Welcome back. I hope everyone is having a smooth end of the semester. In March 2020, I wrote the following research paper on America’s changing foreign policy after World War I. Although I study engineering in college, I have an enduring fascination for history, which I hope this essay captures.
The Extent to which World War I Changed American Foreign Policy
When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, the United States remained neutral. It was not tied to the pre-war system of alliances that brought nearly the entire continent of Europe into war. Nor was the United States engaged heavily enough with European nationalism and imperialism, or the naval arms race between Britain and Germany, to join the war immediately. In 1914, the United States had a long-standing tradition of isolationism, going back to George Washington who believed the country should remain in charge of its destiny and avoid lasting alliances with other countries. His 1796 “Farewell Address” emphasized this point. 27 years later, in 1823, in what became known as the Monroe Doctrine, John Quincy Adams wrote that European powers must stay out of the Western Hemisphere, and in exchange, the United States would stay out of European affairs. (Axelrod 7)(Washington 37-39)(Ford 13)
However, the United States’ stance towards Europe did not mean that it would limit its influence elsewhere. By 1914, there was a strong American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere and parts of the Pacific. The United States acquired the Spanish colonies of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines in the Spanish-American War of 1898. In his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt stated that the United States had the right to militarily intervene in Latin-American countries to maintain order. This declaration further cemented the United States’ willingness to exert power on countries in the Western Hemisphere to advance American interests. Upon becoming President in 1913, Woodrow Wilson set about implementing his Moral Diplomacy, part of which was ensuring that the countries of Latin America upheld the United States’ values of freedom and democracy. For example, he fervently opposed Victoriano Huerta’s undemocratic regime in Mexico in 1913. (Hendrickson xix)(Roosevelt 101-104)(O’Toole 90)
America’s regional assertiveness was nevertheless giving way to a more fundamental shift in foreign policy. World War I expanded the scope of the United States’ ambitions and sense of duty, from a strong player in the regional affairs of the Western Hemisphere to an emerging superpower that also delivered and maintained peace in Europe and globally. In this process, however, the United States continued to act independently and avoided commitments that might weaken its ability to act unilaterally.
At the beginning of World War I, the American sentiment was to continue a tradition of staying away from conflicts outside of its sphere of influence, but a changing attitude was detectable and would intensify as the war progressed. President Wilson’s “Declaration of Neutrality” in August 1914 planted the seeds of more active involvement. He made the expected point that the United States should stay out of the war and that neutrality was essential for the unity of the American people. He and the nation were aligned in that belief. However, he positioned neutrality as a means of achieving the power and moral authority for the U.S. to arbiter the peace that would follow the conflict. Thus, being a moral force for peace in Europe and other faraway places would become a more important objective for the U.S. than neutrality alone. While the United States had acted as an arbiter at the end of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) that conflict was far smaller than World War I, and it did not involve nearly as many people or as many countries around the globe. Wilson’s speech marked the beginning of a global strategy for the U.S. to use moral force to establish peace and democracy. Meanwhile, Germany was increasingly seen as an immoral enemy that the United States itself had to deal with. Germany horrified many Americans when it adopted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare and sank the passenger ship Lusitania in May 1915, killing 1,195 people, including 128 Americans. A further shift in American sentiment came in early 1917 following two events: Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare after pausing for less than a year, and the United States intercepted Germany’s Zimmerman Telegram to Mexico. The Telegram essentially brought the war to the United States since it invited Mexico to join Germany in the war, promising it the territory it had lost to the United States in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) if the Central Powers were victorious. Upon hearing of the Zimmerman Telegram, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane said, “We can stand Germany’s arrogance no longer” (Axelrod 40). There was a groundswell of support for American intervention in World War I. (Wilson, “Declaration of Neutrality” 9-10)(Jukes 4-5)(Axelrod 40)
Entering the war marked the beginning of a new role for America as a superpower that would establish and maintain peace in Europe and globally. When Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany, he stated, “The world must be made safe for democracy. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make” (“Request for War” 8). His words signaled a shift in America’s global outlook and its foreign policy, with an increased willingness to intervene in Europe and the world as a whole. American assertiveness would no longer be limited to countries of the Western Hemisphere. Wilson argued that as a democracy, America had a moral duty to spread the virtues its people enjoyed at home. Furthermore, America’s new foreign policy would operate based on the fact that peace was necessary for democracy and entering the war was a necessary step in establishing peace. Wilson illustrated the dependence of democracy on peace at the Versailles Conference in 1919 when he offered the concept of “peace without victory” to ensure a lasting peace. If the Allies acted like true victors, Wilson contended, they would punish the Central Powers with indemnities and territorial annexations, and the ensuing suffering in those countries could create a climate that would breed war. Wilson had proposed a fourteen-point plan that would ensure such lasting peace, and would, therefore, allow democracy to flourish. Notably, Wilson’s Fourteen Points called for freedom of the seas for every country, a reduction of arms, and a League of Nations that would promote compromise among nations. (Worth 40-41)
Following the Versailles Conference, the United States’ quest to ensure peace throughout the world received a set-back when the Senate failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, and prevented the U.S. from joining the League of Nations. A further blow to Wilson’s global vision was the election of Warren G. Harding in 1920, who wanted the United States to play a less significant role in the world. Nevertheless, Wilson and World War I had laid the tracks for a globally visible America. The momentum of events ensured that the United States would remain a global force for peace despite an unwilling Congress and an inward-looking President. (Worth 42-43)
One example of this continued role was the November 1921 to February 1922 Washington Naval Conference. There, the United States and several European and Asian powers negotiated for peace and trade, agreeing to further disarmament and resolutions to end conflicts in Asia. The resulting treaties, known as the Five-, Four-, and Nine-Power Treaties aimed to craft a balance of power and trade and to avoid circumstances that could lead to re-armament and war. In the Five-Power Treaty, the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy agreed that for every five tons of British or American warships, there would be three tons of Japanese warships and 1.75 tons of French or Italian warships. While this treaty may have appeared to further tip the balance of military power in favor of the United States and Great Britain, those two countries had to disperse their navies over a larger territory. Thus, the Five-Power Treaty attempted to design a fair balance of seapower that would prevent arms races like the one that helped bring Great Britain and Germany to war in World War I. A separate Four-Power Treaty also came out of the Washington Naval Conference. In this treaty, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan agreed to consult each other before taking action, if another crisis developed in Asia. In addition, nine members of the Conference, including the United States, signed the Nine-Power Treaty, which aside from recognizing Japanese dominance in Manchuria, affirmed the importance of equal opportunity for all signatories to do business in China. In this conference, the United States continued to shape global affairs and demonstrated its desire to bring a greater amount of peace to the world. (“The Washington Naval Conference”)
The United States’ commitment to maintaining peace was also evident in the Dawes Plan of 1924, a product of the Allies’ desire to make Germany’s financial system more stable. The events in the aftermath of World War I confirmed Wilson’s fears of an unsustainable peace. Germany quickly found itself in financial turmoil under the load of a $33 billion obligation as reparations for the war, a part of the Versailles Treaty that was put in place at the insistence of Britain and France. The Dawes Plan did not reduce the total financial burden on Germany, but it aimed to soften it by creating a system whereby America could lend Germany money and Germany would make annual payments to the Allies according to its capacity to pay. The fact that an American, Charles G. Dawes, took charge of crafting the plan illustrated the United States’ credibility and latitude to drive peace in Europe. If financial stress overtook Europe, Dawes believed, conflict and war would eventually ensue. (“Nobel Peace Prize 1925”)(Clough 135)
The United States’ effort to promote peace in the world following the First World War climaxed in 1928, with the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The agreement was the brainchild of Frank Kellogg, Secretary of State under Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. In it, fifteen nations, including the United States, agreed that they would no longer use war as an instrument of foreign policy. The agreement enjoyed popular support within the United States, highlighting Americans’ continued commitment to fostering peace. The Senate ratified the Kellogg-Briand Pact with a vote of 85 to 1. (Swanson 1-2)
The United States achieved its global peace-keeping role from a position of power, continuing to act independently of other nations, and avoiding commitments that might weaken its ability to act unilaterally. Before America intervened in World War I, its independence from major alliances with European nations allowed it to extend its control in Latin America. For example, in 1915, political instability in Haiti caused the U.S. government to fear that a European power, particularly Germany, would take control of the country. President Woodrow Wilson promptly sent the Marines to Haiti to remove $500,000 from the Haitian National Bank for “safe-keeping” in New York. This action effectively gave the United States control over the Haitian Bank. The U.S. then forced the election of the pro-American Phillipe Sudré Dartiguenave against the will of the Haitian people. Had the United States been tied to a pact with Germany, for example, or any other colonial power looking to control Haiti, it would not have been able to successfully take such a bold and provocative action. (“U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Haiti”)
The Senate’s refusal to ratify the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 demonstrated America’s preference to act independently over the chance to actively influence other nations within a global bureaucracy. Joining the League of Nations was viewed as an agreement to seek foreign approval for the country’s foreign policy actions, a particularly unpleasant prospect for a victorious nation so soon following the First World War. In the run-up to the Senate’s vote, Henry Cabot Lodge, Republican Majority Leader and Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and his fellow Republicans, listed fourteen reservations about the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty called for the United States to join the proposed League of Nations and contribute to any conflict the League decided to engage in. Lodge argued that the United States should not have to make such a large commitment to other nations. According to his logic, only Congress had the power to declare war or “authorize the employment of the military or naval forces of the United States” (Wheeler 142). The treaty would undermine Congressional powers, and therefore the Constitution if the United States were obligated to join a war that suited other members of the League. Wilson refused to allow the Treaty of Versailles to be changed to give the United States more independence, and as a result, Lodge and his Republican allies successfully defeated the entire treaty, preventing the United States from joining the League of Nations. (Wheeler 139-142)(Pedersen xii-xiv)
The United States continued to defend its ability to act unilaterally into the 1930s. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt supported a treaty that would bring the United States into the World Court, another intergovernmental organization. Roosevelt believed that joining the World Court would give the United States symbolic participation in international agreements without limiting its independence. However, the Senate and the popular Catholic priest and broadcaster Charles Coughlin believed that even this treaty was too much. This opposition prevented the treaty from being approved and further cemented the position that the United States must have the autonomy to act on the world stage as it saw fit. (Pomerance 129-132)
Thus, the United States’ involvement in the First World War led to the expansion of its ambitions and its sense of duty beyond the boundaries of the Western Hemisphere. For the first time, the United States saw itself as an emerging superpower that brought and preserved peace in Europe and globally. But it continued to act independently of other nations and avoided commitments that might weaken its ability to act unilaterally. Internal anxiety in the 1930s as a result of the Great Depression caused the United States to distance itself even further from alliances with other nations. This feeling was evident in the severity with which the American population opposed joining the World Court in 1935. (Ferrell 278-280)(Pomerance 130)
America’s peacekeeping efforts after the First World War ultimately proved insufficient to prevent a Second World War. By 1930, an increasingly imperialistic and ambitious Japan wanted complete dominance over Eastern Asia and the Pacific Ocean. It invaded Manchuria in 1931 as a step towards this goal. During this time, Japan found it impossible to restrict its Navy according to the terms of the Washington Naval Conference and announced in 1934 that it would breach the treaty. The League of Nations continued to exist throughout the 1920s and 1930s despite the absence of the United States, but it did not foster the kind of international cooperation that Woodrow Wilson had hoped. The League required a unanimous vote for decisions it would make, a level of consensus that was nearly impossible to reach and severely limited its actions. When Germany, Japan, and Italy left the League, its powers were further, and significantly, reduced. Despite its good intentions the Dawes Plan inadvertently created a disastrous system of circular loans, which contributed to a global economic crisis in the 1930s. Anxiety and disillusionment during the economic depressions of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s allowed authoritarian regimes to develop in Germany and Italy. These radical governments in Europe, along with Imperial Japan, were open to little compromise or cooperation with other nations, and their nationalistic goals contributed to the outbreak of World War II. (“Japan’s Quest for Power”)(United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941) (Williams 475)(Pedersen 262-327)(Weinberg 23)
The United States’ role as a global power started with World War I and its desire to establish and preserve peace. Its commanding influence over global affairs did not come in time to prevent World War II, but in the aftermath of that war, the U.S. became a global superpower, shaping the world order that followed the war and the peace that would remain in force since. As its superpower status became more accepted inside and outside the country, however, the United States would complement its interest in peace with its overwhelming ability to wage war. Containing Communism, through war if necessary, would occupy American foreign policy. It also would join and lead new international bodies such as the United Nations and NATO, confident that its economic and military power would enable it to command its will within frameworks that gave voice to other nations. But the legacy of World War I is evident in America’s journey to becoming the preeminent world power it is today. (Pinker 249-251)
Works Cited
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