Posts From Pre-World War II Era

America was founded on principles that are a far cry from the hyper-interventionist ones that guide our current foreign policy.  The founding fathers preached a message of nonintervention and stressed the importance of refraining from military engagement overseas unless absolutely necessary for purposes of defense, and instead interacting peacefully with the world through trade and mutual cooperation.  The constitution they drafted included numerous constraints intended to prevent Presidents from acting as tyrants and starting wars unilaterally and without precaution. They also warned about the danger of committing to foreign alliances that could obligate us to fight wars on behalf of other nations and lead to unnecessary conflict.  George Washington stated in his farewell address, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world.”  Thomas Jefferson said in his inaugural address, “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations–entangling alliances with none.”

Throughout much of the nineteenth century, America stayed true to these principles of nonintervention.  The United States used its military to defend its borders against potential threats, but did not go around the world exerting its will as an imperial power.  This adherence to the constitutional restraints on foreign adventurism and the principle of nonintervention, however, began to wither during the early portion of the twentieth century.  The Abraham Lincoln presidency in particular established a precedent for broad executive power, especially in times of war, which would be capitalized upon by early twentieth century presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, among others.

The Spanish-American War of 1898 was a definite turning point in U.S. foreign policy whereby America involved itself militarily in a foreign conflict that did not pose a direct threat to its security.  The proceeding administration of Theodore Roosevelt included increasingly aggressive American involvement in foreign affairs, resulting from Roosevelt’s belief that the U.S. had emerged as a world power after the Spanish-American War and America’s permanent acquisition of the Philippines.

The most important tipping point, however, was Woodrow Wilson’s decision to enter the U.S. into World War I in 1917.  Wilson’s stated goal in entering the war was to “make the world safe for democracy,” but by doing so, he tipped the balance of power of a previously stalemated war towards the Allies and caused a number of world historic dominoes to fall, including the rise of Bolshevism and the communist Soviet empire, the fall of the German empire, which led to a period of economic devastation and the eventual rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, and eventually, World War II.

The United States became the freest and most prosperous country in the history of the world in large part because of its ability to adhere to a non-interventionist foreign policy.  America was able to avoid the pitfalls of previous empires who eroded their wealth and liberties by over-expanding militarily. Unfortunately, over time the U.S. became more imperially driven and lost sight of the vision of the founders and the constitutional position to have a foreign policy based on defending liberties at home and not based on policing the world and building an empire around the world.  American involvement in the two world wars was sold as a necessary step to secure our freedoms and democracy at home, but instead turned out to be the jumping off point for an imperial power that would eventually become the largest and most powerful the world has ever seen.