Nonentanglement with Europe

Principle 9

Non-Entanglement With Europe

or

Hemispheric Isolation

Americans, from the founding of the United States, are suspicious of Europe, of the European diplomatic process, and of the intentions of individual European states. This suspicion may is the result of witnessing the palace conspiracies and the international intrigues involved with the French Revolution and balance of power politics in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. This suspicion is also the result of the realization that much of European politics is a parlor game played by the inter-related, inter-married royal families that dominate the governments of Europe in the past and still play important roles today.

Some of the suspicion comes from the personal experiences of individual American citizens. During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, many American citizens, including many leaders in the new United States government, are recent immigrants to America from Europe and have recent personal experience with European political maneuverings. Most other American citizens are no more than one or two generations removed from their European homelands and still remember tales told by their parents and grandparents. Most American family histories include memories of mistreatment, political injustice, and the hardship of life in the European homeland. In each year since American independence, the stream of immigrants continues to flow into America; most come from hardships, persecutions, and injustices at the hands of European governments and government leaders. In more recent years, immigrants flow into America escaping government persecutions and injustices throughout Asia and Latin America and escaping the police states of the Warsaw Bloc, including the Soviet Union. The cycle of suspicion of foreign governments is renewed with the arrival of each new generation of American immigrants.

American leaders also have little in common ideologically with their European counterparts. The United States is founded as a liberal republic following a liberal revolution. European intellectuals such as John Locke and Adam Smith may lay the philosophical foundation for liberalism, but it is the Americans who stage the first liberal revolution and who build the first liberal government. Following the American Revolution, liberal revolutions occur throughout South America and Europe, but the victories of liberalism are short-lived. South America adopts class-based authoritarian government and Europe returns to conservative absolutism. Liberalism returns to Eurpope in slow, sporadic advances throughout the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Every time Europe backslides away from liberalism into fascism or authoritarian socialism, American suspicions concerning European commitment to liberalism are renewed.

The French Revolution involves many of the same intellectuals cited in the American revolution and involves some of the same military leaders who fought as French allies in the American war for independence, most notably, General Lafayette. The liberal French Revolution quickly turns radical, then reactionary. Within less than ten years, the liberal revolution that replaces the aristocratic monarchy is replaced by a new Napoleonic monarchy. Napoleon is defeated, not once, but twice, by a united army of European monarchs and aristocrats. With the defeat of Napoleon, monarchy is restored to France and the remainder of Europe. Europe enters a long period of anti-liberal conservative rule under the Holy Alliance, interrupted only slightly by the liberal revolutions of 1848 and the gradual liberalization of England. In many European nations, emerging liberlism is supplanted by emerging socialism which promotes its own variation on the authoritarian theme. American liberals have little in common ideologically with European monarchs, conservatives, or socialists, and have little reason to engage the Europeans in ideological dialogue.

Most Americans believe the United States is a nation of the "new world," not the "old," and believe American destiny is to be played out on the Western Hemisphere. For many Americans, the European continent is out of mind and out of consideration; the Americans have a whole new continent to explore and develop.

Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both caution against non-entanglement in public addresses. Their statements are the foundation for two centuries of non-entanglement.

"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.... Trust in temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies... steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." (President George Washington, Farewell Address, 1797)

"Honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none," (President Thomas Jefferson, Inaugural Address, 1801)

Political party platforms for the next two-hundred years reference the views of the founders of the Republic in repeated reaffirmations of non-entanglement policies. The Whig party platform of 1852 states: "...we still adhere to the doctrines of the Father of his Country,... of keeping ourselves free from all entangling alliances with foreign countries, and of never quitting our own to stand upon foreign ground..." In the 1880s, non-entanglement, again, becomes a topic for platform discussion, with the Democrats and Republicans apparently trying to outdo each other in their statements of non-entanglement in their platforms of 1884. The Democrats brag about the isolationist policies of past Democratic administrations and call for continuing "American continental policy (of) intimate commercial and political relations with the fifteen sister Republics of North, Central and South America but entangling alliances with none..... This country has never had a well-defined and executed foreign policy save under Democratic administrations; that policy has ever been, in regard to foreign nations, so long as they do not act detrimental to the interests of the country or harmful to our citizens, to let them alone." The 1884 Republican platform also includes an isolationist statement. "The Republican party favors a policy which shall keep us from entangling alliances with foreign nations, and which gives us the right to expect that foreign nations shall refrain from meddling in American affairs; a policy which seeks peace and trade with all powers, but especially those of the Western Hemisphere."

In their 1892 platforms, both the Democrats and Republicans reaffirm their non-entanglement policies. The Democrats call for "friendly relations with other nations, especially our neighbors on the American continent, who's destiny is closely linked with our own... while avoiding entangling alliances." The Republicans call for "maintenance of the most friendly relations with all foreign powers; entangling alliances with none;"

In 1900, controversy erupts concerning Republican administration efforts to establish closer ties with Great Britain, to negotiate a settlement to the independence dispute between Great Britain and the Republics of South Africa, and to support European efforts to keep China and Asia open for international trade. Both political parties address the question of foreign entanglements. The Democrat platform statement is especially ironic since, in a mere sixteen years later, the Democrats lead America into World War I and attempt to involve the United States in the ultimate entangling alliance, the League of Nations, over the objections of many Republicans.

"Jefferson said: 'Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none,' We approve this wholesome doctrine, and earnestly protest against the Republican departure which has involved us in so-called world politics, including the diplomacy of Europe and the intrigue and land-grabbing of Asia, and we especially condemn the ill-concealed Republican alliance with England, which has already stifled the nation's voice while liberty is being strangled in Africa." (1900 Democratic Party Platform)

"(We) assert our steadfast adherence to the policy announced in the Monroe Doctrine... and continue the policy proscribed by Washington, affirmed by every succeeding President and imposed upon us by the Hague treaty, of non-intervention in European controversies." (1900 Republican Party Platform)

By 1916, Democrats reluctantly begin to recognize that hemispheric isolation and non-entanglement are no longer viable. Political conditions in Europe, and throughout the world, and the ongoing European war, with its affects on freedom of the seas and international commerce, require cooperative international solution. In the 1916 Democratic Party platform, they outline the argument for American involvement in World War I.

"The Democratic administration has throughout the present war scrupulously and successfully held to the old paths of neutrality... but... it is the duty of the United States to use its power, not only to make itself safe at home, but also to make secure its just interests throughout the world... and to assist the world in securing a settled peace and justice... and that the world has a right to be free from every disturbance of its peace that has its origin in aggression or disregard of the rights of people and nations; and we believe that the time has come when it is the duty of the United States to join the other nations of the world in any feasible association that will effectively serve those principles, to maintain inviolate the complete security of the highway of the seas for the common and unhindered use of all nations." (1916 Democratic Party Platform)

Republicans continue to believe that American neutrality can hold, but also recognize that some international structure must be developed to resolve international disputes; they favor a World Court. At the conclusion of World War I, Democrats encourage American participation in a League of Nations; Republicans continue to place their reliance on a World Court.

"We desire peace... and believe in maintaining strict and honest neutrality between the belligerents in the great war in Europe. We must insist upon all our rights as neutrals without fear and without favor. We believe that peace and neutrality (will come from) a firm, consistent and courageous foreign policy.... We believe in the pacific settlement of international disputes, and favor the establishment of a world court for that purpose." (1916 Republican Party Platform)

"(Democrats favor) the League of Nations as the surest, if not the only, practicable means of maintaining the permanent peace of the world and terminating the insufferable burden of great military and naval establishments." (1920 Democratic Party Platform)

"(Participation in the League of Nations would lead to) the compromise of national independence,... deprive the people of the United States... the right to determine for themselves what is just and fair... (and involve the United States) in a multitude of quarrels, the merits of which they are unable to judge." (1920 Republican Party Platform)

"(Democrats) condemn the republican party policy of isolation in international affairs (which) has prevented Europe from getting back to its normal balance... There is no substitute for the League of Nations as an agency working for peace." (1924 Democratic Party Platform)

The era of hemispheric isolation and non-entanglement ends with World War I. America does not join the League of Nations, but, during the coming decades, America participates in a series of international conferences and international treaties intended to secure peace, encourage disarmament, and regulate the international affairs of nations. All these entanglements fail, and the world is thrust into World War II. Following that war, America joins the United Nations and enters a period of increased reliance on international treaties and alliances leading the nations of the world toward a "new world order" of independent and intertwined nation-states bound together through world-wide economic interdependence, through a series of interlocking supra-national treaties, alliances and agreements, and through increased participation in and reliance on the United Nations as a global decision-making body.

Principle 9

Non-Entanglement With Europe

or

Hemispheric Isolation

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