances became the foundational text for isolationism.
Both Federalists and Republicans, despite differences, converged on avoiding European wars.
The revolutionary era established nonentanglement as the default grand strategy.

Chapter 4 – From the French Revolution to the War of 1812: Isolationism as Doctrine

This chapter shows isolationism moving from instinct to doctrine. The French Revolution and the long Napoleonic wars created immense pressure on the U.S. to choose sides. Kupchan examines neutrality proclamations, the controversial Jay Treaty with Britain, and the struggle to maintain commercial access without being drawn into war.

Jefferson and Madison experiment with “peaceful coercion” (e.g., the Embargo Act) to avoid military entanglement while defending U.S. rights. The failure of these measures and rising tensions with Britain eventually culminate in the War of 1812. Even then, Kupchan argues, the conflict is still framed defensively—protecting neutral rights and national honor—rather than as a bid for European-style strategic commitments.

By the war’s end, the United States emerges more self-confident. The experience reinforces the belief that the country can defend its interests without permanent alliances and that its long-term security lies in continental expansion and naval defense, not deep engagement in European power politics.

Key takeaways

The Napoleonic era tests whether the U.S. can remain neutral amidst great-power conflict.
U.S. leaders try economic tools instead of alliances or major wars to protect interests.
The War of 1812 is an exception that proves the rule: a limited war, not a lasting entanglement.
By 1815, isolationism is not just instinctual but articulated as a doctrine.

Chapter 5 – Westward Expansion and the Monroe Doctrine: The Limits of Hemispheric Ambition

Kupchan then explores the paradox of a country that rejects Old World entanglements while asserting a growing sphere of influence in the New World. The Monroe Doctrine declares that European attempts to extend their political systems into the Western Hemisphere will be seen as hostile to U.S. interests.:contentReference[oaicite:8]{index=8}

Simultaneously, the United States pursues aggressive continental expansion: the annexation of vast territories (including through war with Mexico) and the displacement of Native peoples. Kupchan reads this as a “hemispheric isolationism”: the U.S. seeks to keep the Old World out while reserving wide latitude for itself within the hemisphere.

Crucially, the Monroe Doctrine does not commit the U.S. to permanent alliances or constant military presence abroad. It relies largely on the British navy (which has parallel interests in blocking other European empires) and on the expectation that geography and time favor American expansion.

Key takeaways

The U.S. begins to claim a special role in the Western Hemisphere while still rejecting Old World entanglements.
The Monroe Doctrine marries isolationism in Eurasia to assertiveness in the Americas.
U.S. leaders rely heavily on British power to underwrite hemispheric security, while avoiding formal alliance.
Isolationism is compatible with expansionism and regional dominance.

Chapter 6 – The Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Rise of American Power: Restraint Amid Ascent

As the U.S. industrializes and its power grows after the Civil War, isolationism could theoretically weaken—but Kupchan argues it largely persists. During the Civil War, the main fear is European intervention on behalf of the Confederacy, which underscores the dangers of entanglement. After the war, the U.S. becomes economically more capable but remains reluctant to make lasting commitments abroad.

Kupchan notes a pattern:

The U.S. acquires Alaska, strengthens its navy, and watches European moves in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Yet it avoids binding alliances and major overseas wars, even as its relative power rises.

He interprets this restraint as strategic: politicians see isolationism as a way to convert growing wealth and power into domestic nation-building, industrialization, and westward settlement. The U.S. is preparing for future global influence while still using isolationist habits to keep foreign commitments limited.

Key takeaways

Post-Civil War America grows stronger but does not abandon isolationism.
External activism is still bounded: selective acquisitions and diplomatic posturing, not a global security role.
Isolationism helps channel rising power into internal development rather than imperial overstretch.
By the 1890s, however, the gap between American power and its modest external role is widening.

Part II – The Defeat of Realist and Idealist Internationalism, 1898–1941

Chapter 7 – The Spanish-American War and the Onset of Imperial Ambition

Kupchan marks 1898 as a turning point. The Spanish–American War leads to the seizure of overseas territories (Cuba as protectorate, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines) and the first real American empire. The war is sold as liberation but produces long-term occupations and brutal counterinsurgency (especially in the Philippines).:contentReference[oaicite:9]{index=9}

He highlights the domestic debate between:

Imperialists (e.g., Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge) who see expansion as the natural expression of American power and destiny.
Anti-imperialists who warn that empire betrays republican values, invites foreign entanglements, and undermines isolationist tradition.

Kupchan’s central point is that 1898 does not immediately kill isolationism; rather, it opens a new conflict between emerging imperial ambitions and a still-powerful isolationist impulse.

Key takeaways

The Spanish–American War is the first major departure from traditional isolationism.
U.S. leaders embrace overseas empire, but many Americans resist on ideological and strategic grounds.
From this point, U.S. policy oscillates between imperial activism and isolationist backlash.

Chapter 8 – Republican Imperialism and the Isolationist Backlash

Under Theodore Roosevelt and his Republican successors, the U.S. takes on a more assertive global role: building the Panama Canal, asserting the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, intervening in Latin America, and expanding naval power. Kupchan sees this as a “realist internationalism” that still stops short of formal alliances in Europe but clearly abandons traditional isolationism.

At home, however, opposition grows. Isolationists attack imperial overreach, warn against militarism, and argue that constant intervention in the Caribbean and Pacific will entangle the U.S. in costly commitments. Kupchan emphasizes how isolationist rhetoric shifts from simple nonentanglement to a critique of empire as morally and strategically corrosive.

The chapter shows a pattern that will repeat later: expansionist presidents push outward; isolationist forces in Congress and the public push back, producing a halting, contested transition away from the old strategy.

Key takeaways

Early 20th-century Republican presidents move decisively toward imperial activism.
Isolationists adapt, arguing that empire threatens both values and security.
U.S. strategy becomes hybrid: regionally interventionist but still cautious about European entanglements.

Chapter 9 – Wilsonian Idealism and the Isolationist Backlash

World War I and Woodrow Wilson’s presidency mark the first major attempt at idealist internationalism: the U.S. enters a European war “to make the world safe for democracy” and to build a rules-based order centered on the League of Nations.

Kupchan recounts how Wilson moves the country from neutrality to intervention and then proposes a postwar order with collective security and open diplomacy. But the Senate rejects the League, and the U.S. retreats from Wilson’s ambitious design. Isolationists, “reservationists,” and nationalists unite to deny the new commitments.:contentReference[oaicite:10]{index=10}

For Kupchan, the critical lesson is that both realist and idealist versions of internationalism fail to displace isolationism in this era. The war leaves a sour aftertaste—high casualties, disillusionment with European politics, and a perception that the conflict was not truly in America’s interest.

Key takeaways

Wilson briefly pulls the U.S. into a transformative internationalist project.
The domestic backlash is fierce; the Senate rejects the League of Nations.
Isolationists portray the war as needless and the League as a dangerous entanglement.
The defeat of Wilson’s vision reinforces the staying power of isolationism after 1919.

Chapter 10 – The 1920s: Influence without Responsibility

The 1920s illustrate what Kupchan calls “influence without responsibility.” The U.S. refuses to join the League and avoids formal alliances, but it is economically dominant and deeply involved in European reconstruction and global finance.

He highlights:

U.S. leadership in reparations and debt restructuring (Dawes and Young plans).
Naval arms limitation conferences aimed at stabilizing maritime balances.
A strong preference for ad hoc cooperation rather than treaty-based commitments.

Isolationists applaud this arrangement: America can shape outcomes while remaining free of binding obligations. Kupchan argues, however, that this posture leaves the U.S. with leverage but not real control over the European security system; when crises intensify in the 1930s, the U.S. lacks both the institutional tools and political will to respond decisively.

Key takeaways

The U.S. exerts huge economic and diplomatic influence without formal security commitments.
Isolationists see this as an ideal compromise; internationalists see it as free-riding.
This strategy underestimates how much political and military responsibility is required to sustain order.

Chapter 11 – From the Great Depression to Pearl Harbor: Delusions of Strategic Immunity

Kupchan treats the interwar isolationist resurgence—especially in the 1930s—as the moment when isolationism becomes dangerously detached from reality. Economic collapse intensifies inward focus; the Nye Committee and neutrality acts reflect a belief that distance and noninvolvement can shield the U.S. from foreign wars.

He traces the rise of the America First Committee and other movements that oppose aid to Britain and intervention in World War II. At the same time, airpower, submarines, and total war erode the protective value of oceans. Kupchan argues that U.S. policymakers cling to outdated assumptions about strategic immunity even as fascist powers reshape the world order.:contentReference[oaicite:11]{index=11}

Roosevelt gradually pushes against this mood—through measures like Lend-Lease and the Atlantic Charter—but domestic opinion remains sharply divided until Pearl Harbor forces a decisive break.

Key takeaways

The Great Depression fuels a powerful isolationist revival.
Neutrality acts and “America First” embody faith in distance and noninvolvement.
Technological change and aggressive revisionist powers make those assumptions obsolete.
Pearl Harbor marks the moment when isolationism is discredited as a grand strategy.

Part III – The Rise and Fall of Liberal Internationalism, 1941–2020

Chapter 12 – World War II and the Cold War: The Era of Liberal Internationalism

After 1941, the U.S. embraces a fundamentally new strategy: liberal internationalism. Kupchan highlights the key pillars:

Creation of global institutions (UN, IMF, World Bank, GATT/WTO).
Permanent alliances and forward deployments (NATO, bilateral pacts in Asia).
Long-term military presence in Europe and East Asia to deter the Soviet Union and stabilize regions.:contentReference[oaicite:12]{index=12}

He argues that this era shows the virtues of internationalist leadership: containing the Soviet Union, preventing great-power war, fostering trade and growth, and anchoring democratic allies. But he also notes early signs of overreach: Korea, Vietnam, covert operations, and the tendency to treat every regional crisis as a test of credibility.

Isolationism does not disappear, but transforms into a narrower critique of specific interventions and institutions. The main political dividing lines now run between different flavors of internationalism (hawkish vs cautious), with isolationists largely marginalized until later decades.

Key takeaways

Post-1941, liberal internationalism becomes the dominant U.S. grand strategy.
Permanent alliances and global institutions replace nonentanglement as the operating norm.
The strategy is remarkably successful at stabilizing the postwar order, but sows seeds of later overreach.

Chapter 13 – The End of the Cold War and the Isolationist Comeback

Kupchan tracks how the Cold War’s end, the unipolar moment, and subsequent missteps revive isolationist sentiment. In the 1990s, the U.S. expands NATO, leads interventions in the Balkans, and deepens economic globalization. The Gulf War is seen as a successful limited intervention, but the line between necessity and choice becomes blurred.

After 9/11, the War on Terror leads to large-scale occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, nation-building efforts, and a sprawling security agenda. Kupchan sees these as examples of liberal internationalism drifting into crusading overreach. Military fatigue, economic inequality, and the 2008 financial crisis all feed a backlash.:contentReference[oaicite:13]{index=13}

Isolationist and “America First” themes reappear across the political spectrum:

On the right, skepticism of alliances, free trade, and democracy promotion.
On parts of the left, opposition to military intervention, trade agreements, and global institutions perceived as neoliberal.

Trump embodies this comeback rhetorically, attacking NATO allies, questioning free trade, and praising “sovereignty” over multilateralism. Yet even under Trump, the U.S. does not fully revert to classic isolationism; alliances fray but do not collapse, and forces remain deployed worldwide.

Key takeaways

Post–Cold War liberal internationalism overreaches, especially after 9/11.
Disillusionment with wars and globalization fuels a new isolationist impulse.
“America First” rhetoric revives historic themes but does not yet produce a full strategic break.

Chapter 14 – Between Isolationism and Liberal Internationalism: The Search for a Middle Ground

The final chapter is prescriptive. Kupchan argues that neither a return to full-blown isolationism nor a continuation of expansive liberal hegemony is sustainable. The U.S. must instead chart a middle path: a restrained internationalism that preserves core commitments while reducing overextension.:contentReference[oaicite:14]{index=14}

Key elements of this middle course include:

Prioritization of interests – Focus on vital regions (Europe, East Asia, parts of the Middle East) rather than trying to manage every crisis.
Burden sharing – Expect allies to carry more of the military and economic load; gradually shift from primacy to leadership within a more multipolar system.
Selective military engagement – Avoid large-scale regime-change wars and long occupations; emphasize deterrence, defense, and limited interventions only when core interests are at stake.
Managed globalization – Support open trade and financial flows, but with stronger buffers for domestic workers and communities to prevent backlash.
Domestic renewal – Recognize that foreign policy legitimacy depends on a healthy, cohesive domestic polity; overreach abroad undermines support at home.:contentReference[oaicite:15]{index=15}

Kupchan’s final message is that the isolationist instinct—caution about entanglements, focus on the home front—is valuable, but must be tempered by the realities of interdependence and great-power competition. The U.S. cannot withdraw from the world, but it must also stop trying to remake it.

Key takeaways

A sustainable grand strategy lies between isolationism and maximalist liberal hegemony.
The U.S. should remain engaged, but more selectively and with greater burden sharing.
Domestic strength and legitimacy are essential foundations for any successful foreign policy.
The historical record of isolationism offers both warnings (1930s) and lessons (19th-century restraint) for designing that middle path.

Highlights

Preface

p. 10: know little about it, the United States in fact has an impressive isolationist pedigree. In his Farewell Address of 1796, President George Washington set
p. 10: pedigree. In his Farewell Address of 1796, President George Washington set the young nation on a clear course: “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” The isolationist
p. 10: permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” The isolationist impulse embraced by Washington and the other Founders guided the nation for much of its history prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
p. 11: America’s sustained enthusiasm for international engagement is, however, the exception, not the rule, across the nation’s history. Prior to the country’s entry into World War II, Americans were generally averse to foreign entanglement, shunned alliances and other binding pacts, backed tariffs to protect the domestic economy, and embraced successive waves of anti-immigrant sentiment. In short, Trump’s America First grand strategy
p. 12: The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, abruptly halted the nation’s inward turn. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq initially galvanized the
p. 13: forward. I put myself in the “selective engagement” school. I believe that the United States has dramatically overreached since the end of the Cold War—especially in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11.
p. 14: Accordingly, a major strategic retrenchment is in order; the United States needs to off-load at least some of its surfeit of foreign entanglements.
p. 14: I disagree, however, with the growing chorus of voices calling for the United States to pull out of its major strategic positions around the world, including those in Europe and East Asia. Rather, the United States should focus on retrenchment from the strategic periphery—in particular, from the Middle East. Countering the threats posed by Russia and China gives the United States good reason to stay put in Europe and East Asia until both regions enjoy a self-sustaining stability. In contrast, U.S. interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya have produced little good. It is past time for the nation to cut its losses.
p. 14: and wide-ranging debate over the options Americans have before them, I do seek in this book to refurbish isolationism and rehabilitate its reputation.
p. 14: Asia should not be allowed to tarnish the notion of strategic restraint. For much of America’s history, isolationism served the nation well. Under the right circumstances and in the right places, geopolitical detachment will effectively advance the national interest. In this book, I seek to evaluate

1. American Isolationism: Past as Prelude?

p. 18: 1 American Isolationism: Past as Prelude?
p. 18: Afghanistan, and was leery of new entanglements in the region. One particular turn of events starkly illustrated Obama’s more reluctant attitude toward projecting American power—his refusal to enforce his own red line against the use of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war.
p. 20: It is against the backdrop of Obama’s more discriminating and reluctant brand of statecraft that his failure to honor his own red line marked a historical turning point. Ever since World War II, American foreign policy had rested on a solid bipartisan consensus in favor of liberal internationalism—a brand of statecraft that sought to anchor global stability through a combination of U.S. power and international partnership. But
p. 21: to pull back from an excess of foreign entanglements. Obama sought to uphold Pax Americana, but to do so more cheaply.
p. 21: In contrast, Donald Trump sought to dismantle Pax Americana. Catering to a political base that felt it was on the losing end of the open and globalized world fashioned under America’s watch, Trump did not want to preserve the current system at lower cost; he wanted to take it down. He unfurled an America First foreign policy that explicitly challenged the primary tenets of American statecraft since World War II. He questioned the durability of America’s strategic commitments to its principal allies in both Europe and Asia, going so far as to deem NATO “obsolete” and expressing his desire to withdraw from the alliance. He abruptly extracted U.S. troops
p. 21: his desire to withdraw from the alliance. He abruptly extracted U.S. troops from northern Syria in October 2019, even though the move sold out the Kurdish allies who had played a central role in ﬁghting ISIL. He withdrew from multiple international pacts, including the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal. He canceled emerging free-trade deals with both Paciﬁc and Atlantic partners in favor of tariffs and trade wars. He responded to the COVID-19 crisis by going it alone, shunning international teamwork, and turning his back on the World Health Organization. Trump generally delivered on an America First approach to foreign policy that was decidedly isolationist, unilateralist, and protectionist in tone and substance.
p. 22: inconclusive conﬂicts in the Middle East. So, too, have many Republicans joined Trump in backing away from the multilateralism of the post–World War II era, preferring the autonomy that comes with going it alone. The
p. 22: the nation’s isolationist past could be a prelude to its future. This prospect is made all the more likely by the economic disruption caused by the COVID- 19 pandemic; after all, the Great Depression helped produce the isolationist retreat of the 1930s. At this inﬂection point in American history, the United
p. 22: determined global engagement, the impulse is hardly new. Indeed, this inward turn resonates strongly with America’s further past; in the broad swath of American history, the last eighty years of “deep engagement” with the rest of the world are the exception, not the rule From the founding era until the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States generally shunned geopolitical entanglement with foreign nations. Yes, the nation’s birth did require a war to break away from Great Britain, which in turn prompted Americans to turn to the French for help. In 1778, the Thirteen Colonies concluded an alliance with France, which enabled them to prevail
p. 23: against the British in their struggle for independence. But the pact was the ultimate marriage of convenience, reluctantly embraced by the Founders only because it was necessary to break free from Britain. The United States promptly reneged on the alliance in 1793 when the French were in need of American help for their own war with Britain. Americans did embark on another war against the British in 1812. But the Royal Navy was obstructing the nation’s vital seaborne commerce, an infringement on sovereignty that many Americans deemed to warrant the use of force.
p. 23: entanglement. In his Farewell Address of 1796, President George Washington was explicit: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible… . It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”10 This dictum would guide U.S. statecraft for generations to come. Indeed, after Washington reneged on the nation’s alliance with France in 1793, it would not be until after World War II—a gap of roughly 150 years—that the United States was again prepared to countenance formal alliance with a foreign power
p. 24: Geopolitical isolation did not mean economic autarky. Washington made amply clear that his admonition was against only strategic, not commercial, engagement with foreign nations. Americans were avid traders, keen to enlarge foreign trade, if necessary by defending their economic pursuits through military means. During the nineteenth century, the United States sent armed forces abroad dozens of times, primarily to defend its citizens and their commercial interests
p. 24: by no means precluded territorial expansion.
p. 24: were ruthlessly eliminated or shunted aside. In the service of expanding the union, the United States seized a sizable piece of Mexico in the Mexican- American War (1846–1848), bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, and tried several times—unsuccessfully—to grab hold of Canadian territory.
p. 24: Americans from early on also aspired to hemispheric ascendancy. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823, although the United States did not assertively
p. 25: The United States did start to break away from its isolationist roots at the end of the nineteenth century. It began to build battleships in the 1890s and then made good use of them in the Spanish-American War, which produced a bout of U.S. expansion into the Caribbean and the Paciﬁc. The nation’s entry into World War I in 1917 also represented a stark departure from the decades of isolation that had come before. Indeed, the United States directly contravened the Founders by voluntarily inserting itself into a new round of great-power bloodletting on the other side of the Atlantic. But these detours,
p. 26: by provoking a backlash against military intervention abroad, in the end did more to consolidate isolationism than to weaken it. The allure of internationalism prevailed, but only temporarily.
p. 26: The U.S. colonization of the Philippines in 1898 triggered a bloody insurgency, quickly impressing upon Americans their distaste for ruling over foreign peoples. Entry into World War I, despite having tipped the
p. 27: during its impressive ascent. This study does not call for the United States to return to isolationism. On the contrary, it maintains that the country should continue to uphold its core strategic commitments in Europe and Asia. But this book does argue that the United States needs to retrench from an excess of foreign commitments in the strategic periphery. In making the
p. 28: pursued in measured fashion, can do so again. In today’s world of economic interdependence, cybernetworks, and aircraft and ballistic missiles, no nation can enjoy strategic immunity. Nonetheless, it is time to reclaim the
p. 28: during the interwar era. Beginning soon after the country’s entry into World War II in 1941, American ofﬁcials and opinion makers regularly unleashed unﬂinching condemnations of isolationism, setting the tone for the generations that followed. President Franklin Roosevelt warned that, “there could be no safety in passivity; no sanctuary in isolation.” His successor, Harry Truman, was more strident, referring to isolationism as “a confession of mental and moral bankruptcy,” a “counsel of despair,” and a “futile and vulnerable shield.”17 Truman’s secretary of state, Dean Acheson, quipped that isolationists wanted to “pull down the blinds and sit in the parlor with a loaded gun, waiting.”18 As the scholar Robert Tucker wrote in 1972, “in the American political vocabulary there are few terms carrying greater opprobrium than isolationism.”19
p. 28: As the scholar Andrew Bacevich has noted, the isolationist label has been a powerful political pejorative since the 1940s—and remains so:
p. 29: The term isolationism is not likely to disappear from American political discourse anytime soon. It’s too useful. Indeed, employ this verbal cudgel to castigate your opponents and your chances of gaining entrée to the nation’s most prestigious publications improve appreciably. Warn about the revival of isolationism and your prospects of making the grade as a pundit or candidate for high ofﬁce suddenly brighten
p. 29: America’s interwar retreat admittedly constituted a naïve denial of the dangers posed by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. American policy makers took isolationism way too far; their search for strategic immunity ended in strategic delusion. But the isolationist excesses of the interwar era do not justify the blanket indictment of isolationist thinking that has prevailed since World War II. A strategy of detachment has been too thoroughly rejected, preventing Americans from considering and beneﬁting from its potential merits Americans counseling pullback should not be dismissed as unpatriotic; they need to be heard and their arguments
p. 30: carefully considered. Most candidates for high ofﬁce still feel the need to promise a new American century and the indeﬁnite extension of Pax Americana. Instead, they should feel free to speak forthrightly about how the United States can best navigate a changing global landscape. As historian Christopher Nichols notes, isolationism continues to be denigrated, but its “inherent caution serves as a bulwark against hasty interventions and their likely unintended consequences.”27
p. 30: a major power. Times and conditions have indeed changed. In an era of intercontinental missiles and transnational terrorism, adjoining oceans are less protective than they used to be. The United States is currently far more powerful in economic and military terms than it was in the nineteenth century, meaning that many quarters of the globe have become dependent upon an American presence as a source of stability. Globalization has dramatically advanced commercial and ﬁnancial interdependence, giving the United States a vested interest in defending an open trading order and damping down potential geopolitical disruptions to the ﬂow of goods and ﬁnance.
p. 31: Trump ran on a neo-isolationist platform. According to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, titled “American International Engagement on the Rocks,” the U.S. electorate has been turning its back on foreign affairs. “The depth and duration of the public’s disengagement,” the report notes, “goes well beyond the periodic spikes in isolationist sentiment that have
p. 32: been observed over the past 50 years.”30 A separate poll revealed that over ﬁfty percent of Americans believed the United States should “mind its own business internationally,” by historical standards a very high level of isolationist sentiment
p. 32: isolationist excess Finding the middle ground between internationalist and isolationist extremes is one of America’s paramount challenges in the years ahead. The grand strategy of judicious retrenchment offered in this book’s concluding chapter seeks to arrive at that middle ground. It seeks to extract the wisdom of America’s isolationist as well as its internationalist traditions to bring purposes and means back into balance. Excavating the tension between isolationism and internationalism can help restore prudence to U.S. statecraft.
p. 33: Early Americans indeed believed passionately in the exceptional nature of the American experiment. Grounded in Protestant notions of redemption, they saw their young country as the New Israel, a chosen nation whose mission it was to elevate mankind spiritually, politically, and economically. Herman Melville succinctly captured the spirit of American exceptionalism in his 1850 book White-Jacket:
p. 34: We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people—the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world… . God has predestinated, mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feel in our souls. The rest of the nations must soon be in our rear. We are the pioneers of the world; the advance guard, sent on through the wilderness of untried things, to break a new path in the New World that is ours
p. 34: be able to perfect their union. The alternative would be contamination by the ills the settlers were so determined to leave behind. “Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?” George Washington asked in his Farewell Address. “Why … entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?”37
p. 34: America’s redemptive mission. In the words of John Quincy Adams, who served as both secretary of state (1817–1825) and president (1825–1829), the nation “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all,” but only through “the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue.”39 Adams, according to historian Albert Weinberg, believed that “America could save the world only if it remained free to save itself.”40
p. 34: Multiple versions of isolationist logic congealed as America matured— including geographic, unilateralist, libertarian, racist, and paciﬁst variants. Indeed, isolationism’s political strength emerged from the support it enjoyed from diverse constituencies, with strident nationalists on the right often teaming up with progressives on the left to block foreign expansion.
p. 35: enemy within—domestic threats to American democracy. The vulnerability of the American experiment to internal hazards teamed up with the dangers posed by foreign powers to convince the Founders to embrace isolationism.
p. 35: The Enemy Within.
p. 36: The restoration of monarchy, the overreach of the federal government, the diversion of resources from domestic investment, ethnic and racial dilution, the unchecked power of banks and corporations—Americans saw these and other domestic challenges to the American experiment as at least as dangerous as the threats posed by foreign enemies. It was in the service of confronting both external and internal perils that Americans of all political stripes rallied behind isolationism. Warding off foreign threats while defending freedom and prosperity from the enemy within meant the avoidance of entanglement with the enemy abroad. Only by holding themselves aloof from the outside world could Americans, in the famous words of John Winthrop, an English immigrant who arrived in 1630, serve as a “city upon a hill.”41
p. 36: Isolationism as National Creed.
p. 38: the success of the American experiment with geopolitical isolation. Only by pursuing “honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none,” as Thomas Jefferson put it in his ﬁrst inaugural address, could the nation keep at bay the enemy afar while subduing the enemy within In
p. 38: From the founding era until Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor—with notable detours during the Spanish-American War and World War I—isolationism was to America’s national identity and sense of purpose what internationalism has been since World War II. Today, to call someone an
p. 39: From Isolationism to Internationalism.
p. 39: fraught. The Spanish-American War of 1898 was a watershed. After more than a century of shunning territorial acquisitions beyond North America, President William McKinley (1897–1901) presided over an unprecedented bout of overseas expansion. The United States not only expelled Spain from
p. 39: bout of overseas expansion. The United States not only expelled Spain from Cuba, but also embarked on the military occupation of the island and wrested control of Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, and the Wake Islands. Just as the nation’s exceptionalist narrative had anchored
p. 39: ruling over other peoples. The United States had launched a successful war to end Spain’s ruthless oppression of Cubans, but in doing so had itself become an imperial and cruel overlord. A break with isolationism intended to further the nation’s exceptionalist calling ended up jeopardizing the nation’s messianic mission. An isolationist backlash and strategic retreat followed—even though the United States did not give up the territories it had seized. The brand of internationalism that emerged in 1898 was simply
p. 40: President Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921) learned from McKinley’s mistakes—but he ended up overcorrecting by putting on offer an idealist brand of internationalism intended to overturn the dictates of realism. Rather than casting the internationalist cause in terms of power and interests, he framed it in terms of ideals and principles. He initially steered clear of World War I, a conﬂict that he saw as another Old World struggle rooted in pointless geopolitical rivalry—one not worthy of American intervention. Prompted by German attacks on U.S. shipping, Wilson then entered the war in 1917, justifying his change of heart exclusively on idealist grounds—to make the world safe for democracy and build a peaceful postwar order fashioned on republican government and the rule of law. Finally, the United States would deliver on its obligation to remake the world. But Wilson dramatically overreached by embracing idealist aspirations that bore little resemblance to a world at war and that committed the United States to postwar obligations abroad for which many Americans had little enthusiasm. The Senate ended up rejecting U.S. participation in the League of Nations—Wilson’s brainchild for building a new postwar order. His idealist excess cleared the way for another isolationist backlash and strategic retreat.
p. 40: American values. Idealist in ambition, realist in implementation, liberal internationalism proved sufﬁciently compelling to bring to an end isolationism’s long run.
p. 40: It would not be until World War II that Franklin Roosevelt and his successors fashioned liberal internationalism—a brand of U.S. engagement
p. 42: policy for the 1940s.” Mead contends that this “myth of virtuous isolation … presented itself as the eternal and unchanging creed of the American people through the generations. It was the foreign policy equivalent of the Bill of Rights: the one true faith, handed down from on high.”53
p. 42: The End of the Cold War, the Onset of Strategic Excess, and the Isolationist Backlash. World War II thus marked a historic turning point for
p. 43: American ambition. The United States did engage in bouts of strategic excess during the Cold War—the Vietnam War arguably the most notable instance. But geopolitical realities generally imposed restraint and moderation on America’s Cold War grand strategy. The United States and its democratic allies ultimately prevailed because of strategic patience and foresight, not rash ambition.
p. 43: The collapse of the Soviet Union did, however, then clear the way for an era of strategic excess. With the defeat of Soviet communism, the
p. 43: Since the founding era, Americans had been determined, in the words of Thomas Paine, “to begin the world all over again.” At last, the United States could fulﬁll its exceptionalist calling.
p. 43: Russia. The United States helped guide China into the World Trade Organization, a move that was intended to expand its middle class,
p. 44: liberalize its politics, and tame its geopolitical ambition. Instead, it quickened China’s rise as America’s new peer competitor. The interventions
p. 44: The United States seems to be coming full circle, moving from isolationism, to liberal internationalism, and now back to isolationism. How far back in the direction of isolationism the pendulum swings remains to be seen. As Hartz approvingly paraphrases the views of diplomat and historian George Kennan, “Americans seem to oscillate between ﬂeeing from the rest of the world and embracing it with too ardent a passion. An absolute morality is inspired either to withdraw from ‘alien’ things or to transform them: it cannot live in comfort constantly by their side.”58 It is conceivable that the United States will again recoil from alien things and that isolationist excess will prevail. It is also possible that the United States will ﬁnally
p. 45: succeed in ﬁnding the middle ground between running the world and running away from it. Instead of withdrawing from or seeking to transform alien things, can Americans instead live in comfort by their side? The outcome of this building debate on America’s role in the world will have a major impact on the global politics of the twenty-ﬁrst century.

2. An Anatomy of Isolationism

p. 51: 2 An Anatomy of Isolationism
p. 51: The term “isolationism” came into common usage in the United States in the 1930s—and it already had distinctly negative connotations. Admiral
p. 51: the 1930s—and it already had distinctly negative connotations. Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, who in the late nineteenth century was one of the
p. 51: “our self-imposed isolation”
p. 51: body. Following the Senate’s rejection of U.S. participation in the League in 1919 and 1920, organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace dedicated themselves to studying and promoting internationalism and exposing the dangers of isolationism.
p. 51: the 1940s, but it took the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to push isolationism to the fringes of American politics. As Senator Arthur
p. 51: That it took from the nation’s birth until 1941 for Americans to abandon their isolationist roots speaks to its long dominance of American politics
p. 52: and statecraft.
p. 52: side of the Atlantic. Moreover, Americans were hardly passive when it came to territorial and commercial expansion. From early on, they aimed to become, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, “an ascendant in the system of American affairs” by eventually driving Europe’s imperial powers from the Western Hemisphere They were ruthlessly acquisitive in North
p. 52: coast. They were determined to trade in all quarters of the globe—and to use military force to defend American merchants as needed.
p. 52: ever was isolationist. Historian Robert Kagan argues that the United States was a “dangerous nation” from the start and that Americans have always pursued “aggressive expansionism” and “acquisitive materialism.”5
p. 52: pursue its objectives Historians Warren Cohen and Melvyn Lefﬂer offer a similar perspective, contending that the United States wielded considerable inﬂuence over global affairs after World War I by relying on its ﬁnancial, rather than its military, strength
p. 52: off the mark. From 1789 until 1941, with notable departures in 1898 and during World War I, the United States was strikingly isolationist. Yes,
p. 53: neighborhood. And yes, beginning in 1898 the United States became far more interventionist in the Caribbean and Latin America after it drove Spain from the region and took a major step toward ﬁnally fulﬁlling Hamilton’s aspiration that the nation become “an ascendant in the system of American affairs.”
p. 54: was foreign trade. The United States was from the outset a trading nation; the seaborne trade of cotton, tobacco, cod, and other commodities helped fuel the American economy. The expansion of overseas trade—and, if necessary, the defense of such trade by force—followed logically.
p. 54: commitments beyond its immediate neighborhood. Until 1898, Americans repeatedly turned their backs on opportunities to expand beyond North America. They regularly debated, but consistently rejected, proposals to wrest control of noncontiguous territories, including Cuba, the Danish West Indies, Haiti, Hawaii, and Santo Domingo. Between 1898 and 1941, they
p. 55: traction in the motherland—Great Britain. Although England had earlier pursued continental ambitions, it eventually came to practice a grand strategy of isolation when it came to Europe’s great powers. Banking on the
p. 55: Britain from great-power rivalry. Tories generally argued for complete isolation from the Continent, while Whigs maintained that Britain should intervene in Europe as needed to sustain a stable balance of power But both approaches entailed shunning foreign alliances that would only diminish Britain’s room for maneuver. As a foreign policy pamphlet published in London in 1744 put it, “A prince or state ought to avoid all treaties, except such as tend towards promoting commerce or manufactures, or reducing an exorbitant power that is becoming terrible to all its neighbors. All other alliances may be looked upon as so many encumbrances.”12
p. 56: America’s Founders read widely and were well-schooled in British strategy. The idea and practice of strategic isolation were thus not entirely homegrown Nonetheless, America’s version of isolationism was quite
p. 56: commitments. It did not build heavy warships capable of projecting power across long distances until the late 1800s, instead investing in the vessels needed for coastal defense and the protection of merchant ships against Barbary corsairs and other commerce raiders. Britain steered clear of the
p. 56: America’s marriage of commercial ambition with strategic detachment also distinguishes its brand of isolationism from other versions. Japan
p. 56: also distinguishes its brand of isolationism from other versions. Japan during the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1867) embraced an isolationist grand strategy (sakoku), but it practiced a much more stringent variety. Edicts adopted during the 1630s barred Japanese from leaving the country and severely restricted the entry of foreigners to Japan. Foreign commerce was tightly controlled. In effect, Japan sought to seal itself off from the outside world. In contrast, throughout its decades of isolationism, the
p. 56: outside world. In contrast, throughout its decades of isolationism, the United States remained an immigrant nation and its citizens zealously pursued foreign commerce. The nation’s Founders were worldly and well-
p. 57: deﬁning element in the new nation’s evolving identity. When the nation’s ﬁrst president in 1796 outlined his vision of U.S. statecraft, steering clear of foreign entanglement was far more than a policy recommendation; it was, in Washington’s own words, “the great rule of conduct for us.”15
p. 57: American isolationism rested on six distinct, but interlocking, logics: 1) capitalizing on natural security; 2) serving as redeemer nation; 3) advancing liberty and prosperity at home; 4) preserving freedom of action abroad; 5) protecting social homogeneity; and 6) promoting paciﬁsm. These
p. 58: in the ideological strength of these variants; for example, libertarian strains of isolationism ran stronger in the South, while paciﬁst strains held more sway in the North. The regional and ideological diversity of isolationist
p. 58: Hemisphere, but also unnatural. As Thomas Paine argued in his widely read pamphlet Common Sense, “even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority of the one, over the other, was never the design of Heaven.”17 The
p. 59: powers to stay out of its strategic theater. According to Paine, “any submission to, or dependence on Great Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels; and sets us at variance with nations, who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom, we have neither anger nor complaint.”22 Washington laid out a similar
p. 59: have neither anger nor complaint.”22 Washington laid out a similar perspective in the Farewell Address: “Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation… . Hence therefore it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artiﬁcial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics.”23 The practice of isolationism was thus meant
p. 60: proximate and European challengers Abraham Lincoln, although perhaps overstating the case, spelled out this aspect of natural security in an address in 1838: We ﬁnd ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate… . At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?—Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!—All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years
p. 61: of America to steer clear of European contentions.” Jefferson was in complete agreement: “Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.” John Quincy Adams offered a similar formulation, urging the United States to “look to commerce and navigation, and not to empire as her means of communication with the rest of the human family.”28
p. 61: paciﬁc relations with America. Paine maintained that “our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us peace and friendship of all Europe; because it is the interest of all Europe to have America a free port.”29 Jefferson, too, viewed open trade as an investment in international
p. 61: commerce at perfect liberty.”31 Not all the Founders agreed. Hamilton, for one, expressed skepticism about trade’s pacifying effects: “Has commerce hitherto done any thing more than change the objects of war,” he asked. “Have there not been as many wars founded upon commercial motives since that has become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned by the cupidity of territory or dominion?”32 Nonetheless,
p. 62: geographic good fortune but also its unique political character. Whereas America’s geographic bounty was unto itself, its exceptional experiment in political and economic liberty was to be shared with others. Indeed, the
p. 62: America’s self-appointed role as redeemer nation emerged in part from religious faith. New England, in particular, was home to a fervent strain of
p. 62: redeemer nation. As historian Lawrence Kaplan notes, “Calvinist expectations of a New Jerusalem in turn received reinforcement from the secular thought of the Enlightenment.”34 The result was a distinctive strain of American exceptionalism rooted in both religious conviction and rationalist conceptions of human progress.
p. 63: Logically, this sense of national mission should have prompted zealous entanglement abroad; at least in theory, the global promotion of the American experiment required nothing less. Paradoxically, however, American messianism had the opposite effect. Fearful of compromising their experiment by venturing into an outside realm that was politically blemished and war-prone, Americans were determined to protect the exceptional character of their nation by keeping the outside world at bay.
p. 63: fulﬁll this mission by example, not by action.
p. 63: Religious Messianism. As for the religious foundations of the nation’s messianic calling, Calvinism—the main Protestant denomination in the United States—embraced two contrasting conceptions of redemption. A conservative and pessimistic variant held humans to be irremediably ﬂawed and took redemption to be possible only in the world to come. In contrast, a progressive and optimistic variant held that humans could improve themselves through individual worship, moral behavior, and good works, opening up the possibility of redemption in this world. This progressive variant, which came to dominate New England, also saw religious freedom and political liberty as inseparable and deﬁning features of American society. For believers, this intermingling of religious and political
p. 63: material ambition Nonetheless, two waves of religious revivalism, known as Great Awakenings, stoked religious fervor. The ﬁrst ran from the 1720s
p. 64: to the 1740s. The surge in religious zeal strengthened dissent against established churches, bolstering the progressive variants of Protestantism that held out the prospect of divine redemption in this world. The second Great Awakening ran from the 1790s into the 1840s. Against the backdrop of American independence and the young nation’s growing population, territory, and prosperity, it deepened the linkage between religious and secular conceptions of America’s role as redeemer nation. Some historians draw a direct line between this wave of religious revivalism and westward expansion under the guise of Manifest Destiny. In the minds of Protestant evangelists, territorial expansion and the maturation of republican institutions were welcome and reassuring markers of an unfolding religious redemption Principles of religious freedom and individual worship aligned with principles of political liberty, leading, in the words of Andrew Preston, to a “Christian republicanism.”40
p. 65: and it appears as if it were the design of Providence.”44 Jefferson proposed that the young nation adopt as a national seal an image of the children of Israel led by a heavenly pillar of light. He was, according to historian Walter LaFeber, “conﬁdent that Americans were the new chosen people of God.”45 In his farewell address, President Andrew Jackson told Americans
p. 66: expansion as the fulﬁllment of the nation’s providential calling. But over the course of the nineteenth century—and particularly after the second Great Awakening—this religious narrative gave way to a more secular version, due to both a decline in the public’s religiosity and the nation’s growing territorial girth and economic bounty. America’s self-evident
p. 66: This secular narrative understood America’s uniqueness as resting on three main elements: the advanced stage of the nation’s political and social liberty; the superiority of its Anglo-Saxon population; and the quality and size of its territory. This triple endowment would enable the United States to advance, if not complete, the quest for political and social ﬁnality—the secular counterpart to God’s kingdom on earth.
p. 67: domestic liberty. Drawing on the work of European thinkers such as Voltaire, David Hume, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many of America’s Founders favored a foreign policy based on reason and law, not on coercion and balance-of-power logic. Indeed, the pursuit of a paciﬁed, rules-based
p. 67: imperial designs. As President James Monroe (1817–1825) declared in his Annual Message to Congress in 1823, “in the wars of European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so… . We should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere, as dangerous to our peace and security.”58
p. 67: and economic inequality. The United States, in contrast, would be free of class hierarchy and social impediments to economic opportunity. Americans were “born equal,” in the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, the astute French observer of early America For many Americans, social equality and
p. 67: observer of early America For many Americans, social equality and economic mobility were some of the nation’s most alluring assets. In Europe, according to Jefferson, “the dignity of man is lost in arbitrary
p. 68: distinctions, where the human species is classed into several stages of degradation, where the many are crouched under the weight of the few.” In America, he countered, “the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest Millionary,” and “no other distinction between man and man had ever been known, but that of persons in ofﬁce exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals.”60
p. 68: Louis Hartz describes “the historic ethos of American life” as “its bourgeois hungers, its classlessness, the spirit of equality that pervaded it.” This ethos, Hartz explains, “saturated the American sense of mission, not with a Christian universalism, but with a curiously Hebraic kind of separatism.”61 Americans were determined to keep their distance from
p. 69: for a more activist and interventionist stance. The independence movements in Latin America that started in the late 1700s tempted the United States to deepen its involvement in the region, with Secretary of State James Monroe noting in 1811 that “as inhabitants of the same Hemisphere, as neighbors, the United States cannot be unfeeling spectators of so important a moment.”70 Similar sentiments in favor of intervention emerged during the
p. 70: warranting direct involvement in order to advance the spread of the American experiment.
p. 70: sure, the United States regularly dispatched forces overseas during the course of the nineteenth century. But it did so to protect its traders, citizens, and investments, not in the service of fostering progressive change in foreign lands. It was not until the Spanish-American War that elites and the
p. 70: foreign lands. It was not until the Spanish-American War that elites and the public alike were ready to countenance the spread of America’s ideals through the projection of U.S. power abroad.
p. 70: law and reason. Particularly in the North, where idealism and paciﬁsm had strong religious and ideological appeal, Americans saw themselves as escaping not just the tyranny and social hierarchy of the Old World, but also its recurring cycles of coercion, predation, and war The United States was
p. 70: Four key suppositions, elaborated upon in the remainder of this chapter, ensured that the nation’s exceptionalist calling favored exemplarism rather than more activist engagement. First, Americans feared that the exertions
p. 70: than more activist engagement. First, Americans feared that the exertions entailed in pursuing a more ambitious foreign policy would, by imperiling domestic liberty, do more to compromise than to advance the American experiment. Early Americans were far from conﬁdent in the durability of
p. 70: Second, as mentioned above, Americans believed that the fulﬁllment of their country’s destiny as an exceptional nation depended in part on its ability to eschew power politics in favor of a brand of statecraft guided by law and reason. Particularly in the North, where idealism and paciﬁsm had
p. 71: Third, early Americans were quite sober about the prospects for successfully fostering republican government beyond their own shores.
p. 71: Catholicism, social hierarchy, and ethnic heterogeneity made it likely that independence would be accompanied by monarchy and despotism, not democracy. As Adams wrote in his diary in 1821 following a conversation
p. 72: among nations. Indeed, Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 6 made short shrift of the notion that a democratic and commercialized world would make for a more peaceful world: Have republics in practice been less addicted to war than monarchies? Are not the former administered by men as well as the latter? Are there not aversions, predilections, rivalships, and desires of unjust acquisitions, that affect nations as well as kings? Are not popular assemblies frequently subject to the impulses of rage, resentment, jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities? … Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change the objects of war? … Have there not been as many wars founded upon commercial motives since that has become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned by the cupidity of territory or dominion? Has not the spirit of commerce, in many instances, administered new incentives to the appetite, both for the one and for the other? Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinions, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries
p. 72: Fourth, the racial variant of the redeemer narrative served as a further check on the potential emergence of a crusading messianism. The nation’s Anglo-Saxon populace was a source of its exceptional character; the homogeneity of that populace needed to be vigilantly protected. Fear of the citizenry’s dilution on repeated occasions prompted the United States to back away from foreign adventures that had the potential to increase the diversity of its population. During the second half of the nineteenth century,
p. 72: warning against the inclusion of “inferior peoples” in the nation’s body politic. Restrictions on immigration similarly aimed at protecting the
p. 73: southerners were animated by libertarian fears of political centralization, and therefore wary of foreign engagements that would encourage greater federalization and potentially give rise to a large standing army and navy.
p. 73: exemplarism over a more activist messianism The North more enthusiastically embraced the idealist notion that the United States, as the New Israel, had an obligation to change the world. So, too, were northerners more comfortable with the stronger institutions of government needed to oversee an activist foreign policy. At the same time, however, the North was also home to a religiously inspired paciﬁsm and was supportive of an international order governed by the rule of law, not coercion.
p. 73: important source of America’s tenacious embrace of isolationism. The Founders did differ on important issues of statecraft, including whether to
p. 74: tilt toward Britain or France during the union’s early years.
p. 74: During the confederation period (1781–1789) and into its early years as a federation, the nation’s leaders saw disunion as a chief domestic threat. They feared that the individual states might form their own alliances with foreign powers, thereby pulling the confederation apart and setting its members against one another. The strategic implications of geography again
p. 74: threat of disunion. Republican government, by virtue of its accessibility, was vulnerable to the corrupting inﬂuence of foreign powers. As Hamilton
p. 74: was vulnerable to the corrupting inﬂuence of foreign powers. As Hamilton noted in Federalist No. 22, “one of the weak sides of republics, among their numerous advantages, is that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption.”81 In Federalist No. 7, he worried that the union, “by the
p. 74: the enemies of them all.”82 Washington agreed, noting in his Farewell Address that “history and experience prove that foreign inﬂuence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.”83 Intense partisan and regional disagreements over policy made the country especially ripe for external manipulation, inviting Britain or France in particular to seek to insert themselves into American politics.
p. 74: The Founders pursued two antidotes to the threat posed by foreign manipulation and the prospect of each state going its own way on matters of foreign policy. The ﬁrst was to enhance the power of the central government, endowing it, in Hamilton’s words, with the authority to oversee “the superintendence of our intercourse, political and commercial,
p. 75: with foreign countries.”84 The second was to steer clear of foreign commitments, avoiding the alliances that might pull the separate states apart and leave them, as Hamilton put it, “entangled in all the pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars.”85
p. 75: deeply divided along sectional lines over foreign alignment. If northerners and southerners could not agree on whether to tilt toward Britain or France, steering clear of both powers was an attractive political compromise.
p. 75: Jefferson thought it virtually inevitable that the demands associated with projecting American power abroad would lead to excessive centralization, if not domestic tyranny. James Madison was concerned primarily about preserving the separation of powers and feared that foreign ambition would jeopardize political equilibrium among the executive, judicial, and legislative branches. Accordingly, both Jefferson and Madison saw the
p. 75: Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton had differing views of how best to structure the nation’s governing institutions, but they all arrived at the conclusion that domestic liberty required strategic isolation.
p. 76: Washington agreed, warning in his Farewell Address against “those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”88
p. 76: enough to avoid foreign predation and internal strife. If each state pursued its own foreign policy, each would be too weak to resist foreign interference, and competing allegiances could pit the individual states against one another. In Washington’s words, “they must derive from union
p. 77: predation. In contrast, Madison favored a more capable federal government on matters of domestic as well as foreign policy as long as that government was constrained by the separation of powers—what he called the “compound republic.”91
p. 77: on show to the world and therefore invite foreign meddling. As Hamilton asserted at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, “no government could give us tranquility and happiness at home, which did not possess sufﬁcient stability and strength to make us respectable abroad.” He stipulated that
p. 78: Some historians view Hamilton as the one Founder who bucked isolationist thinking and instead advocated for a strong nation that would follow in the footsteps of Great Britain and rise as a great power But, for Hamilton, the goal of centralized governance was not to enable the United States to project its power abroad. On the contrary, a stronger federal government, coupled with the protection afforded by ﬂanking oceans, would grant the nation immunity from foreign interference. Liberty was to be preserved by keeping other powers at bay; isolation, not foreign ambition, was the pathway to freedom. Indeed, as Washington composed his Farewell Address in 1796, Hamilton successfully pressed the president to present his admonition against foreign entanglement as an enduring rule, not just a temporary strategy suited to a young and ﬂedgling nation
p. 78: In sum, for Jefferson and Madison, geopolitical isolation would advance domestic freedom by obviating the need for a strong, centralized government and preserving a ﬁnely tuned separation of powers. In contrast, Hamilton thought that more centralized governance was necessary to ward off foreign predation, thereby ensuring the nation’s isolation from great- power rivalry and its immunity from tyrannical rule imposed by others. In the end, all three equated the preservation of liberty at home with the avoidance of entanglement abroad.
p. 78: the colonial and revolutionary eras. Simply put, enemies were bad for business.
p. 79: America with Europe was commerce, not politics or war.”99 This consensus was reﬂected in the Model Treaty adopted by Congress in 1776, which was to serve as a template for formalizing the country’s relations with other nations. It focused almost exclusively on commercial ties, made no mention of alliances or other kinds of strategic commitments, and only touched on geopolitics by, for example, providing for arms transfers and other indirect forms of security assistance.
p. 79: political connection with none.”98 John Adams agreed that “the business of America with Europe was commerce, not politics or war.”99 This consensus
p. 79: society. Jefferson and his fellow travelers, for example, were concerned that the instruments needed to fund wars—in particular, a central bank and public debt—would eventually create a wealthy and excessively inﬂuential creditor class, replicating one of Europe’s primary political and social ills According to Jefferson, establishing a central bank would run the
p. 80: elite more broadly, not just ﬁnanciers. In the early 1900s, progressives were concerned about growing inequality, urban poverty, social stratiﬁcation, and excessive corporate inﬂuence over commerce—as well as about the potential emergence of an industrial and ﬁnancial elite with a vested interest in foreign expansion. As discussed in Chapter Eleven, this sentiment
p. 80: ethos pervaded U.S. foreign policy.”102 Americans were willing to tolerate obligations to their own government—as long as they were kept to a minimum—but they were dead set against obligations to foreign governments, especially when it came to matters of geopolitics. If and when
p. 81: geopolitical traditions of the Old World. Realizing the nation’s exceptionalist calling meant conducting a statecraft based on Enlightenment principles, not on alliances and manipulation of the balance of power. Jay in
p. 81: The third consideration was pragmatic; alliance with other countries risked dragging the United States into conﬂicts that might contravene its interests, while unilateralism protected the nation’s ability to more carefully choose its ﬁghts. Preserving freedom of action abroad would enable the
p. 81: Three fundamental convictions animated the nation’s early embrace of unilateralism. The ﬁrst was principled; the United States needed to avoid alliances or other types of political commitments that could impair the ability of the president or Congress to exercise its constitutional authorities.
p. 81: The second was ideological; as it charted its own course as the redeemer nation, the United States needed to make a clean break with the dangerous geopolitical traditions of the Old World. Realizing the nation’s
p. 82: This yearning for autonomy was so strong that it compelled the United States to commit an act of bald perﬁdy during its early years. Faced with the prospect of defeat at the hands of Britain amid its bid for independence, the United States concluded a military alliance with France in 1778. Thereafter, direct French assistance in the ﬁght against Britain played a vital role in enabling the United States to prevail. Nonetheless, after war broke out between France and Britain in 1793, the United States refused to honor its military obligations to France. Instead, President Washington declared neutrality, angering not just the French but also Jefferson and other Founders who favored a pro-French diplomatic tilt. This awkward turn of events prompted Washington in his Farewell Address to warn his countrymen to rely only on “temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.”106
p. 82: France ofﬁcially agreed to dissolve their alliance. Thereafter, the United States jealously guarded its freedom of action abroad, not concluding another formal alliance until after World War II. In the early nineteenth century, it declined an offer from Britain to work together to support newly independent countries in Latin America, instead preferring a unilateral declaration of its own vision for the Western Hemisphere—the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. As the United States expanded into the Paciﬁc at the end of the century, it similarly steered clear of great-power pacts in favor of the freedom of action spelled out in the Open Door Policy of 1899, which called for trade with China to be equal for all countries. In a bold statement of the nation’s aversion to geopolitical commitments beyond its neighborhood, the Senate after the close of World War I rejected U.S. participation in the League of Nations—a body designed and ardently supported by America’s own president, Woodrow Wilson.
p. 83: population. According to Jefferson, the United States should eventually “cover the whole northern, if not the southern continent, with a people speaking the same language, governed in similar forms, & by similar laws: nor can we contemplate, with satisfaction, either blot or mixture on that surface.”108 As the union’s enlargement eventually tilted the political
p. 84: to such “mixture” prompted its secession and the Civil War. The economic self-interest of slaveholders was a strong motivation, but so too was the South’s commitment to preserving racial hierarchy.
p. 84: them into the nation’s population Even after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the United States kept its distance from Haiti, Santo Domingo, Cuba, and other nearby territories that risked adding to America’s black population. Many Americans were also skeptical that nonwhites would make good democratic citizens; they were incapable of responsible self-government. So, too, did the predominance of Catholicism in Latin America make the region’s population unﬁt for potential inclusion in a republic In contrast, American society was mainly white, Protestant, and
p. 84: The priority placed on preserving social homogeneity also prompted efforts to restrict immigration, which at times played a role in reinforcing isolationist sentiment. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the United States put restrictions on Chinese immigrants, both to prevent social dilution and to protect jobs. Limits on immigration from “Asiatic” zones increased after the turn of the century. In the 1920s, the United States imposed immigration quotas based on country of origin, leading to a dramatic decrease in arrivals of Catholics and Jews from southeastern Europe in favor of Protestants from the north. The isolationism of the interwar era went hand in hand with anti-immigrant sentiment, reinforcing the aversion to foreign entanglement. In periods during which the United States was implicated in international conﬂicts, it also put restraints— including surveillance and forced incarceration—on immigrant populations it deemed to be potentially disloyal—French in the 1790s, Germans during World War I, and Japanese during World War II. Engagement in foreign conﬂicts fueled anti-immigrant sentiment aimed at disarming the enemy within and protecting social homogeneity by keeping foreigners out
p. 85: the Revolutionary War. In these communities, aversion to war was a by- product of faith; taking up arms was a violation of religious conviction. As
p. 85: Mennonites and Quakers
p. 87: Capitalizing on natural security; serving as redeemer nation; advancing liberty and prosperity at home; preserving freedom of action abroad; protecting social homogeneity; promoting paciﬁsm—these six interlocking logics shape the story of American isolationism that unfolds in the

Part I The Era of Isolationism, 1789–1898

p. 88: Part I of this book’s historical narrative covers the emergence of a grand strategy of isolationism during the French and Indian War (1754–1763) and the Revolutionary era, its articulation and formalization during the 1790s— in particular, by President George Washington in his Farewell Address of 1796—and its implementation and evolution over the course of the nineteenth century. Isolationism was in its heyday from the founding era
p. 88: and growing strength. Implementing a grand strategy of isolationism took two wars against Britain, followed by deft diplomacy and bouts of coercion with Britain, France, Russia, and Spain to shepherd them out of North America and, eventually, the Western Hemisphere. While pushing Europe’s
p. 89: The ideological variant of isolationism that most inﬂuenced strategic debate varied over time. Capitalizing on the natural security afforded by ﬂanking oceans was a consistent priority. So, too, was the United States’ obligation to serve as a redeemer nation by pursuing a path that would showcase the advantages of republicanism at home and restraint abroad. Demonstrating the beneﬁts of geopolitical detachment would help counter the appeal of the balance-of-power logic that dominated relations among European states. Even after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the formation of the Concert of Europe—a great-power forum established in 1815 aimed at preventing major war—Americans tended to regard Europe as still beholden to power politics and inescapably prone to war. Moreover, they saw the Concert as a conservative instrument for repressing liberal threats to monarchic rule and feared joint European intervention to suppress or reverse independence movements challenging Spanish rule in the Americas—all the more reason for the United States to ward Europeans away from interference in the Western Hemisphere.
p. 89: potent source of isolationism. Disagreement over whether new territories would be slaveholding and opposition to the incorporation of more nonwhites into the body politic blocked prospective expansion into the Caribbean and Latin America. By the 1880s, concern about diluting the nation’s social homogeneity not only stood in the way of expansion, but
p. 90: also began to produce anti-immigrant legislation. Paciﬁsm was arguably the least inﬂuential of isolationism’s ideological variants, but it did become politically consequential during times of conﬂict—especially during the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War.
p. 90: scope of their imperial holdings. The United States embarked on a signiﬁcant naval buildup in the 1880s, followed by the construction of a battleship ﬂeet in the 1890s. The ability to project power to overseas theaters fueled greater temptation to use that power, undermining the long- standing political consensus behind isolationism. The emerging struggle
p. 90: buildup—but only for so long. The Spanish-American War of 1898 and the major bout of extracontinental expansion that accompanied it marked a clear break with the isolationist consensus that had held since the founding era.
p. 90: geopolitical circumstance and potential. A grand strategy of isolationism lasted so long in part because it unquestionably served the nation’s interests, allowing Americans to focus on continental expansion, economic development, and political consolidation of the union. By the end of the

3. The Revolutionary Era: Contemplating Nonentanglement

p. 91: 3 The Revolutionary Era: Contemplating Nonentanglement
p. 91: of detachment from Europe. Immigrants to the New World sought not only economic opportunity and religious freedom, but also escape from the interstate violence that regularly plagued Europe During the late 1600s and into the eighteenth century, millions of soldiers and civilians died in a succession of large-scale conﬂicts, including the War of the Grand Alliance (1688–1697), the Great Northern War (1700–1721), and the wars of succession in Spain (1700–1713), Poland (1733–1738), and Austria (1740– 1748).
p. 91: Colonists in the New World did not initially succeed in leaving behind the violence-prone statecraft of the Old World. Beginning in the late 1600s, the American colonists found themselves in a series of conﬂicts with the French and Spanish, usually over territory. The Seven Years’ War, which ran from 1756 to 1763, then drew the Thirteen Colonies into a conﬂict among Europe’s major powers, impressing upon Americans the dangers that came with political attachment to the Old World.
p. 91: French and Indian War.
p. 92: These military successes notwithstanding, the war left the American colonies ever more wary of their strategic connection to Europe. The British decided to help cover the costs of the war by imposing additional ﬁnancial burdens on the American colonies. The aggrieved colonies retaliated by obstructing commerce with Britain. This clash over issues of taxation and trade would fuel America’s growing estrangement from Britain, culminating in the colonies’ revolt against British rule in 1775.
p. 92: Further alienating the American colonists was the fact that the British left a sizable contingent of troops west of Appalachia following the close of the French and Indian War—in part to block America’s westward expansion and limit its territorial girth and geopolitical potential. In 1763, London issued a proclamation formally prohibiting colonial expansion beyond the Appalachians. Britain’s overt efforts to put limits on the territory and prosperity of its North American brethren only encouraged the colonists to become more resentful of British rule.
p. 92: Americans thus emerged from the French and Indian War contemplating more seriously than ever before the prospect of separation from Britain.
p. 93: Indian War. In 1774 the colonies agreed to form the Continental Congress, the representative body that would provide governance during their struggle for independence. Combat between British troops and the Massachusetts militia broke out in April 1775, marking the beginning of the Revolutionary War and setting the stage for Congress’s declaration of independence in July 1776.
p. 93: potentially become the “fourteenth colony.”8 However, Canadians were of a different mind and sided with the British to rebuff the American force.
p. 94: neighborhood. To that end, they did secure from the British as part of the peace settlement the Northwest Territory, effectively doubling the size of the country.
p. 94: early isolationist turn in American statecraft.
p. 94: First, the nation’s youthful weakness constrained its ambition
p. 94: from Europe was the fact that the American economy was heavily reliant on seaborne commerce, making the new nation keen to trade, not ﬁght, with Europe’s great powers The decision to break away from Britain had been
p. 95: The goal was ﬁrst and foremost to maximize U.S. prosperity.
p. 95: more peaceful world. Jefferson believed that in pursuing an open trading system the United States was pursuing a goal “so valuable to mankind as the total emancipation of commerce and the bringing together all nations for a free interconnection of happiness.”17 Adams agreed that free trade would serve as a check against conﬂict among nations This belief that
p. 95: all the Founders. Hamilton, for example, was a decided skeptic; he foresaw that wars would be fought over commerce, asking, “is not the love of wealth as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of power or glory?”19
p. 95: work narrowly on commercial issues. As John Adams told the French foreign minister, “the dignity of North America does not consist in diplomatic ceremonials or any of the subtleties of etiquette; it consists solely in reason, justice, truth, the rights of mankind, and the interests of the nations of Europe.”20 Although Adams was engaging in a signiﬁcant
p. 95: also what they saw as the anachronistic world of palace intrigue, secret diplomacy, and power politics.
p. 97: As the war took a turn for the worse and further setbacks seemed inevitable in the absence of more assistance from abroad, America’s leaders recognized that they had to offer more than commerce if they were to secure the help they needed to prevail against Britain. The surrender of Fort Ticonderoga to the British in July 1777 as well as dwindling ﬁnancial resources helped convince American leaders that concluding a military alliance with France was necessary to avert defeat. With the nascent nation’s back up against the wall, the Founders had little choice but to resort to the geopolitical instruments of the Old World if they were to break free from that world.
p. 97: Although French involvement in the war proved essential to securing America’s eventual victory and its de jure independence, its strategic partnership with France did more to strengthen than to undercut America’s distaste for alliance. France’s military assistance was more than welcome, but the same was not true of the political constraints that accompanied it.
p. 98: A ﬁnal debate that sheds considerable light on U.S. grand strategy during the Revolutionary era concerns potential U.S. entry into the League of Armed Neutrality. Russia took the lead in forming the League in 1780 as a means of preserving the right of neutral countries to trade with all parties, including belligerents. As long as their ships were not carrying contraband, neutral countries had the right to defend their ﬂeets against molestation. The United States initially requested inclusion in the League, the terms of which were quite consistent with the Model Treaty, but its belligerent status precluded participation. By 1783, eight countries had joined the pact, including Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and Portugal
p. 99: interests of the United States with the politics of Europe.”34 In the resolution setting forth the decision against joining the League, Congress concluded that “the true interest of these States requires that they should be as little as possible entangled in the politics and controversies of European nations.”35 America’s abiding interest in protecting overseas commerce was
p. 99: on the many obstacles standing in their way. From the outset, the Founders made clear their aversion to alliance and their desire to adhere to a principled brand of statecraft based on nonentanglement, commerce, and Enlightenment values. But they soon realized that achieving their
p. 99: American distrust of entanglement with Europe. Congress’s rejection of U.S. participation in the League of Armed Neutrality also revealed early on the nation’s distaste for international pacts and its strong preference for unilateral action. Americans were contemplating nonentanglement, but

4. From the French Revolution to the War of 1812: Isolationism as Doctrine

p. 100: 4 From the French Revolution to the War of 1812: Isolationism as Doctrine
p. 100: two-party system that took shape during President Washington’s ﬁrst term (1789–1792) exacerbated sectional rivalry. The Federalists became the dominant party in the North, while the Democratic-Republicans (hereafter referred to as Republicans) dominated in the South.
p. 100: more agrarian, rural, and libertarian. Accordingly, the North tilted toward Britain, which it saw as a model for a modern American economy fueled by urbanization and manufacturing, while the South tilted toward France and its more agrarian lifestyle. North/South differences also played out over
p. 100: rancor that mounted after independence. Jefferson, for example, railed against Hamilton’s call for a national bank, national debt, and a political economy resembling Britain’s, charging that this agenda constituted a veiled attempt to replace republican government with the trappings of
p. 101: monarchical rule
p. 101: centralized to resist foreign predation. Hamilton in Federalist No. 7 spoke for many of the Founders in expressing concern about “the probability of incompatible alliances between the different states or confederacies and different foreign nations, and the effects of this situation upon the peace of the whole.” He maintained that “America, if not connected at all, or only by the feeble tie of a simple league, offensive and defensive, would, by the operation of such jarring alliances, be gradually entangled in all the pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars; and by the destructive contentions of the parts into which she was divided, would be likely to become a prey to the artiﬁces and machinations of powers equally the enemies of them all. Divide et impera must be the motto of every nation that either hates or fears us.”6 The constitution that took effect in 1789
p. 101: that either hates or fears us.”6 The constitution that took effect in 1789 accordingly endowed the nation with a single foreign policy, and granted the federal government the power to tax, as well as to “raise and support Armies” and “to provide and maintain a Navy.”7
p. 102: the need to reassure skeptics. He argued that due to the natural security afforded by geography, the United States would need to maintain only a small army—one that, although capable of suppressing “a small faction, or an occasional mob, or insurrection,” would not be strong enough to “enforce encroachments against the united efforts of the great body of the people.”9
p. 102: rivalries. The French Revolution in 1789 spawned roughly a decade of conﬂict that engulfed a host of countries, including Austria, Britain, Russia, Portugal, the Netherlands, Prussia, and Spain. That Europe’s conservative monarchies were keen to quash the French Revolution and restore Bourbon rule concerned Americans already preoccupied with the fragility of their republican experiment.
p. 102: Closer to U.S. shores, the slave revolt that broke out in 1791 in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) further complicated America’s geopolitical environment. France was ultimately unable to put down the
p. 103: Napoleon’s decision in 1803 to sell the Louisiana Territory—a major trading post for Haiti—to the United States A setback for the French was
p. 106: Given America’s continuing geopolitical and commercial entanglements with Europe, France’s declaration of war against Britain in February 1793 confronted the United States with a host of difﬁcult strategic choices. Not only did the United States have a treaty-based obligation to come to France’s aid should it be at war with Britain, but the French, by taking on Britain as well as a host of other European monarchies, were acting in the name of spreading popular government—a mission similar to America’s own. Nonetheless, neither ﬁdelity nor common cause prevailed, with President Washington declaring in April 1793 that the United States would remain neutral in the war between Britain and France. Washington was effectively turning the nation’s back on the country that had recently come to America’s rescue during its own struggle against monarchy.
p. 107: was to little avail. Relations with France continued to deteriorate, leading in 1798 to the outbreak of the Quasi-War—an undeclared naval conﬂict between the United States and France. Underscoring the fraught politics of grand strategy, Congress the same year passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which sought to silence pro-French voices and repress domestic dissent.
p. 107: Quasi-War and amicably dissolved the U.S. alliance with France. In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from the French for $15 million, almost doubling the size of the country and removing France as an impediment to westward expansion. In the meantime, the Jay Treaty led to
p. 107: Britain. Ongoing British harassment of U.S. merchant ships eventually encouraged the United States to declare war on Britain in 1812. Although the War of 1812 ended in a military stalemate, it did secure for the United States unobstructed maritime commerce and an end to British efforts to block westward expansion by arming Native Americans. The Treaty of
p. 107: disentangled the United States from France. The Treaty of Ghent, which in early 1815 brought the War of 1812 to a close and ﬁnalized the transfer of the Northwest Territory from British to American control, marked a similar disentanglement of the United States from Britain Americans had made
p. 108: He also argued that the revolution had brought to power an illegitimate French government, effectively releasing the United States from the obligations it had undertaken to the French monarchy The execution of
p. 108: Many in Jefferson’s camp were troubled by the radical turn in the French Revolution, but generally believed, in Lawrence Kaplan’s words, “that France was ﬁghting America’s battle abroad.”27 The French helped the
p. 109: Amid increasing rancor among his advisers, Washington settled on the middle course to which Hamilton had gravitated. He was unwilling to
p. 109: The Proclamation of Neutrality was equally disruptive of relations between Federalists and Republicans; far from settling their dispute over the merits of alliance with France, their disagreement intensiﬁed. Hamilton dug in, publishing under the pseudonym Paciﬁcus seven essays defending neutrality. He maintained that the United States had no obligation to defend
p. 110: Madison, writing under the pseudonym Helvidius, presented the Jeffersonian rebuttal. He suggested that it was “ignominious perﬁdy” for a country to fail to come to the aid of an ally at war—even if its government had changed since the alliance’s inception. He also argued that Washington had violated the Constitution since the alliance with France involved a treaty, meaning that only Congress had the right to effectively suspend it and declare neutrality. In addition, Madison accused the Federalists of being
p. 110: The main debate was between those who
p. 111: wanted to formalize publicly American neutrality and those who wanted to stand by the alliance in principle, but refrain from honoring it in practice.
p. 111: practice. Their disagreement over whether to tilt toward Britain or France was, however, so embedded in partisan and sectional politics that the question of whether to uphold the 1778 alliance proved uniquely divisive. The intensity of the bitterness stemmed from the personal rivalry that had emerged between Hamilton and Jefferson as well as the broader debate between North and South as to whether the country should follow Britain’s trajectory and become more urbanized and centralized or follow France’s trajectory and remain more agrarian and localized. Jefferson’s resignation was a testament to the consequence of this political divide and helped set the stage for the mounting partisan rivalry over foreign policy that would soon follow.
p. 112: Additionally, the United States made no progress in getting the British to give up their remaining military outposts on U.S. territory, to cease arming Native Americans, or to drop restrictions on trade. Unconvinced that neutrality alone was enough to prevent hostilities with Britain, Washington dispatched John Jay to London to try to improve relations
p. 112: In effect, the United States was backing down on President Washington’s 1793 commitment to the right of neutrals to trade freely with belligerents— hopeful that the concession would deescalate tensions with Britain and signiﬁcantly lower the chances of war. In addition, U.S. seaborne commerce
p. 112: The Jay Treaty succeeded in clearing the way for increased trade and more amicable relations with Britain—but it had the opposite effect on ties between the United States and France. The United States had not only reneged on its alliance with France but also concluded a new treaty with
p. 113: France’s enemy. In response to what France saw as a double betrayal, it eventually began to interdict American shipping and seize U.S. merchant vessels. In return, the United States began to disrupt French shipping, leading to what came to be known as the Quasi-War (1798–1800). Relations between the United States and France sank to their poorest since American independence.
p. 113: Republican leaders were outraged by what they saw as Jay’s capitulation to the British. The treaty also elicited public opposition, especially among, but
p. 113: largely ran along North/South lines In the lead-up to the 1796 presidential election, angry Republicans rallied behind Jefferson’s bid to best John Adams, Washington’s vice president and the Federalist candidate. The further institutionalization and regionalization of the nation’s party system intensiﬁed the already bitter partisan rivalry. The ﬁsticuffs over the Jay Treaty also made clear that differences over foreign policy had the potential to cause deep rifts in the body politic. Indeed, American
p. 113: within. In addition, the French openly backed Jefferson, meaning that anxiety also mounted over the inﬂuence of foreign agents and their ability to manipulate the nation’s politics.
p. 113: The campaign for the 1796 election was dominated by the bitter partisan controversy arising from the Proclamation of Neutrality, the Jay Treaty, and the broader dispute raging between pro-British Federalists and pro-French Republicans. Pointing to the “reign of terror” in France, the Federalists intensiﬁed their effort to afﬁliate Jeffersonians with chaos and mob rule.
p. 114: approaching, President Washington in the summer of 1796 decided that before leaving ofﬁce he would share his hopes and fears with the American people. Washington asked Hamilton to take the lead on drafting the document, working from a version that Madison had drafted in 1792 as a potential valedictory speech Hamilton retained some of Madison’s points but also made major revisions, placing much more focus on partisan politics and on foreign policy. He also strengthened the isolationist orientation of the address
p. 114: Advertiser on September 19, 1796, reﬂected his preoccupation with two paramount threats to the nation’s well-being: partisan rivalry and foreign entanglement. These two concerns were of course intimately linked. The
p. 116: also from partisan division—the enemy within. In Washington’s words, “the unity of government which constitutes you one people is … a main pillar in the ediﬁce of your real independence… . But as it is easy to foresee that … much pains will be taken, many artiﬁces employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed.”
p. 116: As for “internal” enemies, partisan and regional divisions were the chief threats. Washington warned Americans of “the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations… . The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension … is itself a frightful despotism.” The passion and disorder produced by partisan rivalry
p. 116: frightful despotism.” The passion and disorder produced by partisan rivalry will tempt Americans “to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual,” leading to the “ruins of public liberty.” Factional strife also
p. 117: nation to nation.” He warned that “a passionate attachment of one nation for another” is likely to facilitate “the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists.” Furthermore, Washington continued, the “insidious wiles” of foreign powers have the potential to undermine the loyalty of ordinary Americans, giving “ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacriﬁce the interests of their own country.”
p. 119: was not in America’s interest to go to war with Britain. As if ultimately trying to justify unprincipled behavior in principled terms, Washington concluded his discussion of the French alliance by asserting that “we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies,”
p. 119: reprobate in a most striking and lamentable light.”45 Madison similarly interpreted the address as little more than a thinly veiled effort to further degrade U.S. relations with France and scuttle the alliance between the two nations
p. 119: alliance. Washington’s crystalline articulation of isolationism would then serve as a guidepost for U.S. grand strategy for decades to come. Washington’s call for domestic unity was far less effective; leading up to
p. 120: combustible mix. France’s overt intervention in the campaign had heightened the political animosity between Federalists and Republicans, which only intensiﬁed as France stepped up its disruption of U.S. trade after Adams’s victory. The French government unilaterally renounced elements of its commercial and defense treaties with the United States and ordered its navy to obstruct American shipping
p. 120: shape, the U.S. government was also pursuing steps to disarm France’s supporters at home. Against the backdrop of mounting tensions with the French and their interference in the election, President Adams and the Federalist-controlled Congress passed a number of bills, known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, aimed at suppressing domestic dissent and disarming France’s Republican sympathizers. Fear of the enemy within and its
p. 121: against the federal government This law led to the arrest of over a dozen pro-Republican newspaper editors as well as the imprisonment of Matthew Lyon, a Republican member of Congress from Vermont, for his heated criticism of President Adams. Lyon was charged with multiple offenses, including publishing an editorial attributing to Adams an “unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selﬁsh avarice.”55
p. 121: Just as the Founders had feared, a combination of entanglement in European rivalries, foreign interference in U.S. politics, and partisan enmity was leading to the loss of liberty at home. Escalating tensions with France were mixing with intense partisanship to produce overt infringements of civil liberty. Amid the heated atmosphere, political opposition shaded into
p. 121: Republicans saw the Alien and Sedition Acts as little more than an overt effort to suppress political opposition and limit freedom of speech. Without recourse in a Congress controlled by Federalists, Jefferson and his allies mounted their resistance by turning to state legislatures that they controlled. Working behind the scenes, partly to avoid accusations of sedition, Jefferson helped draft the Kentucky Resolution, the ﬁrst version of which passed the state assembly in November 1798. Madison did the same for the Virginia Resolution, which the Virginia assembly passed the following month. Both resolutions concluded that the Alien and Sedition Acts violated the Constitution and the principles of republican government.
p. 122: danger of the enemy within and silence political opponents Moreover, with the French keen to focus their military efforts on their European adversaries and the United States looking to beneﬁt from unfettered trade with France, the two governments negotiated an end to the Quasi-War in 1800. The Treaty of Mortefontaine, signed in September 1800, ended naval hostilities, formally terminated the alliance of 1778, and recognized mutual trading rights Peace with France only intensiﬁed the public’s skepticism
p. 122: of the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Republicans successfully capitalized on such perceptions of Federalist overreach during the presidential campaign in 1800, helping Thomas Jefferson defeat Adams’s bid for reelection
p. 122: under the Sedition Act and Congress thereafter repaid their ﬁnes. Only the Alien Enemies Act—the provision providing for the imprisonment or
p. 123: deportation of aliens from enemy nations—survived Jefferson’s presidency. Indeed, although revised, this act has remained on the books until today,
p. 123: German, and Italian ancestry during World War II. The era of the Quasi-War with France marked the ﬁrst time, but not the last, that a threat from abroad, combined with partisan politics, led to the persecution of the perceived enemy within.
p. 123: French. The coup of November 1799 and Napoleon’s consequent political ascent distanced America’s political establishment even further from the French, snufﬁng out any remaining expectation that France would bring republican government to Europe. For Madison, this development “left
p. 123: had also waned. By 1800, peace had broken out with France and reciprocal trade relations restored, while Britain continued to disrupt U.S. shipping and impress sailors, undermining residual sentiment in favor of a tilt toward Britain. The partisan rancor of the 1790s, the excesses of the Alien and
p. 124: By the time of Jefferson’s presidency, Federalists and Republicans had thus ended their feud over whether the nation should tilt toward France or Britain, instead agreeing that the country should avoid political connections with all Washington’s Farewell Address had laid out a strategic vision,
p. 124: understandable. Over the course of the 1790s, geopolitical tilts toward either Britain or France had produced little good. In contrast, the expansion of foreign trade was unquestionably working to the nation’s beneﬁt. Despite
p. 125: Barbary threat.
p. 125: naval attacks against both pirate vessels and Tripoli. By 1804, most of the U.S. Navy was on station in the Mediterranean The following spring, a band of mercenaries led by U.S. Marines attacked and seized the port city of Derne, threatening a further advance on Tripoli. Thereafter, the Pasha of
p. 125: For the ﬁrst time in its history, the United States had engaged both its naval and ground forces in an overseas theater. The action was, however, in keeping with the nation’s determination to use foreign policy primarily as a commercial instrument. Jefferson limited American objectives to protecting the nation’s seaborne commerce and its citizens; he was seeking neither to establish the U.S. Navy as a dominant force in the Mediterranean nor to bring republican government to distant lands. The United States turned to the use of force to defend its commercial interests, not to extend its geopolitical reach.
p. 125: Britain and France returned to war in 1803, prompting both powers to again disrupt American shipping. Britain also stepped up impressment, in
p. 126: The embargo did signiﬁcantly more harm to the U.S. economy than to that of either Britain or France, by 1809 compelling the United States to abandon it and instead press for recognition of the U.S. right to neutral trade. While commerce with France was nominally reopened in 1810, the
p. 126: source of American animosity toward Britain. Whereas the French had effectively abandoned their territories in North America, the British stayed put in Canada and thus posed the main overland threat to the United States.
p. 126: Americans also resented British efforts to aid and abet Native American resistance along the northwest frontier. In addition, with Republicans in
p. 126: control of Congress and the White House—James Madison took over from Jefferson after winning the 1808 election—the party that had long harbored anti-British sentiment was in charge of guiding statecraft.
p. 126: stranglehold on the nation’s seaborne commerce. Congress passed a declaration of war on June 17, 1812, which Madison signed the following day. The primary motivation behind the U.S. decision for war was
p. 126: commercial—to end British interference with U.S. trade.
p. 126: Americans harbored geopolitical ambition. The goal of
p. 127: driving the British from Canada and advancing the U.S. bid for unchallenged primacy in North America loomed large in the decision for war. Expelling the British from Canada would also deny them the ability to
p. 127: from Spain, a British ally To these ends, the United States made several attempts to invade Canada during the war—none of which succeeded.
p. 127: A further ideological justiﬁcation for the war was the perceived need to protect the nation’s racial hierarchy. Britain was backing Native American adversaries of the United States as well as prohibiting slave trade within the British Empire and encouraging other countries to follow suit. The ﬁght against Britain was regularly touted as a sacriﬁce needed not just to preserve American democracy against British monarchism, but also to defeat Britain’s “savage allies” and to defend slaveholding. Furthermore,
p. 128: War against Britain was a ﬁght for white emancipation
p. 128: was the case. Republicans capitalized on war in Europe to risk taking on a much stronger adversary, calculating that Britain would have to keep the bulk of its forces on the other side of the Atlantic to ﬁght Napoleon
p. 128: Federalist voted in favor of war. Federalists opposed the war due to the economic costs it imposed on the northern states and were against an invasion of Canada, in part because it would turn the United States into an aggressor. Harkening back to the 1790s, Federalists also suspected that Republicans would use the war against Britain to revive the prospects for
p. 129: alliance with France;
p. 129: Harvey Strum, “never again in American history did citizens reveal their refusal to ﬁght more blatantly than in the War of 1812.”86 Smuggling across
p. 129: activists in religious communities. Peace societies were founded in Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio in 1815. Other state chapters followed,
p. 129: Inﬂuential Republicans contemplated the possibility of taking up arms against Federalist opponents of the war and apprehending them as traitors
p. 129: Against the backdrop of ongoing conﬂict, Republicans pilloried antiwar Federalists as British sympathizers—the new enemy within. Many Republicans called into question the loyalty of their political opponents— just as the Federalists had done to Republicans during the Quasi-War with France. One Republican newspaper commented that “we have more to fear”
p. 129: The War of 1812 ended without a clear victory by either side.
p. 130: Capitol in August 1814. The agreement that ended the war, the Treaty of Ghent, reﬂected the outcome on the battleﬁeld, effectively restoring the
p. 130: United States was risking entanglement only in the service of isolation; the end of separating itself from Europe justiﬁed the means of going to war against Britain. And France, even for Republicans, had hardly demonstrated
p. 131: domestic unity depended on geopolitical isolation. The demise of the Federalists after 1815—in part due to their opposition to the war—cleared the way for an era of unprecedented political consensus focused on nation- building and westward expansion while steering clear of strategic entanglement with Europe.

5. Westward Expansion and the Monroe Doctrine: The Limits of Hemispheric Ambition

p. 132: 5 Westward Expansion and the Monroe Doctrine: The Limits of Hemispheric Ambition
p. 132: From the end of the War of 1812 until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the United States focused on two main goals: the union’s consolidation and expansion. The ﬁrst objective required building up both
p. 132: imperial powers the United States negotiated its way to new territories. By 1820, it had already struck a deal with Britain to resolve outstanding border issues with Canada and concluded a treaty with Spain that ceded Florida to the United States. Americans took a more coercive approach when it came
p. 132: force to push across North America. By the time the Mexican-American War came to an end in 1848, Americans had made it to the Paciﬁc coast, wresting control of a large swath of land from Mexico and negotiating the transfer of the Oregon territory from Britain.
p. 132: going no farther than the Rio Grande. They even passed on repeated opportunities to intervene on behalf of republican aspirations in Latin America and Europe, guided by a cautionary reluctance to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries. A union that was experiencing
p. 133: political engagement in Central America. To be sure, the United States did provoke a war with Mexico in 1846 that led to the annexation of roughly half of Mexico’s territory. But the United States otherwise tended to tread lightly in the rest of Latin America. Americans generally took a hands-off
p. 134: itself.”1 Following one of Monroe’s tours aimed at building national unity, a Boston journalist in 1817 pronounced an “Era of Good Feelings,” a phrase that was to catch on The lopsided congressional election of 1818–1819 further strengthened Republican control, effectively bringing to an end the two-party system that had dominated the union’s early years.
p. 134: Following the War of 1812, in the words of historian Bradford Perkins, “reality and dream ossiﬁed into dogma, as they never had for the Founding Fathers.”4
p. 134: The population and political reach of the United States moved rapidly westward after the War of 1812. Before the war, roughly one-seventh of the nation’s population lived west of the Appalachians. By 1840, one-third did so At the outbreak of the war, the United States was composed of eighteen
p. 135: the more religious communities of New England. Indeed, evangelism won many adherents in settlement communities on the frontier, fostered in part by traveling ministers and a growing missionary network that followed settlers westward. This religious revival mixed with westward expansion to generate a variant of the redeemer narrative that emphasized the nation’s internal development rather than its messianic calling abroad. The United
p. 136: expansion and eventually help ignite the Civil War. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, at least temporarily, did succeed in reconciling westward expansion with sectional disagreement over the extension of slavery. The legislation preserved a political balance in Congress between the North and South by pairing the admission of Maine as a free state with that of Missouri as a slave state, and then prohibiting slavery in the Louisiana Territory (with the exception of Missouri) north of the 36°30´ parallel. This accommodation cleared the way for the continuation of
p. 136: slaveholding interests of the South. Furthermore, the political balance of power was shifting decidedly in the North’s favor. After California joined the union in 1850, free states outnumbered slaveholding states in the Senate, they had a larger population and thus greater weight in the House, and the wealth generated by the more commercialized economies of free states was fast outpacing that of the more agrarian South This growing political and economic imbalance meant that the stage was set for the South’s secession—and the war that followed.
p. 138: handily won. The deal that accompanied the end of the war extended Texas’s border to the Rio Grande and transferred to the United States much of what is today California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado—all for a price of $18.25 million In 1854, the Gadsden Purchase brought additional Mexican territory into the union. Some inﬂuential voices called for the United States to annex all of Mexico. But most Americans were not interested in either ruling over or integrating territory occupied primarily by a “mongrel” mix of Native Americans and blacks; they tended to view Mexico as “an immoral nation and Mexicans themselves as an inferior race practicing a suspect religion.”15
p. 138: Such opposition to annexation of lands occupied primarily by nonwhites served as a major obstacle to expansion into Latin America and the Caribbean throughout most of the nineteenth century Racial objections to territorial acquisitions beyond North America overrode the strong enthusiasm for expansion that emerged in the wake of the Mexican- American War. Along with Oregon, the acquisitions that resulted from the defeat of Mexico increased U.S. territory by roughly ﬁfty percent. According to historian Amy Greenberg, “it was the crowning moment for Manifest Destiny” and would fuel calls for further expansion: “Victory in
p. 139: whether lands ceded by Mexico would be slaveholding. Southerners generally supported the war and saw it as a prized opportunity to extend slavery, while northerners for the most part were against the conﬂict with Mexico, viewed it as a war of aggression, and opposed the spread of slavery. This sectional divide only mounted during the 1850s, especially
p. 140: markets. Exports tripled by the middle of the 1800s while imports quadrupled, with import duties providing the lion’s share of federal revenue The size of the U.S. Navy increased in step with the overseas ﬂow of trade. The U.S. Navy in 1822 established the West Indies Squadron,
p. 140: economic opening to the West. In 1856, Congress passed the Guano Islands Act, which authorized U.S. citizens to peacefully claim uninhabited islands to collect guano—bird and bat excrement regularly used in making fertilizer and gunpowder. Americans soon laid claim to dozens of islands in far-ﬂung seas
p. 141: limits. In only one instance—in Nicaragua in 1857—did U.S. forces go into action with the primary aim of effecting regime change. Except in this case,
p. 141: powers from the hemisphere. Southerners eyed the annexation of new territory—Cuba, in particular—as a means of protecting slavery and strengthening the political weight of slaveholding states, while northerners saw in territorial expansion new commercial opportunities. The “Era of Good Feelings,” coupled with the nation’s growing population, prosperity, and power tempted Americans to make good on the aspiration of the Founders to establish the United States, in Hamilton’s words, as “an ascendant in the system of American affairs … erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or inﬂuence.”25
p. 142: As Spain’s Latin American colonies began to break away, beginning with Venezuela in 1811, the United States kept its distance. It not only refused to lend a hand, but also demurred on recognizing the new republics. Several considerations produced such caution. First, Spain still maintained its foothold in Florida, and the United States was loath to take steps that might alienate the Spanish crown and prolong its stay. Second, Washington feared that its intervention in Spanish Latin America could trigger geopolitical competition between Spain and the United States, prompting the Spanish to seek to reassert control over their colonies. Third, many Americans were skeptical that independent states in Latin America would be able to sustain republican government. They viewed Creole aristocracies, Catholicism, and the region’s racial diversity as major impediments to stable democracy.
p. 143: Strategic restraint, coupled with diplomacy, paid off, in 1819 yielding the Adams-Onís Treaty and the transfer of Spanish Florida to the United States.
p. 143: Adams’s case against Clay’s call for a more activist and assertive U.S. policy rested on three main arguments. First, despite the nation’s growing ability to project its power and inﬂuence, Adams insisted that its security still depended upon keeping its distance from foreign entanglement. He was conﬁdent that the countries of Latin America would succeed in defeating imperial rule, noting in March 1821 that he had never doubted “that the ﬁnal issue of their present struggle would be their entire independence of Spain.” But Adams also insisted “that it was our true policy and duty to take no part in the contest,” and he called for honoring “the principle of neutrality to all foreign wars.”32 In his July 4 speech, Adams famously
p. 143: neutrality to all foreign wars.”32 In his July 4 speech, Adams famously declared that the United States “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to
p. 144: destroy.”
p. 144: Second, echoing one of the main concerns of the Founders, Adams warned that ambition abroad could well come at the expense of freedom at home. Staying out of foreign wars was in his view “fundamental to the
p. 144: Washington in his Farewell Address. Adams also worried that entanglement abroad would compromise the nation’s exceptional character and its commitment to a brand of statecraft based on principle rather than power.
p. 144: longer the ruler of her own spirit.”35 Intervention “in foreign wars, even wars for freedom,” he reiterated on January 31, 1822, would “change the very foundations of our government from liberty to power.”36
p. 144: Third, Adams, like many of his colleagues, was skeptical that independence from Spain would bring republican government to America’s southern neighbors; social hierarchy, Catholicism, and mixed race were not conducive to democratic government. “So far as they are contending for
p. 145: new republics and helping convince Monroe to withhold recognition. In 1822, however, Monroe changed course and began recognizing Latin America’s newly independent countries. With Spain having effectively come to terms with the loss of its colonies—it lacked both the will and the resources to reverse their independence—Monroe, driven in part by public pressure, deemed it advantageous to move ahead with recognition In
p. 145: Monroe Doctrine
p. 146: Jefferson and Madison both recommended that Monroe accept the British offer. Jefferson saw the proposal as advancing a number of paramount interests. He believed that taking up Canning on his proposal would enable the United States to draw its long-standing adversary into its camp. Cooperation with Great Britain would lure it away from Europe’s tyrannical traditions and “detach her from the band of despots, bring her mighty weight into the scale of free government.” Since Britain “is the nation
p. 147: Adams was motivated in part by hopes of eventually adding Texas and Cuba to the union, and therefore wanted to avoid a pact with Britain that could preclude the future annexation of these territories—Texas had been under Spanish rule until 1821 and Cuba was still a Spanish colony. In his
p. 148: Monroe ultimately found Adams’s advice persuasive. He backed away from the British proposal in favor of a unilateral declaration of America’s opposition to any new imperial forays in the Western Hemisphere.
p. 149: States would refrain from interference in European affairs. The main thrust of what came to be called the Monroe Doctrine was that the United States and Europe should stay out of each other’s neighborhoods. Referring to
p. 150: Despite Monroe’s explicit deference to Europe’s own political preferences, European leaders reacted to his speech with disdain. Clemens
p. 150: assistance, Washington turned them down When Britain reasserted control over the Falkland Islands in 1833 and established British Honduras
p. 151: as a crown colony in 1862—moves that violated the spirit and letter of the Monroe Doctrine—the United States did nothing. To be sure, President
p. 151: statecraft. The ideological and political strength of this isolationist consensus became clear during debate over U.S. participation in the Panama Congress of 1826.
p. 151: commencement of our glorious revolution.”56 Historian Charles William Hackett labeled consideration of the issue “one of the severest parliamentary battles in [Congress’s] history.”57 Indeed, many scholars of
p. 151: parliamentary battles in [Congress’s] history.”57 Indeed, many scholars of this era tend to see the dispute over U.S. participation in the Panama
p. 152: meeting as marking the end of the “Era of Good Feelings” and the beginning of a new two-party system divided between progressive Whigs in the North and Jacksonian Democrats in the South.
p. 152: The mere prospect of attendance at the meeting provoked a political ﬁrestorm because it served as a litmus test of the nation’s readiness for a more adventurous brand of statecraft. Indeed, when he appealed to Congress to approve and fund the mission to Panama, President Adams explicitly argued that it was time for the nation to move beyond George Washington’s admonition against foreign entanglement and instead help consolidate independence and republican institutions in Latin America. Effectively, the greater strategic reach envisaged in the Monroe Doctrine was going up against the doctrinal isolationism set forth in the Farewell Address. The ensuing debate in Congress revealed profound antipathy to a
p. 154: has been our cardinal principle in times past.” Many senators were worried that the Monroe Doctrine had already effectively extended a strategic commitment by encouraging leaders in Latin America to believe that the United States would, if need be, help defend them against a European effort to reassert colonial rule. For Senator White, attendance at the Panama
p. 155: Adams thus made the admonitions of the Farewell Address temporal and geographically circumscribed rather than timeless and universal. He also
p. 157: But the bruising debate in Congress revealed little appetite for moving beyond the strict interpretation of isolationism that emerged from the founding era. It did not help matters that Congress’s tortured consideration
p. 158: were also in play. Debate over participation became a proxy for a broadening split that was emerging within the Republican Party. A modernizing wing, led by Adams and Clay, envisaged a stronger federal government that would guide commercial expansion, provide protective tariffs for the North’s emerging industries, invest in infrastructure, and open new markets through economic and political engagement beyond the nation’s borders. The export of republican institutions and the spread of political and religious pluralism were part of the agenda; the United States would play a more prominent role in shaping the world beyond its borders.
p. 158: In the meantime, a populist wing of the party was forming in opposition to Adams’s agenda; John Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, and Senator Martin Van Buren (D-New York) were among its key ﬁgures. This faction was hostile to the further centralization of power in the hands of the federal government and to a more activist brand of U.S. statecraft, focusing instead on the interests of agrarian slaveholders, the protection of states’ rights, and the need to keep the nation’s foreign relations restricted to commercial engagement. The populists took sharp exception to the more cosmopolitan program of the modernizers. They wanted to keep shielding the nation from the world beyond its borders, not go out and shape it.
p. 159: Opposition to participation in Panama became a rallying cry for the populists and, in the view of many historians, was one of the “political harbingers of the Jacksonian period.”84 Adams’s ambitious program for
p. 159: harbingers of the Jacksonian period.”84 Adams’s ambitious program for “public improvement” and the perceived threat it posed to states’ rights proved to be, in Malanson’s words, “the ﬁrst salvo in a renewed oppositional political system.”85
p. 159: The “Era of Good Feelings” was giving way to the return of an antagonistic two-party system, a transformation quickened by Adams’s speech and the ensuing debate over the Panama Congress. Indeed, voting in
p. 159: References to the “spirit of ’98” made clear that the feud between Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian traditions was alive and well.
p. 159: Debate over the Panama Congress laid bare one other issue that helped fuel the return of a two-party system: racism and the sectional divide over slavery. By proposing U.S. participation in the conference, Adams was
p. 159: slavery. By proposing U.S. participation in the conference, Adams was effectively endorsing a more cosmopolitan and activist brand of statecraft in a nonwhite region. Moreover, the Americans dispatched to Panama would
p. 160: Protestants uncomfortable with the increasing number of Catholic immigrants wanted the United States to cordon itself off from the predominantly Catholic populations of Latin America. According to
p. 160: favored U.S. participation in the conference. In contrast, congressional delegations from the South, for the most part opposed to participation in the conference, worried that direct U.S. support for independence movements in Latin America would by association endorse abolition—and ultimately threaten slavery at home.
p. 160: Senator Berrien did not mince his words when it came to the prospect of conducting diplomacy with free blacks: “We receive no mulatto Consuls, or black Ambassadors from her [Haiti]. And why? Because the peace of eleven States in this Union will not permit the fruits of a successful negro insurrection to be exhibited among them. It will not permit black Consuls and Ambassadors to establish themselves in our cities, and to parade through our country, and give their fellow blacks in the United States, proof
p. 161: in hand of the honors which await them, for a like successful effort on their part.”90 Relatedly, one southern senator who ended up supporting
p. 161: Latin America for the ensuing decades. With the North looking to expand commerce and free labor and the South looking primarily to defend, if not expand, the geographic scope of slavery, this regional divide proved to be an insurmountable obstacle to those advocating for a more expansive policy. Americans were determined to proceed westward across their
p. 161: In 1848, President Polk announced his intent to buy Cuba from Spain and admit it to the union, a proposal that he and other Democrats saw as a way to augment the South’s clout in Congress. The prospect of a lucrative increase in trade attracted support among northerners. Nonetheless, Spanish opposition to giving up Cuba and sectional disagreement over whether the island would join the union as a free or slave state prevented Polk from moving forward. Debate about the possible annexation of Hawaii ran into
p. 161: rather than consolidating it. As Matthew Karp observes, “The preservation of slave institutions took priority over the acquisition of new land.”92
p. 162: North’s progressive agenda, if embraced for Latin America, would eventually come their way The same went for policy toward Europe. The South generally opposed direct U.S. support to liberal movements in Europe, concerned that doing so would eventually threaten slaveholding at home. If the United States interfered in the affairs of other nations, warned the New Orleans Bulletin, “we will be the ﬁrst who will be interfered with… . Of all the people upon the earth’s surface, the Southern people are the last to think of, much less attempt to enforce, doctrines of this character.”96
p. 163: commitments. Fear of the strategic dangers that would likely accompany foreign entanglement, a tenacious ideological attachment to unilateralism, populist resistance to the centralization of power that would necessarily accompany foreign ambition, and racism and the sectional divide over slavery all combined to prevent any signiﬁcant departure from the doctrine of geopolitical detachment handed down by the Founders.

6. The Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Rise of American Power: Restraint Amid Ascent

p. 164: 6 The Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Rise of American Power: Restraint Amid Ascent
p. 164: Despite its increasing ability to extend its strategic reach well beyond its own territory, the United States continued to pursue a grand strategy of geopolitical isolation. To be sure, territorial expansion had strong advocates. William Seward, secretary of state under President Lincoln and President Andrew Johnson (1865–1869), was an avowed expansionist, keen to annex Canada and Alaska as well as territories in Latin America and the Caribbean. Johnson’s successor, President Ulysses Grant (1869–1877), was a strong supporter of southward expansion. President Benjamin Harrison (1889–1993) fashioned an effective protectorate over Samoa alongside Britain and Germany, attempted to annex Hawaii, and ordered the construction of the nation’s ﬁrst battleships, a move that laid the foundation for a navy capable of projecting the nation’s geopolitical strength to distant theaters, not just protecting the nation’s coasts and commerce.
p. 165: additional guano islands. The United States also secured access to three maritime footholds in the Paciﬁc—Midway Atoll in 1867, Pago Pago in Samoa in 1878, and Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1887. Nonetheless, these
p. 165: purchasing Alaska from Russia in 1867
p. 165: ambition. In the meantime, Congress refused to go further, consistently rejecting proposals to annex Santo Domingo, Cuba, the Danish West Indies, Hawaii, and other territories to the south and west. The United States had
p. 165: grand strategy during the second half of the 1800s. The temptation to assert control over weaker neighbors could not overcome fear of entanglement in foreign conﬂicts and aversion to interference in the affairs of other nations.
p. 165: of slavery that stymied southward expansion prior to the Civil War. But racism continued to shape foreign policy, with most Americans opposed to incorporating into the union or ruling over nonwhite populations. In
p. 165: Americans. Congress in 1882 passed legislation banning arrivals of laborers from China, for the ﬁrst time—but not the last—imposing restrictions on immigration based on country of origin.
p. 165: McKinley took ofﬁce. A succession of post–Civil War presidents made a run at annexing territory outside North America. Harrison embarked on the construction of battleships and was an avowed expansionist. Had Grover Cleveland (1885–1889, 1893–1897) not won a second term in 1892 and denied Harrison reelection, territorial expansion into the Caribbean and Paciﬁc may well have occurred under Harrison’s watch. And Cleveland
p. 166: These stirrings of geopolitical ambition had multiple sources. Domestic developments, discussed in the next chapter, were paramount, but events abroad also played a role. The closing decades of the 1800s were an era of national consolidation in Europe. Germany and Italy became uniﬁed countries in the early 1870s, both a product and a cause of rising nationalist sentiment in Europe. German uniﬁcation and industrialization would soon
p. 166: Nonetheless, isolationism continued its virtual lock on U.S. grand strategy from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until the outbreak of war against Spain in 1898.
p. 166: extinguished in step with the Confederacy’s defeat. As historian Robert May puts it, “the [South’s] dream of a Caribbean empire became one of the ﬁrst casualties of the Civil War.”1
p. 167: Secretary of State Seward was not one to shrink from the prospect of conﬂict with European powers. In early April 1861, only days before the outbreak of the Civil War, he had broached with Lincoln the need for the United States to stand up to Europe—including through the use of force if necessary—over its interference in American affairs. It was time, Seward wrote to Lincoln, to “send agents into Canada, Mexico, and Central America to rouse a vigorous continental spirit of independence on this continent against European intervention.”3 By the time the war was in full swing, however, Seward had backed off, ultimately agreeing with Lincoln’s admonition that the United States could ﬁght only “one war at a time.”4 Guided by this prudence, the Lincoln administration promptly responded to the Trent crisis by releasing the two Confederate emissaries it had seized from the British ship, thereby defusing the situation.
p. 168: The cautionary restraint exercised by the North during the war diminished after the conﬂict ended in 1865. Thereafter, the United States had the wherewithal to take a much stronger stand against European interference in its neighborhood. Seward led the charge, guided by his
p. 169: government from pursuing the transfer Yet another U.S. attempt to annex Canada—in this instance through diplomacy rather than force—fell short.
p. 169: up the United States to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. According to historian Wayne Bowen, “by early 1865, with the American Civil War coming to a close, there was great fear in Madrid that the forbearance of the United States would soon come to an end.”14
p. 169: capture and execution of Maximilian. The end of the Civil War thus led to a more assertive U.S. posture in the Western Hemisphere. But Spain’s withdrawal from Santo Domingo and the French retreat from Mexico rendered moot the question of whether the United States was prepared to use force to back up its ﬁrmer policy.
p. 170: War as a moral crusade. Having defeated the Confederacy and rid the nation of the stain of slavery, the United States had burnished its credentials as a redeemer nation. It could and should return to its messianic calling and endeavor to spread beyond its borders its unique experiment in political and economic liberty The fervor of the second Great Awakening had died out,
p. 170: The United States also had greater ability than before the Civil War to extend political and strategic commitments well beyond its borders. At the close of the war, the Union had more than one million men under arms— compared with a Regular Army that stood at less than 20,000 in 1861. The Union Navy, which started the war with fewer than 100 vessels, had almost 700 ships by the end of the war—including state-of-the-art submarines and ironclad warships. The conﬂict had strengthened federal institutions. Conscription, a federal bank, a single currency, and new forms of taxation combined to endow the U.S. government with unprecedented political power. The United States emerged from its internal struggle with the tools and institutions necessary to project its geopolitical strength outward. The
p. 171: demands of the Civil War had effectively handed victory to the Hamiltonians in their long-running debate with Jeffersonians over the appropriate reach of the federal government.
p. 171: foreign trade, the United States remained focused on its domestic agenda— the efforts of Reconstruction to repair the union while securing the rights of emancipated slaves, the further construction of infrastructure, and the continued settlement of the West. As before the Civil War, foreign policy
p. 171: its primary objectives. The political fortunes of Republicans and the search for sectional reconciliation ultimately took precedence over the civil rights
p. 172: of blacks The timing was hardly ripe for bringing nonwhite territories into the union.
p. 172: In short, isolationism continued its lock on U.S. grand strategy until the Spanish-American War. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the United States
p. 172: revealing indicators of this lack of geopolitical ambition. The nation was saddled with enormous debt as a consequence of the costs of the Civil War, putting a political premium on efforts to hold down expenditures. The Army
p. 175: From the close of the Civil War through the end of the Grant administration in 1877, Alaska and Midway were the only noteworthy additions to the
p. 176: nation’s territory.
p. 177: Congress considered both proposals. The proposal to annex Santo Domingo was tabled after little debate. The proposal to establish a protectorate over Haiti and Santo Domingo also failed, but only after a heated debate. Deliberations in Congress focused less on the strategic and
p. 178: As before the Civil War, racism and sectional tension continued to serve as a check on expansion. Representative George Washington Woodward (D- Pennsylvania) declared that “it is a marvel to me that … [colleagues] should want more negroes brought within our limits in view of the actual condition of things in this country at this time.” Woodward recommended that Congress should put off consideration of southward expansion until “after we had settled our own disturbed affairs in the southern States.”
p. 179: Faced with Reconstruction’s shortcomings, Grant sought alternative means of advancing the economic and political fortunes of freed blacks. Annexation of Santo Domingo provided one option. Southern blacks facing discrimination could move to the island and enjoy rule by their own race—a potential means of sidestepping southern opposition to political equality across racial lines. Grant hoped that the example of blacks embracing democracy and wage labor in Santo Domingo would ultimately convince southerners to overcome their prejudice. However, “if Providence designed that the two races shall not live together,” he wrote in a memo making the case for annexation, then black Americans “would ﬁnd a home in the Antillas.”46 Grant elaborated in his memoir that “colored people would go there in great numbers so as to have independent states governed by their own race. They would still be States of the Union, and under the protection of the General Government; but the citizens would be almost wholly colored.”47
p. 181: addition, the possible annexation of Cuba was in play. Successive administrations had been eyeing Cuba for decades, and the Johnson and Grant administrations were no different. Seward visited Havana in 1866 on a trip that also took him to the Danish West Indies, Santo Domingo, and Haiti. Although he recognized that Spain would likely keep hold of Cuba for the time being, he ventured that the island would “by means of constant gravitation … fall into the United States.”54 In late 1868, Cubans revolted against Spain and declared independence. The Grant administration, which took ofﬁce the following March, faced a measure of political pressure to recognize the rebels as belligerents, provide them assistance, and even intervene with armed force.
p. 181: provoke conﬂict with Spain. He was also concerned that recognizing the Cuban rebels as belligerents and supporting them could alienate Britain and thereby undercut his efforts to extract Civil War reparations from London
p. 181: The administration’s decision not to support the revolt did not stop private individuals in the United States, including Cuban exiles, from sending aid
p. 182: to the rebels. Moreover, the smuggling of arms to Cuba almost ensnared the United States in the conﬂict. The Grant administration put the U.S. Navy on alert after a Spanish gunboat in 1873 seized a U.S. ship, the Virginius, which was running arms to the rebels. Spain charged as pirates and executed ﬁfty-three of the crew and passengers on board. The Spanish eventually agreed to pay compensation to the families of those it put to death, deescalating the situation. The Cuban uprising then ended in 1878, and a decade of turmoil on the island came to an end without any formal U.S. intervention.
p. 183: next several decades—until the Spanish-American War. The ongoing adherence to isolationism was particularly striking given the nation’s rapid economic growth. Between 1865 and 1898, coal production rose by 800 percent and railway track mileage by 567 percent, while petroleum production increased from approximately three million barrels to over ﬁfty- ﬁve million barrels per year. By the middle of the 1880s, the United States had surpassed Britain as the world’s leading producer of manufactured goods and steel. Agricultural output also rose dramatically—wheat and corn production both grew by more than 200 percent and reﬁned sugar by more than 450 percent. The country’s impressive economic performance attracted and was fueled by throngs of immigrants. Between 1865 and 1900, the American population more than doubled
p. 184: America’s deepening commercial engagement with Asia also prompted a domestic backlash that took the form of restrictions against immigration. Following the inﬂux of laborers from China after the friendship treaty of 1868, Congress in 1882 passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited the entry of workers from China for ten years—a provision that was repeatedly extended—and made it more difﬁcult for Chinese immigrants to become naturalized citizens. Concern about protecting labor markets combined with racism to build support for the new restriction, which was preceded by regular acts of violence against Chinese immigrants —particularly in California The following decade, the American Federation of Labor lobbied to restrict immigration from European countries as well, but the effort fell short largely due to pressure from the business community to sustain a healthy supply of cheap labor
p. 185: tectonic shift was in the making. The nation’s wealth was rapidly rising, as was its overseas trade. The inﬂux of immigrants and outﬂow of Americans contributed to the emergence of a more cosmopolitan and outward-looking society. As the historian Frank Ninkovich has argued, the cultural
p. 186: increasing the capability of the nation’s navy. During the 1880s, the United States consequently embarked on a naval building program for the ﬁrst time since the Civil War. The increase in ﬂeet strength was modest and the new
p. 186: The 1890s marked an even more consequential turning point; the United States completed the construction of second-class battleships and began to build larger and more powerful warships in the service of acquiring a blue- water navy. The decision to begin building a battleship ﬂeet was itself a
p. 189: a turning point in U.S. statecraft. For the ﬁrst time in its history, the United States was investing in a blue-water navy, indicating that it was ready to begin extending its geopolitical reach—not just its trade—beyond its immediate neighborhood. Although naval programs in Latin America were
p. 191: So, too, did some members of Congress believe that the nation’s messianic calling needed to be backed up with greater material strength. According to Senator William Stewart (R-Nevada), the cost of a battleship ﬂeet “is a very small sum for this great nation. It is a very small sum compared with the beneﬁts of having some inﬂuence and protecting the independence of the various Governments upon this hemisphere.” Stewart recognized that “the moral effect of a Republican power ought to have its effect in preserving Republican institutions for man on this hemisphere.” But he then went on to claim that “the nations of the earth respect physical power… . Moral power with physical power behind it is very persuasive.”90
p. 197: Cleveland’s isolationist instincts were only reinforced by the views of his cautious secretary of state, Walter Gresham. Gresham opposed, on both pragmatic and moral grounds, the overseas extension of U.S. commitments and was convinced that “the only safeguard against all the evils of interference in affairs that do not specially concern us is to abstain from such interference altogether.”115 He believed that the ongoing naval buildup
p. 198: and corruption within American society. In so doing, he strengthened his political credibility amid mounting public anxiety about the increasing power of corporations and banks and the social ills and inequality that had come with industrialization and urbanization. Gresham’s call for the restoration of public virtue went hand-in-hand with his desire to immunize the nation against the political and geopolitical dangers that accompanied foreign ambition—foreshadowing a strain of anti-imperialism that was to grow much stronger after 1898.117
p. 198: provinces, by despotic rule.”118 Cleveland concurred that Americans had taken control of Hawaii by illegitimate means. In a message to Congress on December 18, 1893, he explained that “it appears that Hawaii was taken possession of by the United States forces without the consent or wish of the government of the islands… Therefore the military occupation of Honolulu by the United States … was wholly without justiﬁcation, either as an occupation by consent or as an occupation necessitated by dangers threatening American life and property.” Cleveland viewed this forcible
p. 200: Cleveland was not uniformly opposed to pursuing a more muscular foreign policy. Even though he canceled the bid to annex Hawaii and sought to withdraw the nation from the tripartite protectorate over Samoa, on other issues he demonstrated a more internationalist orientation. As during his ﬁrst term, he supported and added to the naval program launched by his Republican predecessor. His administration ordered ﬁve additional battleships—two in 1895 and three in 1896—and accelerated the construction of a new ﬂeet of torpedo boats That a Democrat launched this building program made clear that bipartisan support for a blue-water navy was mounting.
p. 202: Cleveland’s decision to confront Britain over the border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana, while out of character given his isolationist leanings, was in keeping with the more assertive stance toward the hemisphere that took shape during the 1890s. Indeed, U.S. forces were becoming increasingly active in the region. Interventions continued to be limited in scope and duration, focused narrowly on protecting U.S commercial interests and citizens. Nonetheless, between 1890 and the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the United States intervened in Latin America eight times—in Argentina (1890), Haiti (1891), Chile (1891), Brazil (1894), Nicaragua (1894, 1896, 1898), and Colombia (1895). By means of comparison, during the previous decade, U.S. forces intervened in the region only twice—in Panama (1885) and Haiti (1888)
p. 204: By Cleveland’s second term, the United States was in a strategic no-man’s- land of sorts. A fundamental transition in American statecraft was clearly under way, but it was inchoate and incomplete. On one hand, the United States had passed through an inﬂection point. It was in the midst of building a battle ﬂeet, a clear sign of its readiness to project its geopolitical inﬂuence well beyond its own neighborhood. Congress was ready to support and fund distant coaling stations at Pearl Harbor and Pago Pago. Moreover, even Cleveland, a president with impressive isolationist bona ﬁdes, in 1895 found it politically expedient to provoke a diplomatic crisis with Britain over the Monroe Doctrine. The fact that Britain backed down in the face of U.S. pressure only strengthened public conﬁdence in a more ambitious brand of statecraft.
p. 204: strategic commitments was limited. The United States was building battleships, but many in Congress, especially southern Democrats, were still skeptical of the merits of doing so, and feared that projecting power into distant theaters would undermine, not enhance, American security. Harrison
p. 204: canal. When another bloody revolt against Spanish rule in Cuba broke out in 1895, Cleveland rejected U.S. involvement—despite interventionist pressure from Congress. Cleveland similarly rebuffed congressional
p. 204: pressure from Congress. Cleveland similarly rebuffed congressional pressure to intervene on behalf of Armenians facing persecution and massacre in the Ottoman Empire And even if Secretary of State Olney
p. 205: exhibited in 1898 would prove to be only ﬂeeting. Soon after the bout of imperialism that accompanied the Spanish-American War, many Americans would have buyer’s remorse, questioning the merits of great-power entanglement and longing for the natural security that had come with isolation.

Part II The Defeat of Realist and Idealist Internationalism, 1898–1941

p. 206: PART II THE DEFEAT OF REALIST AND IDEALIST INTERNATIONALISM, 1898–1941
p. 206: foreign policy. The United States embarked on a war of choice with Spain to expel it from Cuba, and ended up seizing control of and ruling over not only that island, but a host of other territories in the Caribbean and the Paciﬁc. The era of isolationism came to an abrupt halt. Four decades of experimentation with both realist and idealist brands of internationalism were under way.
p. 206: The imperial turn of 1898 was bound up with America’s growing power as well as a change in the exceptionalist narrative driven in signiﬁcant part by the closing of the nation’s western frontier. With westward expansion at its geographic limits, the supporters of extra-continental expansion argued that it was time for Americans to capitalize on their growing economic and naval strength to take Manifest Destiny abroad. They argued not only that the nation’s political and economic dynamism required continued expansion, but also that the country had an enduring obligation to bring republicanism and liberty to the rest of the world now that the task was complete at home. Preserving the American experiment no longer required isolating the union from the outside world. On the contrary, America’s exceptionalist calling mandated that the United States venture out to share its ideals and fulﬁll its messianic mission.
p. 206: President William McKinley’s decision to expel Spain from Cuba— ostensibly to liberate the island from imperialism and oppression—was the opening salvo as Americans began to pursue this more activist brand of exceptionalism. This initial gambit was a success; the war went well, with
p. 207: quickly began to dissipate. Far from serving, as promised, as a liberator and guardian of freedom, the United States emerged from the war with a host of colonial appendages; rather than defeating imperialism, the country had embraced it. A public reaction against republican imperialism soon set in, fueling calls for a return to Washington’s “great rule.” A strategic pullback followed. A realist brand of internationalism failed to sustain popular support.
p. 207: President Woodrow Wilson, who took ofﬁce in 1913, then tried a different tack. Well aware of the political backlash against the imperial turn of 1898, he initially adhered to a traditional strategy of nonentanglement when World War I broke out in 1914. The arguments against U.S. involvement drew on the isolationist logics that had dominated grand strategy prior to 1898. The war was too distant from America’s shores to affect U.S. security. The United States could not compromise its exceptionalist calling by inserting itself into yet another pointless power struggle among Europe’s great powers. Instead, the nation needed to stand apart as a repository of democracy, a mediator, and an architect of a more peaceful postwar world. So, too, did Wilson fear that entanglement in the war would compromise liberty at home and serve as an obstacle to progressive economic reform.
p. 207: Prompted by Germany’s attacks on U.S. shipping in early 1917, Wilson changed his mind and decided to enter the war. He justiﬁed U.S. intervention on purely idealist grounds. With the United States itself under
p. 207: Wilson overreach ideologically when it came to the League of Nations
p. 208: Wilson’s was too idealist. America’s break with isolationism was in one signiﬁcant respect irreversible: the nation maintained the activist dominance of the Western Hemisphere that began in 1898; there was no pullback to the continentalism of the nineteenth century.
p. 208: and Asia. At the end of the 1930s, President Roosevelt ﬁnally took on the isolationists and began to provide economic and military support to nations ﬁghting fascism. But he did so in the service of helping others ﬁght for themselves so that the United States could stay out of the war. Only after Japan brought the war to Americans did Roosevelt reverse course and ﬁnally abandon the nation’s isolationist perch.

7. The Spanish-American War and the Onset of Imperial Ambition

p. 209: 7 The Spanish-American War and the Onset of Imperial Ambition
p. 209: its maritime commerce. That the United States took advantage of the war not just to expel Spain from Cuba but also to wrest control of territories in the Caribbean and the Paciﬁc made clear that the United States had arrived at a strategic turning point. After more than a century of forswearing the
p. 209: A second era in U.S. grand strategy was opening. The nation’s aversion to foreign entanglement prevailed from 1789 until the spring of 1898, but thereafter Americans were ready to expand beyond the homeland Such an about-face in U.S. grand strategy warrants a pause in this book’s historical narrative to consider why the imperial turn came about. Clarifying the
p. 210: political grip? What ideological and political forces prompted the executive branch, Congress, and the public to abandon the commitment to isolationism that had long served the nation well and enabled it to rise in largely unmolested fashion? Why did the United States not only kick Spain out of Cuba—a move consistent with America’s long-standing desire to rid its hemisphere of European powers—but also go on to assert control over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island, and Samoa —a move entirely inconsistent with the nation’s founding principles and prior history? Americans had aggressively expanded across their continent,
p. 210: This stark turn in strategy had multiple causes—the most important of which was the reinterpretation of American exceptionalism that took place during the late nineteenth century. Since the founding era, the United
p. 211: The origins of this transition in the nation’s creed were twofold. One source of this new narrative was the nation’s success. Americans had completed their messianic mission at home; the fulﬁllment of Manifest Destiny meant that productive settlement, democracy, and Christian civilization spanned from coast to coast. With the closing of the frontier, it was now time for Americans to take their mission abroad. The other source of the changing conception of exceptionalism emerged from the nation’s shortcomings. Industrialization and the maturing economy had increased urbanization, inequality, and social immobility. Too-powerful corporations and trusts were becoming the new enemy within. In the public mind, the American dream was at risk as the faceless worker toiling in the urban factory replaced the yeoman farmer tilling land on the western frontier. Expansion abroad and the renewed prosperity that would accompany it was the needed redress.
p. 214: Turner articulated a set of arguments that would go on to provide an intellectual and political foundation for overseas expansion. Over the course
p. 215: ideals; its conquests had noble intent. In the public mind, ejecting Spain from Cuba was a humanitarian cause, as was the occupation of the Philippines. Strong saw overseas expansion as a religious duty; with North
p. 215: of the day believed that our motives were anti-imperialist.”13 Those seeking to spread Christianity and Anglo-Saxon values, according to Jonathan Monten, believed that “because the United States was an agent of progressive historical change, it was a benign custodian of power.”14 Kagan
p. 215: The reconﬁguration of American exceptionalism during the 1890s was also driven by an alternative line of argumentation—one that was rooted in the vulnerability rather than the success of the American experiment. Industrialization had wrought social transformation. By the late 1800s, the
p. 216: Progressive reformers were not alone in coming to see expansion as a valuable instrument for advancing economic growth. Indeed, they ended up
p. 217: The situation in other strategic theaters, however, looked far less auspicious. During the 1880s and 1890s, Europe’s great powers were busy
p. 218: carving up Africa and extending their colonial holdings in Asia. At the Berlin Conference (1884–1885) European diplomats formalized and mapped out their colonial claims to much of Africa. Germany, Japan, and Russia also entered the game, intensifying the race for territorial acquisitions. Japan’s defeat of China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) made clear that a new power was emerging in the western Paciﬁc. And unlike the laissez-faire British, the Germans, French, Japanese, and Russians were not committed free traders. If tapping into new international markets was essential to revitalizing the American experiment, then the nation had better get going.
p. 218: The decisions to gain access to Pago Pago and Pearl Harbor were largely about getting naval footholds in the Paciﬁc while the United States still could. As Secretary of State Thomas Bayard put it in 1888 while seeking to
p. 218: United States must not fall out of the line of march.”22 A further sign that the United States was trying to keep pace with the international competition was its decision to supplement the imperial push of 1898 with its 1899 Open Door policy toward China—an effort to ensure that Americans enjoyed access to the Chinese market. As historian Julius Pratt concludes, “the thought of entering the scramble for colonies ere it was too late was not wholly a stranger to the minds of some American statesmen in 1898.”23
p. 219: Material and ideological change worked hand in hand to lure the United States away from its isolationist creed. The nation’s extraordinary economic ascent during the closing decades of the nineteenth century provided Americans the option of building a world-class navy and seeking to extend their geopolitical reach well beyond their own shores. Ideological change then induced them to exercise that option. Confronted with the closing of the western frontier and a new set of domestic ills stemming from industrialization and urbanization, Americans became convinced that it was time to take their exceptionalist calling abroad. Moreover, in light of the
p. 220: growing ambition and reach of other major powers, the nation had to act sooner rather than later if it was to gain the naval footholds and tap the foreign markets needed to realize the new and more activist version of exceptionalism that was taking hold.

8. Republican Imperialism and the Isolationist Backlash

p. 221: 8 Republican Imperialism and the Isolationist Backlash
p. 221: McKinley’s political room for maneuver on Cuba shrank considerably as the result of escalating violence between Spanish forces and the rebels. More than 100,000 Cubans died from ﬁghting and starvation, and Spain herded hundreds of thousands more into concentration camps, prompting many Americans to call for intervention. On February 15, 1898, an explosion in Havana’s harbor sank the USS Maine and killed more than 250 American servicemen; McKinley had dispatched the vessel to Cuba to protect U.S. citizens and interests. Although the cause of the explosion was uncertain, a Navy investigation concluded that the ship hit a mine. Prowar newspapers helped stoke widespread outrage in the United States. Prodded by Congress and public pressure, McKinley in April took the nation to war in the service of Cuban independence.
p. 241: The problem was that the McKinley administration, despite the president’s instructions to Woods, abided by its commitment to Cuba’s independence only in name. The U.S. military occupied and governed Cuba from the end of the war until 1902, after which the Platt Amendment superseded the Teller Amendment. The Platt Amendment, which was effectively forced on Cuba’s government, provided the United States the right to lease or buy land (the naval base at Guantanamo Bay resulted) and stipulated that “the government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence … [and] the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty.”69 Under these provisions, the U.S. military returned to Cuba in 1906 and occupied the island for another three
p. 242: years. The American military came back to Cuba in 1912 and intervened again from 1917 through 1922. The Platt Amendment was not repealed until 1934. At least in nominal terms, the United States stood by its anti- imperialist credentials. But the reality on the ground was a different matter altogether. As critics of the war were quick to point out, Cuba had effectively become a military protectorate of the United States.
p. 249: Finally, many progressive reformers, even those who had initially backed intervention in Cuba and viewed overseas expansion as a means of improving economic conditions at home, opposed the territorial acquisitions that came with military victory. Confronted with the reality that the war, although successful, had effectively turned the United States into an imperial power, they gravitated back to the more traditional reformist agenda of tackling domestic problems through domestic solutions. In addition, the events of 1898 prompted many in the progressive movement to embrace a paciﬁst and anti-militarist agenda. This growing paciﬁsm on the left would play an inﬂuential role in shaping foreign policy moving forward—especially during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson
p. 255: Roosevelt’s readiness to insert the United States more regularly and forcefully into the affairs of its southern neighbors stemmed in part from his conviction that the nation could and should deploy its resources to promote good governance in other countries. Prior to 1898, his predecessors tended to believe that such efforts were both inappropriate and futile. They were inappropriate because Americans should not dictate to others how they should govern themselves. They were futile because “inferior peoples” were not well suited to republican government. The McKinley administration was the ﬁrst to take a different approach and intrude abroad in the service of effecting political change.
p. 261: Theodore Roosevelt was an imperialist whose geopolitical ambitions were tamed by political realities. William Howard Taft made a different transition; he was an isolationist forced by facts on the ground to oversee the grand strategy of a nation that had, whether he liked it or not, become deeply entangled in the geopolitics of the Western Hemisphere and East Asia. “I am not and never have been an expansionist,” Taft afﬁrmed in a
p. 262: Taft was thus not a traditional isolationist, but instead a harbinger of a new brand of internationalism that entailed limiting the nation’s strategic commitments while wielding inﬂuence abroad through commerce and diplomacy. This “isolationist internationalism” would come into its heyday in the 1920s.
p. 264: This strategic shift had its most signiﬁcant impact in East Asia. Taft dispatched U.S. forces to China on a number of occasions to protect U.S. citizens and property. But he effectively replaced Roosevelt’s maritime strategy of preserving a balance of power in the region with one focused on
p. 265: intensiﬁed commercial engagement. In particular, he looked to U.S. investment in Manchuria and North China to counter Japanese and Russian ambitions, defend Chinese sovereignty, and preserve U.S. access to the Chinese market. In late 1910, Roosevelt wrote to Taft to protest the dismantlement of a maritime-based Asia strategy, arguing that a commercially oriented approach was falling short Roosevelt had good reason to complain. American businesses were less enthusiastic about investing on the Asian mainland than Taft had expected. Moreover, dollar diplomacy failed to check the ambitions of Moscow and Tokyo; over the course of 1910, Russia and Japan established effective spheres of inﬂuence in Manchuria and Japan proceeded to annex Korea
p. 266: Taft ended up politically stranded between the nation’s internationalist and isolationist impulses. On one hand, Americans had built a world-class navy, acquired a host of territorial commitments in the Caribbean and Paciﬁc that they were not prepared to give up, and assumed the role of heavy-handed guardian in Central America. So, too, had many Americans embraced the notion that the completion of Manifest Destiny at home mandated that they take their national mission abroad. On the other hand, Taft’s ideological inclinations as well as domestic pressures prompted him to embrace a foreign policy that prioritized commerce and diplomacy rather than territorial expansion and coercion. Congress was looking to limit foreign commitments and slow the buildup of the navy. The anti-imperialist movement had evolved, backing an enlarged American role in the world, but one that would be consistent with the nation’s republican values. Along with his background in law, these domestic trends encouraged Taft to veer away from the realist orientation of McKinley and Roosevelt toward an idealist brand of engagement that would rationalize and legalize the nation’s foreign relations—as manifest in commercial engagement, shirtsleeve diplomacy, and the arbitration treaties with France and Britain.
p. 267: Taft set the stage for Wilson’s effort to reconnect American power to American purpose. Wilson picked up on Taft’s search for a brand of internationalism that would resonate with the American electorate’s republican values. In this regard, he embraced Taft’s aversion to territorial expansion abroad and his effort to tame international competition through legalized cooperation. At the same time, Wilson was more willing than Taft to back up his idealist ambitions by relying on the nation’s geopolitical strength, not just its commercial reach. Indeed, Wilson embarked on an effort to deploy American power in the service of eradicating imperialism and spreading republican government, convinced that he could sustain public support by pursuing a brand of internationalism that would ﬁnally align the nation’s newfound power with its founding ideals.

9. Wilsonian Idealism and the Isolationist Backlash

p. 268: 9 Wilsonian Idealism and the Isolationist Backlash
p. 268: Wilson sought to resolve this contradiction by pursuing a brand of internationalism that would align rather than clash with American ideals. To do so, he drew on all three of the ideological foundations of the nation’s internationalist turn. Wilson was a realist inasmuch as he accepted that the United States should play a role in the world commensurate with its economic might. Although he started off as an isolationist when it came to U.S. involvement in World War I, he later became convinced that the United States had to be more than an exemplar and a commercial heavyweight; wielding inﬂuence would require the projection of U.S. military power. Indeed, Wilson in early 1917 decided to do what had been virtually unthinkable since the nation’s founding. He entangled the United States in Europe’s geopolitics and dispatched millions of American soldiers across the Atlantic to ﬁght in World War I.
p. 269: Wilson was also a committed reformer. His priorities at home included regulating commerce and banking, strengthening workers’ rights, lowering tariffs, and limiting the political power of corporations and party machines.
p. 269: Ironically, with military victory came political defeat. In the end, Wilson ideologically overcorrected and politically overreached. His idealist objectives proved elusive and lost their popular appeal as the war proceeded. Especially after the costs of the conﬂict mounted, many Americans second-guessed the merits of abandoning nonentanglement to make the world safe for democracy. Justifying entry into World War I on principled grounds rather than on concrete strategic interests left Wilson vulnerable when that war took the lives of over 100,000 Americans.
p. 270: Repression of antiwar dissent, the wartime centralization of power, and the sacriﬁce of progressive reform to the demands of the wartime economy undercut the administration’s support among establishment liberals and labor.
p. 270: The nation’s entry into World War I ultimately provoked an isolationist backlash that cleared the way for America’s interwar retreat. The Senate voted three times on ratiﬁcation of the Versailles Treaty, on each occasion rejecting U.S. participation in the League and effectively rebufﬁng Wilson’s rationale for entering the war to begin with. Wilson’s idealist aspirations may have lined up with the nation’s exceptionalist calling, but they ran up against cold political and geopolitical realities—as well as Wilson’s refusal to make pragmatic compromises with his political opponents.
p. 271: lives of ordinary workers. First as governor of New Jersey and then as president, Wilson took noteworthy steps to ﬁght poverty, reform labor laws, and regulate commerce, banking, and trusts.
p. 271: Wilson ﬁrmly believed that the United States was destined to be the driving force in effecting change abroad. Indeed, the nation’s exceptionalism—its success as a republic of liberty, its prosperity, its redemptive calling—made it uniquely suited to the task: “No other modern
p. 272: In line with the arguments of progressive expansionists during the 1890s, Wilson maintained that the nation’s exertions abroad would strengthen its institutions of governance at home. He shared the view that the closing of the continental frontier meant that Americans needed to look abroad to sustain their social vitality and further their redemptive mission. “Until 1890,” he wrote, “the United States had always a frontier; looked always to a region beyond, unoccupied, unappropriated, an outlet for its energy, a new place of settlement and of achievement for its people.” Westward expansion, Wilson argued, provided “a certain singular unity in our national task.” Moving forward, Americans had to spread their ideals beyond their shores and “these new duties now thrust upon us will not break that unity. They will perpetuate it, rather, and make it complete, if we keep but our integrity and our old-time purpose true… . The reactions which such experiments in the universal validity of principle and method are likely to bring about in respect of our own domestic institutions cannot be calculated or forecast.”5 Moreover, Wilson was conﬁdent that the nation’s democratic institutions were sufﬁciently mature and stable to withstand the ambitious program of national armament that he eventually pursued to equip the country for its international obligations. In his mind, a sizable military establishment would not pose a threat to domestic liberty
p. 274: the purposes of American power. Whereas McKinley and Roosevelt wanted the United States to master the practice of great-power politics, Wilson wanted to displace it in favor of an international order grounded on democracy, justice, and multilateral cooperation. Wilson was thus the ﬁrst
p. 278: Wilson backed off his effort to maintain an even-handed neutrality after a German submarine torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania in May 1915. Some 1,200 passengers lost their lives, including 128 Americans. Wilson sent a series of warnings to the Germans and began to support building up the U.S. Army and Navy, a move aimed primarily at strengthening the U.S. role as a neutral mediator and deterring further German attacks on passenger vessels His more assertive diplomacy helped convince Berlin to cease unrestricted attacks on belligerent passenger ships.
p. 282: Second, Wilson’s belief in America’s role as redeemer nation helped convince him that all of Europe’s warring parties were unworthy of American sacriﬁce. A few months before the war began, he invoked George
p. 283: the family of mankind on that side of the water in its meshes.”46 Consistent with this view, Wilson hoped that the conﬂict would end in a draw; peace without victory would impress on the belligerents the dangers of Old World geopolitics and the futility of war, thereby setting the stage for a more paciﬁc postwar order
p. 283: Third, Wilson’s belief in American exceptionalism and the nation’s redemptive mission, buttressed by the idealism and paciﬁsm that informed the progressive movement, led him to envisage the United States as not just a neutral power but also an impartial mediator that would help end the conﬂict and construct a new international order. In his declaration of neutrality on August 19, 1914, he called on Americans to fulﬁll “the proper performance of our duty as the one great nation at peace, the one people holding itself ready to play a part of impartial mediation and speak the
p. 284: counsels of peace and accommodation, not as a partisan, but as a friend.”48 William Jennings Bryan, the progressive intellectual Randolph Bourne, and other inﬂuential voices, many associated with Christian paciﬁst movements, encouraged Wilson to establish the United States as both an arbitrator and the architect of the peaceful order that would follow the conﬂict’s end
p. 310: The Wilsonian era—at least in terms of the aspirations of its primary architect—constitutes the high-water mark of an idealist brand of American internationalism. Woodrow Wilson was determined to deliver on the pledge of the Founders to make the world anew. In his own words, the United States should serve as the “chief interpreter to the world of those democratic principles which we believe to constitute the only force which can rid the world of injustice and bring peace and happiness to mankind.”138 It was this conviction that initially guided him to neutrality;
p. 311: The defeat of Wilsonian idealism was hugely consequential. After 1898, Americans decisively soured on the realist brand of internationalism on offer, readily seeing through the charade of republican imperialism. Wilson accordingly offered a brand of internationalism that would be in keeping with American exceptionalism and the nation’s democratic ideals. But that approach also proved unable to sustain domestic support. The Senate’s rejection of the Versailles Treaty not only left the League profoundly wounded, but also set the stage for a sharp American retreat. During the 1920s, the United States returned to focusing on commercial and diplomatic engagement abroad while limiting strategic commitment. A decisive isolationist turn followed in the 1930s despite—and, indeed, because of— rising fascism and militarism in Europe and East Asia. Wilsonian ideas were not ﬁnished for good. They would make a comeback during and after World War II—although tempered with a strong dose of realism. But before the resuscitation of U.S. internationalism, the nation would pass through a most illusory and destructive bout of isolationism.

10. The 1920s: Influence without Responsibility

p. 312: 10 The 1920s: Inﬂuence without Responsibility
p. 312: The internationalism that Woodrow Wilson sought to instill among Americans took a pummeling at the close of World War I. The United States may have been on the winning side of the war, but the experience of entanglement and the results it produced bore no resemblance to the idealist vision laid out by Wilson. As after 1898, Americans felt they had paid a high price for a false bill of goods. Not only did Wilson lose the ﬁght for the League, but President Warren Harding (1921–1923), who ran “against the internationalism” of his predecessor and “for the policies of [George] Washington,” won the 1920 presidential contest in one of the most lopsided elections in American history
p. 312: Nonetheless, the United States did not return to the mix of isolationism and stiff-necked unilateralism that came before 1898. Instead, the country sought to secure geopolitical detachment through commercial and diplomatic engagement. The U.S. government relied heavily on Wall Street to wield inﬂuence in Europe and East Asia. Bankers and diplomats, not U.S. forces, would keep the peace. Republicans, who controlled the White House and Congress throughout the decade, were picking up on Taft’s dollar
p. 313: diplomacy and his efforts to tame geopolitical rivalry through economic leverage.
p. 313: collective action. The Harding administration agreed to negotiated limits on the nation’s naval strength—the Washington Naval Treaties of 1922 placed caps on the U.S., British, French, Italian, and Japanese ﬂeets—as a means of dampening geopolitical competition and defending the Open Door policy toward China. In 1928, the administration of President Calvin Coolidge
p. 313: than sixty countries. The United States acquired a new appetite for multilateral agreements—as long as they enabled the nation to avoid, not make, strategic commitments. As aptly put by Nichols, Americans embraced an “isolationist internationalism.”4 They were seeking geopolitical clout without strategic liability.
p. 316: Coolidge also followed in Harding’s footsteps when it came to reviving dollar diplomacy. Soon after winning reelection in 1924, Coolidge famously stated that “the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of people will always ﬁnd these are moving impulses of our life.”18 He presided over the downsizing of the federal government, slashed taxes, reduced the deﬁcit, scaled back regulations, and imposed draconian cuts on the naval budget, which by 1926 reached the lowest level of the interwar period The U.S. Army also shrank in dramatic fashion. Over two million men were on active duty during World War I, compared with around 140,000 during the 1920s Cutbacks to the tools of statecraft reﬂected Coolidge’s priorites. According to historian George Herring, Coolidge “showed little interest in and much ignorance of the world,” happily leaving the conduct of foreign policy to Charles Evans Hughes, his secretary of state
p. 317: from U.S. investment banks to German industry. The United States pressed Europeans to stabilize their currencies on the basis of the gold standard It offered famine aid to Russia and earthquake assistance to Japan In East Asia, major U.S. investments and loans were to enforce the Open Door and bind both China and Japan to the U.S. economy. As Michael Green notes, U.S. strategy toward the region rested on the “assumption that America’s enormous ﬁnancial and industrial power at the end of the First World War would increase both Chinese and Japanese dependence on American capitalism.”25
p. 317: strategy entailed “private initiative rather than government action.” He notes that American businessmen were encouraged to assume a leading role in stabilizing the war-ravaged European economies through bank loans and private investment and to create the conditions in which American inﬂuence could spread.” Green concurs, concluding that “the Republican administrations of the 1920s were uniquely willing to outsource major diplomatic tasks to leading industrialists and bankers.”26
p. 319: still exhibited a paternalistic approach toward the region. The Harding administration withdrew U.S. troops from Cuba in 1922, and the Coolidge administration withdrew forces from the Dominican Republic in the middle of the decade, while also brieﬂy removing them from Nicaragua in 1925. At the same time, the United States repeatedly intervened in the Caribbean Basin over the course of the 1920s, including in Guatemala (1920), Costa Rica (1921), Panama (1920, 1921, 1925), and Honduras (1924, 1925). American forces also returned to Nicaragua from 1926 to 1933, and the occupation of Haiti continued from 1915 until 1934.33
p. 319: intervene elsewhere in the region By the time Hoover left ofﬁce, he had weaned U.S. policy of its heavy reliance on military intervention, clearing the way for President Franklin Roosevelt (1933–1945) to take further steps, including completion of the withdrawal from Haiti and ratiﬁcation of a new treaty with Cuba abrogating the 1903 treaty that had given the United States the right to intervene in Cuba at will Roosevelt’s version of the Good Neighbor policy aimed at more broadly normalizing relations with Latin America and making good on the principle of recognizing the rights of all nations in the hemisphere to sovereignty and self-determination.
p. 320: In political terms, this “isolationist internationalism” represented an ideological meeting ground between left and right—a new “sweet spot” in American politics. The left emerged from the Wilsonian era internationalist but staunchly antimilitarist. Mainstream Republicans had lost much of their appetite for ﬂexing the nation’s military muscle, but they valued the country’s new economic power (and prosperity) and were more than happy to work with the private sector to wield U.S. inﬂuence abroad. The unilateralists and strident nationalists were content as long as the nation returned to a posture of strategic detachment outside the Western Hemisphere. As Nichols observes, “the vision for how America might lead other nations was cooperative enough to satisfy many internationalists, while it was nonentangled enough to placate many among the unilateralist- oriented isolationists.”41
p. 324: Kellogg-Briand was yet another manifestation of America’s new “isolationist internationalism.” The United States was ready to play an
p. 327: This “isolationist internationalism” was a good ﬁt for a nation that was seeking to maximize its inﬂuence and its prosperity while limiting its strategic obligations. The core weakness of this approach was that it depended entirely on ﬂeeting circumstances. America’s economic and diplomatic leverage would soon dwindle as a result of the Great Depression. The Washington Naval Treaties and the Kellogg-Briand Pact depended upon the goodwill and like-mindedness of other major powers; they worked as long as the signatories were willing to adhere to the agreements Both accords lacked enforcement mechanisms—precisely why they appealed to U.S. leaders and could pass muster in the Senate.

11. From the Great Depression to Pearl Harbor: Delusions of Strategic Immunity

p. 329: 11 From the Great Depression to Pearl Harbor: Delusions of Strategic Immunity
p. 329: The Great Depression recast U.S. grand strategy in fundamental ways. President Herbert Hoover and President Franklin Roosevelt both orchestrated an inward geopolitical turn as they focused on the challenge of economic recovery. Amid unprecedented economic duress at home, the
p. 329: oversee ﬁnancial stability. As credit and investment from the private sector dried up, so too did the leverage that had come with Wall Street’s role as an instrument of U.S. diplomacy. The United States effectively abandoned the activist dollar diplomacy of the 1920s in favor of ﬁnancial detachment. The nation’s efforts to use its economic strength to shape geopolitical outcomes in Europe and East Asia came to an end.
p. 329: also protectionism and unilateralism. During Hoover’s watch, the United States resorted to the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff to promote domestic employment, prompting other countries to do the same and producing a plunge in international commerce. Roosevelt’s top priority was his program
p. 329: A decisive strategic pullback accompanied this economic retreat. As Germany, Japan, and Italy rearmed and engaged in overt acts of aggression —moves that ﬂouted their commitments under the Versailles Treaty, the Washington Naval Treaties, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact—Roosevelt’s main response was to shepherd through Congress a series of neutrality acts
p. 330: that aimed to cordon off the United States from trouble abroad.
p. 330: —“commerce with all nations, alliance with none.”1 Indeed, the United States had twice gone to war—in 1812 and again in 1917—to defend the commercial rights of neutrality. But in the 1930s, the United States was more than ready to abandon that principle in order to build a moat around the nation. Isolationism had since the eighteenth century meant coupling
p. 330: After the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, which prompted Britain and France to declare war against Germany, Roosevelt ﬁnally reversed course and convinced Congress to allow the victims of fascism to purchase arms from the United States. But the steps were halting—the
p. 330: assistance to those ﬁghting the Axis powers. But to do so he had to battle a determined isolationist camp, which was by then operating under the banner of the America First Committee. And even after munitions, ships, and
p. 330: Paradoxically, but not surprisingly, isolationism exercised remarkable sway over the conduct of U.S. grand strategy at a time when the world was desperately in need of American power and purpose. The United States
p. 331: abdicated leadership on matters of trade and ﬁnance even though Britain in the aftermath of World War I was not up to the task. Americans then ran for cover as militarism and virulent nationalism began to engulf Europe and East Asia. And even after the outbreak of World War II made amply clear the dangerous ambitions of the Axis powers, America was willing to contribute only armaments and ﬁnancial assistance until the United States itself was attacked by Japan. That the United States was a passive bystander during one of history’s darkest decades helps illuminate why isolationism was ﬁnally discredited and defeated after the nation entered World War II.
p. 331: U.S. diplomatic inﬂuence abroad. Between 1924 and 1931, loans from U.S. entities accounted for roughly sixty percent of international lending. Thereafter, U.S. lending abroad virtually ceased and did not recover for the rest of the decade As the U.S. government turned most of its attention to
p. 331: A retreat on trade accompanied the pullback on investment. In 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which raised tariffs on more than 20,000 imported goods. America’s trading partners responded in kind. Between 1929 and 1934, international trade fell by sixty-six percent,
p. 332: exacerbating the global economic downturn. Smoot-Hawley also projected to the rest of the world a unmistakable message that the United States would take a go-it-alone approach to managing the Depression, undermining the new spirit of multilateralism that the nation had embraced during the 1920s
p. 333: Hoover did not build a single battleship during his presidency, and Roosevelt maintained defense spending at relatively modest levels (around two percent of GDP) throughout the 1930s As the decade progressed,
p. 334: geopolitical entanglement. By the 1930s, the Depression compelled them to shy away even from dollar diplomacy and the “isolationist internationalism” that they had embraced in the 1920s. So, too, did many
p. 336: them on over foreign policy Indeed, as discussed below, the main U.S. policy response to Europe’s strategic descent during the second half of the 1930s was to embargo trade with belligerents to avoid a replay of the chain of events that brought the country into World War I. It would not be until 1939, prompted by the Nazi invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, that Roosevelt ﬁnally began to reverse course and provide limited assistance to countries resisting fascism. And despite the outﬂow from Europe of Jews escaping persecution, U.S. immigration quotas remained intact, with authorities in May 1939 infamously sending back to Europe a passenger liner carrying almost 1,000 Jewish refugees from Germany. Roughly half of the refugees returned to Europe perished in the Holocaust
p. 337: According to scholar Peter Smith, “the decade of the 1930s stands out as a golden era of U.S. relations with Latin America… . Washington withdrew military troops, refrained from intervention, and initiated a process of consultation and cooperation. The United States began treating Latin American nations as sovereign entities, rather than subordinates, as equal partners engaged in the collective promotion of hemispheric interests.”22
p. 337: The debate over the Ludlow Amendment during the second half of the 1930s made clear just how fully elites and the public alike had embraced isolationist attitudes. Harkening back to a proposal that William Jennings Bryan had made in 1915, Representative Louis Ludlow (D-Indiana) in 1935 proposed a constitutional amendment that would have required that any declaration of war be approved by popular referendum Ludlow argued to
p. 338: Opponents of the bill were no less passionate. President Roosevelt himself fought hard against the proposal, arguing that it would “cripple” the president’s ability to conduct statecraft Although a staunch isolationist, Senator Arthur Vandenberg took a strong stand against the idea of requiring a popular referendum to declare war, remarking that “it would be as
p. 339: sensible to require a town meeting before permitting the ﬁre department to put out a blaze.”32 During the House debate, Representative Sam Rayburn
p. 339: In the end, the House voted not to advance the bill. But the opponents won by a relatively small margin, 209 to 188. Overwhelming public support for the Ludlow Amendment and this close call in Congress made clear just how determined Americans were to stay out of the geopolitical troubles building in both Europe and Asia. Roosevelt’s secretary of state, Cordell Hull, called the episode “a striking indication of the strength of isolationist sentiment in the United States.”34
p. 340: Congress passed the ﬁrst neutrality act of the interwar era in 1935, with successive versions becoming more restrictive in step with mounting turmoil abroad The 1935 law prohibited arms trade with all belligerents, granting the president no discretion in implementing the ban and making no distinction between aggressor and victim. With memories of the sinking of the Lusitania in mind, the bill also stipulated that U.S. citizens traveling on ships passing through war zones did so at their own risk The United States implemented the ban on arms trade against both Italy and Ethiopia after the outbreak of war between them in 1935—despite the fact that the League determined that Italy was the aggressor. In sharing with the Italian ambassador the rationale for the embargo, Secretary of State Hull explained that “the people of this country are in no state of mind to engage in any activities or steps except those primarily looking towards keeping out of war and in a secondary or subordinate sense manifesting proper interest in peace and the shortening of the duration of the war in the light of our obligations under the Kellogg Pact.”40
p. 341: restrictions and made them permanent It gave the president the authority to ban all trade with belligerents, not just arms. It barred the sale of munitions to neutral countries that intended to transship the goods to belligerents, prohibited U.S. citizens from traveling on belligerent vessels, prohibited U.S. vessels from transporting passengers or goods to belligerents, and banned the arming of U.S. merchantmen. The 1937 act
p. 341: General Francisco Franco. The United States imposed the embargo on both parties even though Franco’s forces were backed by Germany and Italy, meaning that their victory would advance the fascist cause. The Roosevelt administration was not only refusing to come to the assistance of a like- minded democracy, but also pursuing a policy that knowingly increased the likelihood of a setback for republicanism.
p. 341: The bill granted the president the right to authorize “cash and carry” for nonmilitary items. At the president’s discretion, belligerents would be able to purchase non-embargoed goods from the United States as long as they paid cash and transported the purchased items on ships of their own or foreign registry. Taken together, these measures were meant to permit some trade with belligerents, but in a way that effectively closed off the possibility that belligerent attacks on American ships could again draw the nation into an armed conﬂict beyond the Western Hemisphere
p. 342: A 1937 survey revealed strong support for neutrality among elites As discussed earlier, much of the public backed a proposed a constitutional amendment that would have required approval of a declaration of war by popular referendum. Suspicion of “merchants of death” continued to run strong, producing sustained support for the embargo on arms exports even if the ban disadvantaged victims of aggression and republican regimes. Liberals were as adamant as conservatives that rigid isolationism remained the only course. Paciﬁsts, who had so enthusiastically backed the Kellogg- Briand Pact, responded to the progressive dismantlement of the architecture of peace with a disappointment that only strengthened their support for strategic detachment. For the peace movement, according to Doenecke and Wilz, “ignoring the troubles of the rest of the world was not enough. The United States should complete its insulation by cutting economic ties with warring nations as well.”48
p. 343: Thereafter, Roosevelt began to change his stance. As described by Herring, “only toward the end of that tumultuous decade, when the reality of war seemed about to touch the United States directly, did a reluctant nation, led by Roosevelt himself, shift course.”50 By the beginning of 1939, he had
p. 343: by Roosevelt himself, shift course.”50 By the beginning of 1939, he had concluded that even-handed neutrality, by leaving Germany unchecked, could ultimately mean the fall of Britain, an outcome that would imperil U.S. security. If the Axis conquered Europe, Roosevelt saw Africa and Latin America as the next targets. The result, he maintained, would be “the gradual encirclement of the United States by the removal of ﬁrst lines of defense.”51 Roosevelt began to make the case to Congress and the public
p. 343: opponents. Franco’s forces completed their defeat of Spain’s republican government early in 1939, prompting Roosevelt to conclude that imposing a blanket arms embargo on aggressor and victim alike had been a mistake
p. 344: The German invasion of Czechoslovakia in March consolidated Roosevelt’s determination to switch from strict neutrality to a policy that would permit military aid to countries ﬁghting fascism. Over the course of 1939, he tried several times to make cash-and-carry less restrictive by enabling the sale of arms to belligerents on a selective basis Congress resisted, still unwilling to run the risk that allowing U.S. arms to cross the Atlantic could ensnare the country in the war. Members objected to the very
p. 344: Congress ﬁnally relented after the German invasion of Poland on September 1 and the consequent declaration of war by Britain and France two days later. On November 4, Roosevelt signed a revised neutrality law
p. 345: The neutrality bill of 1939 was the ﬁrst in a succession of legislative defeats that Roosevelt would deal the still-strong isolationist bloc in Congress as he incrementally stepped up U.S. assistance to countries resisting Germany and Italy. Following the fall of France in June 1940 and the beginning of German air attacks against Britain, Roosevelt implemented further measures. In August, he sidestepped the neutrality law by transferring to Britain ﬁfty older U.S. destroyers in return for U.S. basing rights on British possessions along the Atlantic seaboard and in the Caribbean In order to avoid a bruising public debate, he proceeded
p. 345: without congressional approval In September 1940, the administration introduced selective service, the ﬁrst peacetime draft in the nation’s history While taking these steps, Roosevelt repeatedly reassured the
p. 346: March succeeded in securing congressional approval for Lend-Lease, a program that authorized the president to “sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend or otherwise dispose of” defense articles to any country “whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” Items
p. 347: During the spring and summer of 1941, Roosevelt dispatched U.S. troops to Greenland and Iceland to ensure that they did not fall into German hands and to facilitate the transport of defense items across the Atlantic. He extended the range of U.S. patrols and authorized the U.S. Navy to report the positions of German vessels in the western Atlantic, enabling U.S. merchantmen to avoid them and the Royal Navy to attack them. Roosevelt soon thereafter quietly approved of U.S. Navy escorts of Atlantic convoys as far east as Iceland, a mission that ultimately led to the exchange of ﬁre between U.S. ships and German submarines
p. 347: In May, a German submarine sank a U.S. merchantman crossing the Atlantic. Roosevelt chose not to escalate. In early September, the USS Greer and a German U-boat ﬁred upon each other. Thereafter, Roosevelt ordered U.S. ships and aircraft to attack any German or Italian warship operating “in the waters which we deem necessary for our defense.” On
p. 348: In the spring of 1940, Roosevelt decided to keep a signiﬁcant number of warships in Hawaii instead of at their normal home ports on the West Coast Prompted in part by the increasing prospect of alliance among Tokyo, Berlin, and Rome—which was formalized in September 1940—he in July began to embargo the export to Japan of aviation fuel and high- grade scrap iron. In September, the administration broadened the embargo to include all scrap metal, and in December extended it again to iron ore, pig iron, and steel. Roosevelt also began offering loans and military assistance to China in 1940 and included it in the Lend-Lease program the following year—even though he did rebuff China’s request for a formal military alliance In effect, Roosevelt followed the same strategy in Asia that he did in Europe. He sought to block further expansion by coupling sanctions against aggressors with aid to victims. At the same time, he was
p. 349: intent on limiting the nation’s strategic exposure by stopping short of American entry into the war in either theater.
p. 349: Over the course of 1941, negotiations between Washington and Tokyo went nowhere. Japan refused to abandon its expansive aims, while the United States refused to back off its trade embargo. As tensions with Japan mounted, Roosevelt strengthened the U.S. military presence in the western Paciﬁc, sending additional forces to the Philippines. After the Japanese invaded southern French Indochina in July, the United States cut off oil exports to Japan. With the conﬂict in China rapidly consuming Japan’s already scarce resources and the trade embargo imposed on the country only tightening, Tokyo was determined to expand deeper into Southeast Asia to secure new sources of oil and other war-making materials.
p. 349: called the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The attack immediately extinguished Roosevelt’s hopes of keeping the United States out of World War II.
p. 349: Historians continue to debate Roosevelt’s true intent. Was his ultimate objective to avoid the nation’s involvement in World War II or to guide the United States into the war?75 On the basis of his actions, his public statements, and his private papers, there is no compelling evidence to conﬁrm the claim that Roosevelt’s aid-short-of-war policy masked an intentional effort to orchestrate the nation’s entry into the war. As Warren Kimball writes, “no evidence has surfaced to demonstrate that he lied actively and consistently to the American people about his ultimate
p. 350: intentions.”
p. 350: and 1941. Roosevelt’s main argument in favor of running the risk of providing military assistance to Britain was the one he had been making since early 1939—that the fall of the British Isles to Nazi Germany would ultimately imperil U.S. security. In one of his signature ﬁreside chats,
p. 351: Roosevelt’s aid-short-of-war policy. The America First Committee (AFC) was founded in September 1940 to coordinate the activities and messaging of disparate isolationist voices and bodies. Headquartered in Chicago, AFC opened some 450 chapters and subchapters around the country and attracted roughly 800,000 members. The organization released a statement of principles in March 1941 stating that “our ﬁrst duty is to keep America out of foreign wars. Our entry would only destroy democracy, not save it.” The statement advocated “humanitarian aid” to “the suffering and needy people of England and the occupied countries,” but stipulated that “not by acts of war abroad but by preserving and extending democracy at home can we aid democracy and freedom in other lands.”78
p. 351: joined the chapter that opened at Yale. Various pro-Axis groups with anti- Semitic leanings, such as the German-American Bund, quietly and
p. 352: indirectly supported the organization. At one of the Bund’s rallies in New York City in 1939, speakers denounced “international Jewry” against a backdrop of swastikas, and one banner read: “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian Americans.”79
p. 352: AFC itself earned an anti-Semitic reputation, in part due to the prominent role played by Lindbergh, who became one of the organization’s most prominent spokespersons. In an antiwar speech Lindbergh delivered in Des
p. 353: contribute its resources—even though not its manpower—to the ﬁght. Prior to Pearl Harbor, most Americans still opposed U.S. entry into the war However, the public was coming to appreciate Roosevelt’s insistence that the United States had to help others stand up to aggression, with a poll in February 1941 revealing that only twenty-two percent of the public was opposed to Congress passing Lend-Lease
p. 354: divisive. According to historian Arthur Schlesinger, “the debate between interventionists and isolationists in 1940–41 had an inner fury that tore apart families, friends, churches, universities, and political parties.”91 As the
p. 354: Roosevelt administration launched an effort to discredit and marginalize isolationists, including by launching FBI investigations into their background and activities. As the tide of public opinion began to turn,
p. 354: The Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought to an abrupt halt the ongoing debate over engagement versus detachment. With
p. 355: the country having been attacked and many Americans killed, the nation resolutely rallied behind Roosevelt’s request for a declaration of war on December 8. “Yesterday,” Roosevelt began his address to a joint session of
p. 355: camp. AFC formally disbanded on December 11—but felt compelled to issue a self-serving statement seeking to vindicate its claim that Roosevelt’s aid-short-of-war policy would inevitably draw the country into the war: “Our principles were right. Had they been followed, war could have been avoided.” Having put down this marker, the organization proceeded to
p. 356: retreat are quite striking. From the Great Depression until the outbreak of World War II, isolationism had a virtual lock on the conduct of U.S. strategy. And even after the war was under way, Roosevelt provided only ﬁnancial and military assistance to the victims of aggression, keeping the nation out of war until the Japanese brought war to the nation. The public shared the president’s reluctance to enter the war. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, opinion surveys indicate that only about twenty percent of Americans were in favor of going to war against the Axis powers
p. 356: geopolitical entanglement And, yes, Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to oppose Roosevelt’s efforts to lift the arms embargo in 1939. But staying out of World War II was not an issue that pitted one region or party against another; isolationism’s allure was neither sectional nor partisan, but instead enjoyed support across the political spectrum and across the country. With so many versions of isolationist logic in play, virtually all Americans could ﬁnd much to like in steadfast adherence to a policy of neutrality and strategic detachment.
p. 358: that it remain “the great arsenal of democracy.” Although he and many others were clearheaded in viewing the Axis powers as dangerous aggressors, supporters of AFC often attributed moral equivalence to the belligerents in World War II—just as the isolationists (including Wilson) had initially done during World War I. In their minds, the United States had no cause, moral or otherwise, to intervene in yet another war resulting from the expansionist urges of the Old World. Opponents of aiding Britain and France noted that both were imperial powers not worthy of American support. “We are not being invited into a campaign to defend powers which can properly be called democratic powers,” Senator Nye insisted in 1938. “The defense of the British and French Empires, were we to aid in it, would involve the continued subjugation of hundreds of millions of black and brown peoples.”107 In his 1935 book Road to War, Walter Millis argued that World War I had been the result of “the ceaseless, intricate, and insane game of European diplomacy.”108 Even though Millis eventually became a proponent of U.S. involvement in the ﬁght against the Axis powers, Road to War was a bible of sorts for isolationists seeking to keep the country out of World War II
p. 360: The isolationists exploited anti-immigrant sentiment, ethnic tensions, and concern about the enemy within—Americans with dual loyalties—to make their case for staying out of the war. AFC members charged that proponents of U.S. intervention were British sympathizers, many of them misled by British propaganda to support an imperial power that was oppressing the Irish and many other peoples. As Lindbergh warned, “we know that
p. 360: making to draw us into their war.”119 American Jews, some isolationists charged, were more concerned about their brethren in Europe than the welfare of their own country; they should not be allowed to push the country into an ill-advised war. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, proponents of entry into the war were labeled communist sympathizers The isolationists were exploiting ethnic and political tensions at home to keep the nation from entanglement abroad.
p. 360: Finally, paciﬁsm, including Christian paciﬁsm, played its own role in keeping the United States out of World War II. Paciﬁsts were not strict isolationists; most wanted the United States, in the words of Andrew Preston, “to lead the world to a better, warless world.” In this respect, they
p. 362: Isolationism served the United States well for much of its history, contributing to its speedy and unmolested ascent. But this past misled the country during the 1930s, prompting a geopolitical retreat at a time when U.S. engagement was desperately needed to check fascism and the genocidal ambition of Nazi Germany. Prior to World War I, Britain had been the global guardian of last resort; Pax Britannica was a key source of ﬁnancial and geopolitical stability. That task fell to the United States after
p. 363: World War I, but the country refused to assume the responsibilities that came with its newly acquired power.

Part III The Rise and Fall of Liberal Internationalism, 1941–2020

p. 364: PART III THE RISE AND FALL OF LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM, 1941–2020
p. 364: Wilsonian era. By merging these two alternatives to isolationism—marrying U.S. power to international partnership and justifying foreign entanglement in terms of American interests as well as ideals—liberal internationalism proved far more durable. Indeed, it succeeded in providing a solid political foundation for the nation’s global engagement during World War II, the Cold War, and into the twenty-ﬁrst century. The result was Pax Americana —a rules-based international order designed and defended by the United States. If the era of isolationism was about running away from the world and transforming it only by example, the era of liberal internationalism was about running the world and transforming it through American power and purpose.
p. 365: participation in the Korean War, the deployment of additional U.S. troops to Europe—awakened isolationist voices that tested the bipartisan compact behind liberal internationalism. So, too, did the Vietnam War provoke intense domestic opposition and calls for the United States to step back from an excess of foreign entanglements. Nonetheless, liberal internationalism ultimately proved sufﬁciently durable to outlast the Cold War, sustained in signiﬁcant part by the Soviet threat.
p. 365: The collapse of the Soviet Union thereafter cleared the way for liberal internationalism’s demise. Absent the disciplining effects of a transcendent external threat, Democrats and Republicans began to go their separate ways. Democrats, long drawn toward idealism, became the party of
p. 365: ways. Democrats, long drawn toward idealism, became the party of partnership; Republicans, long the guardians of realism, became the party of power and unilateralism. After decades of a relatively consistent brand of
p. 365: erosion of the moderate center. The attacks of September 11 restored bipartisanship in only a ﬂeeting way, with the nation’s resulting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq soon exacerbating the partisan divide over matters of statecraft.
p. 365: also overreach. Unchecked by either a peer competitor or the moderation that accompanied bipartisanship, the United States tried to do too much.
p. 366: Presidents Bill Clinton (1993–2001), George W. Bush (2001–2009), and Barack Obama (2009–2017) all tried, through different approaches and with varying degrees of success, to sustain Pax Americana and uphold the international order built during the era of liberal internationalism. President

12. World War II and the Cold War: The Era of Liberal Internationalism

p. 367: 12 World War II and the Cold War: The Era of Liberal Internationalism
p. 367: garnered sufﬁcient political support to endure. The attack on Pearl Harbor then opened the era of liberal internationalism, leading to the durable melding of the realist and idealist alternatives that had been in play since the turn of the century. Entry into World War II set the stage for a sea
p. 370: This new marriage of power and partnership aimed at three broad objectives. First, the chief geopolitical goal of American grand strategy was to prevent the domination of Eurasia by a hostile power. In the words of
p. 370: Second, the United States sought to promote an open trading order.
p. 370: Third, liberal internationalism
p. 371: sought to preserve and extend the democratic way of life.
p. 371: These three objectives served as guideposts for U.S. grand strategy from the 1940s into the twenty-ﬁrst century. The United States maintained a global network of military bases, with hundreds of thousands of forces on station to contain communism, uphold alliances, and defend Pax Americana. Between 1948 and 1991, U.S. forces engaged in forty-six military interventions America’s enthusiasm for institutionalized multilateralism continued, as did its passion for free trade. During the second half of the twentieth century, the United States proceeded to conclude a raft of bilateral trade agreements and regional pacts, and threw its weight behind successive rounds of global trade negotiations. Washington also sought to expand the footprint of democracy, regularly using its geopolitical and economic leverage to encourage liberal change. Over the course of the Cold War, the United States attempted on over seventy occasions to topple other nations’ governments—most often through covert means The primacy of geopolitical objectives meant that these attempts at regime change were not always in the service of installing democratic governments. Nonetheless, one of the nation’s chief objectives throughout the Cold War was to export political and economic liberty to unfree portions of the world. America’s embrace of a more activist conception of its redemptive mission was at the core of the formulation and implementation of liberal internationalism.
p. 373: A more activist notion of America’s exceptionalist calling had been on offer since the end of the nineteenth century. As the realists had argued in 1898 and the idealists in 1917, the United States could no longer fulﬁll its mission of reforming the world by remaining aloof from it. Technology had compromised the strategic immunity afforded by protective oceans, and the United States had become too engaged in global affairs to turn its back on the world. Leading only by example was no longer enough. Accordingly, Americans would have to spread their experiment in political and economic liberty through activism and intervention, at once changing the world and making it safe for American engagement now that the nation could no longer afford to shun foreign entanglement. Since the world could not be redeemed by American example, it would have to be redeemed by American action.
p. 374: that democratic capitalism triumphed over autocratic socialism. When President Truman in 1947 asked Congress to help prevent the spread of communism by approving ﬁnancial assistance to Greece and Turkey, he began by stressing “the gravity of the situation” and the threat posed to the “national security” of the country. But he also drew a clear link between the nation’s security and the fulﬁllment of its founding mission. The United States, he afﬁrmed, had an obligation to create “conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion… . The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their
p. 375: freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world—and we shall surely endanger the welfare of this Nation.”19
p. 375: The intermingling of realism and idealism, of power and partnership, of interests and ideals—this formula provided the ideological and political underpinnings of liberal internationalism and ensured its durability. Constructing and defending Pax Americana was a strategic imperative, a moral obligation, and a fulﬁllment of America’s historic destiny.
p. 375: As scholars of American foreign policy have argued, a proclivity to overreach was a logical consequence of a grand strategy that rested on an expansive notion of the nation’s exceptionalist mission Considering the defeat of free institutions anywhere to be a defeat everywhere was a recipe for trying to do too much. Secondary and tertiary priorities were mistaken for vital ones, and reputational concerns at times blurred the identiﬁcation of core interests. In the service of ﬁghting communism wherever and whenever it showed signs of spreading, the United States on occasion partnered with regimes that were far from democratic. The scope and longevity of the Vietnam War, the nation’s overkill nuclear arsenal, America’s support for governments in the Western Hemisphere and beyond that grossly violated the human rights of their citizens—these were clear
p. 376: examples of the strategic excess fueled in part by the nation’s messianic objectives.
p. 376: Despite its durability and longevity, the Cold War internationalist consensus was tested by isolationist impulses. The scholar Eric Nordlinger is generally correct that after the outbreak of the Korean War, “isolationist
p. 377: ideas went into near-total eclipse.”26 Nonetheless, amid the heating up of the Cold War in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Truman administration did meet resistance as it sought to commit additional economic and military resources to the containment of communism. The Vietnam War similarly provoked an isolationist resurgence. In the end, however, liberal internationalism ultimately weathered these tests, demonstrating the staying power of the internationalist consensus that had emerged in the early 1940s.
p. 377: The establishment of NATO in 1949 constituted another major hurdle for the Truman administration. The Senate’s consideration of the North Atlantic Treaty, which bound the United States to the defense of Western Europe, provoked intense opposition from a small, but vocal, group of isolationist senators. Senator Taft led the charge against ratiﬁcation, emphasizing the
p. 378: role in the defense of Western Europe Nonetheless, observers worried that the debate over NATO revealed an isolationist reawakening. In
p. 381: William Henry Chamberlin, a journalist and historian who had been a staunch opponent of U.S. intervention in World War II, was quite explicit about his own intellectual transition in an essay he published in 1956: “Certainly isolationism, with its ﬂat rejection of foreign alliances and overseas commitments, is not a safe or even a practicable policy for the United States now, when the Communist empire has weighed down the scales of world power so heavily that only United States power can maintain a precarious balance. To advocate isolationism today is, therefore, to aid, albeit unconsciously, the Communist grand design of world domination.” Although Chamberlin had jettisoned the isolationism of the interwar conservatives, he had not abandoned their commitment to unilateralism. He went on to warn against “a vague and woozy internationalism. All schemes of world government are unreal fantasies. There is no warrant for submitting American vital interests to chance ballots in that Tower of Babel, the United Nations.”40 The John Birch Society,
p. 381: in that Tower of Babel, the United Nations.”40 The John Birch Society, which was established in 1958, would help crystallize and propagate this brand of conservative internationalism, which combined staunch anti- communism with libertarianism and unilateralism Its founder, businessman David Welch, went out of his way to disassociate the group from nativism, racism, and anti-Semitism. But as with conservative nationalists during the interwar era, the society did attract a good number of members who harbored racial and religious prejudice
p. 381: internationalism. In the late 1950s, the economist and historian Murray Rothbard attempted to rally libertarian conservatives behind a return to isolationism. In 1959, Rothbard submitted an essay titled “For a New Isolationism” to the National Review, a magazine founded in 1955 by the conservative intellectual William F. Buckley. Rothbard’s opening paragraph revealed just how isolated the isolationists had become:
p. 382: Rothbard maintained that the Cold War and the nuclear and conventional arms race it had spawned unnecessarily threatened American security and prosperity. He called for “a genuine policy of peace” focused on world disarmament and “a return to the ancient and traditional American policy of isolationism and neutrality.”43 The National Review rejected the essay.
p. 382: The isolationist impulse made another signiﬁcant comeback in response to the Vietnam War, which severely strained the liberal internationalist consensus. Beginning in the late 1960s and continuing into the 1970s, a
p. 385: In sum, only a handful of voices advocated for a return to traditional isolationism—a pullback to North America or the Western Hemisphere. The backlash against the Vietnam War did reawaken political dialogue about the costs and beneﬁts of nonentanglement, but the debate focused primarily on whether to get out of Vietnam and scale back the nation’s global responsibilities, not on whether to end those responsibilities. It was, after all, war hawks, not critics of the Vietnam conﬂict, who were most keen to revive the isolationist label—primarily in an effort to land political blows against those advocating for retrenchment.
p. 387: did its commitment to multilateralism. The most signiﬁcant change was that Nixon deemphasized power in favor of partnership, pulling out of Vietnam, investing in diplomacy with Russia and China, and encouraging allies to do more to defend themselves. Following Nixon’s resignation, President
p. 387: The ratcheting down of Cold-War rivalry did not last; the era of détente was relatively short-lived. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, the U.S. hostage crisis in Tehran, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the same year brought it to a close. President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) labeled the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” boosted U.S. defense spending, and provided assistance to anti-communist movements in many quarters of the globe in an effort to “roll back” Soviet inﬂuence. Although Reagan’s
p. 388: of the 1950s and 1960s. The political scars left behind by the Vietnam War, Reagan’s polarizing tenure, and tensions over domestic issues—in particular, the Civil Rights movement—all took a toll on bipartisanship

13. The End of the Cold War, Overreach, and the Isolationist Comeback

p. 389: 13 The End of the Cold War, Overreach, and the Isolationist Comeback
p. 389: The bipartisan compact behind liberal internationalism, although it weakened during the 1970s as a consequence of the Vietnam War, did not fully unravel until after the end of the Cold War The turning point was the
p. 389: bipartisan cooperation on foreign policy dropped off sharply. With the disappearance of the threat posed by the Soviet Union, Democrats and Republicans no longer felt compelled to adhere to the formula of power plus partnership pioneered by Roosevelt and sustained by his successors. In
p. 390: Between 1992 and 2017, the United States carried out 188 military interventions, a fourfold increase over the Cold War era The enlargement of NATO has unwisely and unnecessarily contributed to a new era of confrontation with Russia and imposed on the United States an expanding range of strategic commitments of questionable merit. Triggered by the terrorist attacks of September 11, Americans have been ﬁghting unwinnable wars in the Middle East for the better part of two decades. The U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was a war of necessity, while the invasion of Iraq was a major strategic mistake. But in both countries the United States proceeded to make a cardinal error. Trying to turn Afghanistan and Iraq into
p. 391: Ohio may have been a laudable goal, but the United States has exhausted itself by seeking to attain the unattainable. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States deluded itself into thinking that it could ﬁnally fulﬁll its founding mission; Fukuyama’s “end of history” was in sight But this hubris paradoxically produced the opposite effect, hastening the demise of Pax Americana by encouraging the United States to chronically overreach.
p. 391: four presidencies of the post–Cold War era. The Clinton presidency was the era of partnership. Amid America’s “unipolar moment”—after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was the sole superpower—the expansion and maturation of the international institutions erected during the Cold War were to spread the nation’s inﬂuence and ideals. The Bush
p. 392: presidency was the era of power. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Washington strongly favored power over partnership and set about ﬁghting extremism and enforcing Pax Americana primarily through the use of force. The Obama presidency was the era of liberal internationalism lite. Obama sought to respond to the Bush administration’s overreach by restoring a balance between partnership and power, but with less of both. If Clinton, Bush, and Obama all sought to preserve the liberal international order, albeit through different means, Trump sought to bring it down by pulling back from both partnership and power. The Trump presidency was the era of America First redux.
p. 392: enthusiasm for foreign entanglement fell off. In one opinion poll from 1991, sixty percent of respondents favored withdrawing U.S. troops from Western Europe, and seventy-four percent supported withdrawal from South Korea.
p. 393: The swift erosion of bipartisan voting on foreign policy after the 1994 midterms underscored the divergent ideological trajectories of Democrats and Republicans. Democrats increasingly favored partnership, while Republicans preferred power. Each party tended to support one half of the
p. 393: During Clinton’s ﬁrst term and at Washington’s insistence, NATO decided to open its doors to Europe’s new democracies. The goal, in Clinton’s words, was “to help consolidate freedom’s new gains into a larger and a more lasting peace.”10 The zealous promotion of multilateralism was
p. 393: Washington pushed hard
p. 394: for China’s admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which took effect in 2001. The Clinton administration favored signing the nation up to
p. 394: North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
p. 394: enthusiasm. Clinton downsized the military and, after eight years in ofﬁce, handed off to his successor a smaller defense budget than he inherited. He
p. 395: Indeed, Clinton’s fondness for humanitarian missions prompted the scholar Michael Mandelbaum to criticize his administration for attempting “to turn American foreign policy into a branch of social work.” In 2000,
p. 396: Clinton thus presided over a country that was still predisposed toward international activism—even though he did need to navigate the widening partisan divide over foreign policy. Nonetheless, signs were emerging that Americans were losing interest in matters of statecraft and paying far less attention to developments abroad. The print and broadcast media were
p. 396: United States Candidates with isolationist leanings—such as the political commentator Patrick Buchanan and the businessman Ross Perot—ran in the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. Buchanan ran again in 2000. Neither came close to winning, but Perot received close to twenty percent of the vote in 1992. In A Republic, Not an Empire, a book that Buchanan published in 1999, he argued that the United States should have stayed out of World War II. He also wrote that “the savagery of today’s attacks on ‘isolationism’ is a measure of the depth of establishment fear that the destiny of the Republic will be torn away from it and restored to people who carry in their hearts the great tradition of America First.”20
p. 396: exhibited racist and anti-Semitic leanings. Buchanan regularly complained about the excessive political inﬂuence of American Jews and the Israeli lobby—in 1990, he stated that “Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory”— and charged that immigration was diluting the Christian character of the nation Ron Paul, who from 1985 to 1997 took a break from representing
p. 396: abroad with bigotry. During the 1990s, his company, Ron Paul & Associates, published a series of newsletters that featured racist, anti- Semitic, and homophobic content. One newsletter noted that the 1992 Los
p. 397: Angeles riots came to an end only “when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.”22
p. 397: American foreign policy.”24 As he ran for the presidency in 1999, George W. Bush issued a similar concern: “America’s ﬁrst temptation is withdrawal —to build a proud tower of protectionism and isolation. In a world that depends on America to reconcile old rivals and balance ancient ambitions, this is the shortcut to chaos… . Let us reject the blinders of isolationism, just as we refuse the crown of empire.”25 The same year, the New York
p. 398: Bush’s efforts to rein in U.S. commitments did not last long. The terror attacks of September 11 abruptly extinguished his preference for strategic restraint. In the aftermath of those attacks, the Bush administration invaded
p. 400: polarization in Congress reached historically high levels.
p. 400: formula—but on a scaled-backed and less costly basis. Clinton strongly favored partnership, while Bush relied heavily on power. Obama wanted to again marry partnership and power, yet with reduced quantities of both: liberal internationalism lite. Liberal internationalism lite was to preserve the
p. 400: Obama understood that there was no going back to the formalized multilateralism of the Cold War era given the unilateralist turn among Republicans; most treaties were unlikely to pass muster in the Senate. Accordingly, Obama wanted to reinstate the country’s role as a leader of more informal international coalitions. His renewed focus on partnership did not mean that Obama was shy about the use of force. On the contrary,
p. 401: he approved a sizable increase in U.S. force levels in Afghanistan in 2009, picked up the pace of drone strikes and special operations against extremist targets, and oversaw a major military campaign against the Islamic State beginning in 2014. At the same time, he clearly wanted to rein in the nation’s foreign commitments—particularly those in the Middle East. He was determined to reduce defense spending, pull back from Bush’s strategic excesses, and allocate more resources and attention to the home front. Partnership combined with power, but less of both.
p. 402: for treaty-based partnership had diminished since the Cold War era, Obama of necessity relied more on executive agreements and informal pacts that would not require Senate ratiﬁcation Liberal internationalism lite thus entailed a less institutionalized and more pragmatic approach to multilateralism—as well as behind-the-scenes teamwork with key partners. As Obama adviser Ben Rhodes observed, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, would “work closely with Obama… . I’d seen them sit together, sometimes for hours, with notepads in front of them, designing strategies that could keep the global economy crawling forward, or hold Afghanistan together.”42
p. 402: presidency International help was easier to come by. The Bush administration struggled to ﬁnd a handful of partners willing to join the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In contrast, over sixty countries joined the counter- ISIL coalition put together by the Obama administration The Paris
p. 402: channels that kept the world on our side.”45 The administration demonstrated a similar enthusiasm for the liberalization of trade through multilateral deals, working hard to complete both the Trans-Paciﬁc Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). With China continuing its economic ascent and East Asia poised to be the globe’s most dynamic region, TPP was the centerpiece of Obama’s effort to orchestrate a “pivot to Asia.”
p. 403: According to Rhodes, “Obama did not want to disengage from the world; he wanted to engage more. By limiting our military involvement in the Middle East, we’d be in a better position to husband our resources and assert ourselves in more places, on more issues.”47 His scaled-back version
p. 404: Obama’s efforts to scale back the country’s strategic commitments took multiple forms. His top priority was to bring to a close the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He ended the U.S. military presence in Iraq in 2011. He pledged to do the same in Afghanistan, where he initially surged U.S. force levels from 30,000 to 100,000—but in the service of defeating the Taliban and completing a U.S. withdrawal by the end of his presidency. The ﬁght against extremists was hardly over, but Obama wanted to transition from Bush’s land wars and military occupations to much greater reliance on special operations and drone warfare. As he put it in 2013, “our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. It’s what our democracy demands.”52
p. 405: A third element of Obama’s pullback was the pursuit of rapprochement with adversaries. During his ﬁrst term, pursuit of a “reset” with Moscow
p. 405: Finally, Obama sought to lighten America’s load abroad by encouraging other countries to assume greater international burdens—to “pull their weight,” as he put it in 2014.56 According to the president’s introduction to
p. 406: While Obama’s multipronged retrenchment strategy produced at least some of the desired results, it proved to be more difﬁcult to arrive at “a more centered course” than it was to articulate it in theory. On one hand, Obama succeeded in reining in the defense budget, bringing it down from roughly $700 billion when he entered ofﬁce to around $600 billion when he left. He dramatically reduced the size of the U.S. force presence in war zones in the Middle East, shrinking it from roughly 150,000 to 14,000. His reliance on special operations and drone warfare and his regular use of local rather than U.S. forces for combat operations brought U.S. casualties way down. Allies agreed to increase their defense budgets, and countries from around the world shouldered heavy burdens alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Libya, and the counter-ISIL campaign.
p. 407: On the other hand, developments around the world, and especially in the Middle East, foiled Obama’s best efforts to substantially reduce the nation’s strategic entanglements. Pressed by allies, he reluctantly agreed to involve U.S. forces in NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011—only to see the country fall apart after the toppling of the Qaddaﬁ regime. American forces quit Iraq at the end of 2011, but Obama had to send them back in 2014 to help the Iraqi government ﬁght ISIL, which had taken control of a sizable swath of land in Iraq and Syria. He initially restricted the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war to the provision of ﬁnancial and military assistance to opponents of the Syrian regime, but later sent in U.S. troops to help local ﬁghters dislodge and defeat ISIL In Afghanistan, Obama approved a surge in U.S. force levels to defeat the Taliban, clearing the way for him to assert in his 2014 State of the Union address that, “together with our allies, we will complete our mission there by the end of this year, and America’s longest war will ﬁnally be over.”63 The Taliban did not play along, forcing Obama to extend the U.S. mission beyond his presidency. The expansion of the ﬁght against terrorism also prompted him to increase the U.S. force presence in Africa. Obama left ofﬁce with roughly 8,000 troops in Afghanistan, 5,000 in Iraq, 500 in Syria, and well over 1,000 in Africa
p. 408: Perhaps Obama’s own version of exceptionalism was still too expansive to permit the pullback that he sought. He hinted as much in the West Point speech in which he articulated the need for ﬁnding a “more centered course” between isolation and overreach. In making the case against isolationism, Obama argued that the United States had to face down traditional threats to the nation’s security stemming from nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and potential Russian or Chinese aggression. But he also went further: “And beyond these narrow rationales, I believe we have a real stake, abiding self-interest, in making sure our children and our grandchildren grow up in a world where schoolgirls are not kidnapped and where individuals are not slaughtered because of tribe or faith or political belief. I believe that a world of greater freedom and tolerance is not only a moral imperative, it also helps to keep us safe.”66
p. 409: Trump’s electoral success stemmed in part from his rejection of liberal internationalism Public anger was brewing over the nation’s strategic
p. 411: building business.”73 After taking ofﬁce, Trump proceeded to regularly insult allies and harangue them about their inadequate spending on defense He publicly questioned whether the United States would stand by its commitments to collective defense, announced a reduction in the U.S. military presence in Germany, and privately expressed to his aides his desire to pull the United States out of NATO He also contemplated withdrawal from the U.S. defense pact with Japan Trump’s attitude toward “entangling alliances” certainly resonated with that of the Founders.
p. 411: Trump’s isolationist inclinations also led him to avoid new conﬂicts in the Middle East. Despite numerous provocations from Iran, including an attack on Saudi oil installations in September 2019 and ballistic missile strikes against Iraqi bases hosting U.S. forces in January 2020, Trump held back from going to war. He did order the killing of Iran’s high-proﬁle commander, Qassem Soleimani—the move that triggered Iran’s missile strikes against U.S. forces in Iraq. But Trump thereafter took decisive steps to avoid further escalation. He also sought to extract the United States from ongoing conﬂicts in the region. Trump announced during the summer of 2019 that he was cutting in half the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, and he pursued a peace deal with the Taliban aimed at clearing the way for the full withdrawal of U.S. troops. He told his staff that he wanted all U.S. forces out of the country by the 2020 election and that he wanted to close the U.S. embassy in Kabul due to its size and expense Trump ﬁnally got his deal with the Taliban in February 2020, a pact that envisaged a complete
p. 412: U.S. withdrawal by 2021. Ongoing Taliban attacks following the conclusion of the deal, along with pervasive distrust between the Afghan government and the Taliban, left uncertain if and when U.S. troops would actually quit Afghanistan.
p. 413: Trump backed up this rhetoric with action. He pulled out of one pact after another, including the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Iran nuclear deal, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Arms Trade Treaty, the UN Human Rights Council, and the UN Educational, Scientiﬁc, and Cultural Organization. He halted U.S. contributions to the UN agency that
p. 415: Overall, Trump was reasonably successful in turning his rhetoric into action and attaining some of the main objectives of his America First agenda. He dismantled central elements of liberal internationalism in favor of a more isolationist, unilateralist, protectionist, and racist approach to statecraft.
p. 416: defense budget rose signiﬁcantly during his watch
p. 417: In short, Trump delivered on much of his America First agenda, but his isolationist instincts ran up against a world still heavily dependent on U.S.
p. 418: Surveys of public opinion conﬁrm that liberal internationalism is in trouble. Opinion polls are notoriously sensitive to how questions are posed and what answers are available to respondents, but several trend lines are clear. First, most Americans want the nation to reduce its strategic commitments abroad and feel that partners around the world need to shoulder a greater share of international burdens. The American public wants to off-load at least some of the nation’s foreign entanglements. Second, most Americans want their leaders to focus much more attention on the home front—in particular, to invest in infrastructure, protect American jobs, and effectively control immigration. Third, a wide partisan gap has opened on the contours of U.S. engagement abroad, tracking the divide that persists among foreign policy elites. Democratic voters strongly prefer reliance on multilateralism and partnership, while Republican voters strongly prefer unilateralism and power. This third trend reinforces the tendency for U.S. strategy to swing widely when control of the White House changes hands.

14. Where Isolationism and Liberal Internationalism Meet: The Search for a Middle Ground

p. 423: 14 Where Isolationism and Liberal Internationalism Meet: The Search for a Middle Ground