Readings Flashcards
John Allphin Moore, “Empire, Republicanism, and Reason: Foreign Affairs as Viewed by the Founders of the Constitution” (1993)
“the makers of the Constitution sought to sustain republicanism and promote liberty, while promoting security to a large, commercial, “extended republic” of diverse population.”
✓ Empire and Energy - American President
✓ Reason and Power
✓ The Armed Forces - No to have a standing army but have a strong navy to protect our trade (“the commercial republic”).
Walter LaFeber, “The Constitution and United States Foreign Policy: An Interpretation” (1987)
US Foreign affairs has become unmoored form the Constitution. The way the US has become an imperial power is in contrast to how the Founders thought that the US should pursue its policy. American’s perceive Foreign Affairs as separate to Domestic. People have allowed for this separation because they thought that the Founders did not really bother with the separation between Foreign and Domestic Policy. President McKinley began “the hidden- hand presidency”.- the constitution does not follow the flag so the president has more power.
Frank Ninkovich, The United States and Imperialism (2001)
✓ US imperialism has to be seen in the context of high European imperialism
✓ Ninkovich is against the economic argument for war. He makes a step-by-step case that it was all about ideology. Del Pero puts him in the “inevitably” box, when speaking about the reasons for US intervention in Cuba.
✓ Whether one views it from the standpoint of the national interest or of narrow interest groups, imperialism was not a make-or-break question of national existence.” (p.16) BUT “the concern for identity far outweighed the pursuit of hard interests.” “The USA was… an ideologically created state that depended on ideas to justify its existence.” (p.16)
✓ Increasingly difficult for the United States to define itself as a nation Benedict Andersons “imagined community”. (p.21) “The war was the solution to Americas nationalism”.
✓ AMERICAN IMPERIALISM – “Though the Philippines were only a small asteroid in the imperialist solar system, for the moment their annexation was sufficient to give many Americans a sense of cosmic purpose.” being part of the “modern, progressive world” (p.41)
Thomas G. Paterson “United States Intervention in Cuba, 1898: Interpretations of the Spanish–American–Cuban–Filipino War” (1996)
✓ “Americans have always found it difficult to see themselves as imperialists.”
✓ Four contexts of the 1898 war:
♣ International
♣ Regional
♣ National
♣ Individual
✓ “Glut thesis” – surplus of goods was building up in the United States. The important thing was to open up new markets. It is not a problem of ideology but resolving the socioeconomic tensions (different form Ninkovich).
Andrew Carnegie, “Americanism vs. Imperialism” 1899
He is trying to influence the events in Paris. What is he worried about? The US should not play games – the US is not strong enough to become an empire. It will become exposed to becoming part of an alliance. The US, after taking over the Philippines, it will probably become beholden to someone, probably Britain. When you become beholden to someone, you have to offer them something – the US, according to Carnegie, doesn’t have anything to offer. The US should focus on itself and not get involved into balance of power politics.
Samuel Gompers, Imperialism–Its Dangers and Wrongs, October 18, 1898
✓ Worried about immigration
✓ Writes about the Pilipino condition
✓ Genuine concern about the Pilipino working-classes with a racial perspective.
Jay Sexton, “The Monroe Doctrine. Empire and Nation in 19th Century America” (2011), chap. 6 “Intervention”
✓ The Monroe Doctrine as a means of maintaining the principles of limited and decentralized government at home and non entanglement oversees ”only by dominating the hemisphere could the US take little concern with what happened within it.”
✓ The Monroe Doctrine was never purely noninterventionist. Sexton argues that Roosevelt was always an interventionist but he was waiting for the right moment.
✓ The convergence of thinking about the Monroe Doctrine at the turn of the century (wedding of nationalism and internationalism)
o Interest of civilization
o Establishing control of the Western Hemisphere, the Monroe Doctrine could eliminate great-power rivalry in areas of strategic importance.
Matthew Frye Jacobson, “Barbarian Virtues. The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917” (2000), chap. 6 “Children of Barbarism. Republican Imperatives and Imperial Wards”
Civilizing mission of the US as a pretext for seeking economic treasures in the regions of US expansionism. Teddy Roosevelt said that “intervention among barbarous and semi-barbarous peoples was most regrettable but necessary international police duty which must be performed for the sake of the welfare of mankind.”
Josiah Strong, Our Country (1885), chap. XIII “The Anglo-Saxon and the World’s Future”
He wants to connect this superiority to the biological race. But on the other hand, when he points out that there are more and more other races on the New Continent, he says that they can adapt to the Anglo-Saxon culture. So is it about race or cultural? The danger of Strong’s argument is that he is tying culture to race which might justify domination.
Excerpts from Theodore Roosevelt’s Fourth Annual Message to Congress (1904)
“It is not true that the United States feels any land hunger or entertains any projects as regards the other nations of the Western Hemisphere save such as are for their welfare. All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. “ - Roosevelt Corollary
Tony Smith, America’s Mission. The United States and the Wordwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (2012), ch. 4 “Wilson and a World Safe for Democracy”
✓ “Wilsons liberal democratic internationalism was not a radical departure from traditional American national security policy. Thomas Jefferson had insisted that the United States could only participate in a world community dominated by democratic states.”
✓ Nationalism + democracy - Wilsons primary concerns were political. According to Smith, Wilsons shortcoming was that he did not stress enough the economic dimension of his agenda for world order.
✓ Four obstacles to Wilsons liberal democratic liberalism:
♣ French security concern with respect to Germany
♣ The triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution
♣ Prospects for democracy in Germany
♣ Prospects for democracy in Southern Eastern Europe
William Borah, “Against the League of Nations”, Speech of November 19, 1919
✓ League not democratic (one representer of millions)
✓ Non - entanglement - its a two way street
✓ The US shall not be part of Europes’ rule by force
Henry Cabot Lodge, “The League of Nations Must Be Revised”, Speech of August 12, 1919
“We are asked to give, and we in no way seek to take”
Akira Iriye, The Globalizing of America, 1913-1945 (1993), ch. 10 “Wilsonianism confirmed - and betrayed”
✓ The Quaranitine speech indicated a willingness on the part of the United States to assert once again a voice in world affairs.
✓ Contrasting approaches to Europe (peaceful solutions) and Asia (forceful; 1940 abrogation of commerce treaty with Japan)
✓ “Whether the US wanted to be or not, it was involved in global power politics by virtue of its very existence with its enormous size, population, resources, and productivity. “
Frank Ninkovich, The Wilsonian Century. US Foreign Policy since 1900 (1999), ch. 3 “Normal Internationalism as Utopia”
✓ The 1920’s were internationalist, not isolationist, but lacking political commitment.
✓ Ninkovich points to the fact that isolationism was constructed later; it became a category which had a meaning which people understood. World War II was the moment when the US committed to its nationalism.
✓ Ninkovich says that you cannot separate the economic and political reasons for the failure of 1920s internationalism. The economic issues in Europe were caused by political decisions in Versailles. The other problem with it, was that it was based on an unstable system of lending.
