American Foreign Policy

Basic Approaches to American Foreign Policy

Isolationism and Neutrality vs Internationalism and Interventionism
"Idealist" School vs "Realist" School

Throughout more than 200 years of American foreign policy history, American foreign policy undergoes a variety of changes. First, American foreign policy toward individual nations changes over the course of 200 years. For example, during some time periods, England, France, Germany, Mexico and Japan are America's sworn enemies and the recipient of American military action; during other time periods, these same nations are America’s allies, and in some cases, military partners in American military actions directed toward other nations. Second, American reliance on specific instruments of foreign policy changes. For example, during some time periods, America relies on military power; during other time periods America relies on geographic isolation, economic power, diplomacy, international alliances, or cultural superiority. Third, American emphasis on individual foreign policy justifications changes. For example, during some time periods, America justifies foreign policy decisions on the call for "balance of power;" during other time periods, justifications are based on "national security," "geopolitics," "freedom of the seas," or nearly a dozen other principles deemed relevant at the time.

America's initial interests in neutrality and in commercial respect following the American revolution leads to the Monroe Doctrine, which reinforces isolation of the western hemisphere, and leads to military skirmishes against Barbary Pirates and a second war with England to promote "freedom of the seas” and America's commercial interests. America also evidences an early and enthusiastic interest in westward expansion and a desire to consolidate the North American continent under the umbrella of the United States government. This expansion is accomplished through diplomacy, purchase, emigration of American citizens, armed confrontation, and exploitation of civil unrest. America negotiates away or seizes territory from the Native Americans, Spanish, and the Canadians, purchases territory from France and Russia, populates territories belonging to Spain, Mexico, and France with American émigrés, invades Mexico, makes multiple threats of war against Canada, and exploits civil unrest in Florida, Texas, California, the Pacific Northwest, and the Indian Territories.

During the American Civil War, the United States federal government promotes international isolation until the civil unrest can be put down. The "federalist" United States government uses both diplomacy and military threat to insure foreign nations keep their distance from American territory. The government of the Confederate States is more interested than the federal government in seeking diplomatic and commercial allies, but the confederates, like the federals, also seek to make sure foreign adventurers do not exploit the civil unrest on the continent.

Following the Civil War, America continues its westward expansion on the North American continent and embarks on a period of foreign adventurism in the Pacific and the Orient. America gradually catches the "manifest destiny" fever that grips Nineteenth-Century Europe and, with a media-induced popular quest for national glory, opens Japan and establishes a foothold in China to promote both western values and American commercial interests, and soon conquers a mini-empire for itself in the Pacific and the Caribbean in lopsided war with Spain. Ironically, America still seeks to remain isolated from Europe.

American isolationism and neutrality is put to the test by World War I. During the early years of the European war, America maintains its neutrality, largely because Americans are divided in their ethnic loyalty, with nearly as many Americans supporting Germany and Austria as supporting England and France. Americans also fear domestic economic prosperity would be threatened if America joins in the fighting. Largely through efforts of British propaganda and the work of British secret agents, America is convinced to enter the war on the side of the Western European allies, seeing the war as a great adventure and as the heroic return of Americans to the soil of their ancestors. America seems poised to take leadership in building a world-wide alliance for peace following World War I, under the banner of the League of Nations, but, in the domestic political struggle that follows the war, American internationalists loose to the isolationists and America enters another period of isolation and neutrality. World War II is well under way, with America serving only a limited commercial and industrial role, until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brings America out of its isolation. America quickly becomes the industrial arsenal for the allied free world's counter-attack on fascism and is, itself, a highly armed military giant in that counter-attack. America continues to lead the "free world" attack against dictatorship once the fascist dictators are vanquished, turning the free world's attention to communist dictatorship. Since the end of World War II, America remains actively involved in world affairs, playing a dominant role in many international conflicts, intervening in domestic civil wars, promoting American-style "freedom," "democracy" and "materialism" around the world, protecting American geopolitical interests, and fulfilling America's new manifest destiny as leader of a "new world order."

Throughout these shifts from isolationism to internationalism and from neutrality to intervention, America justifies its foreign policy decisions using sixteen basic principles. These principles are: (1) maintaining or building a "balance of power" in international alliances, (2) supporting Western political, economic and social values, (3) promoting or defending American national security and national autonomy, (4) extending American domestic social and economic policies abroad, (5) protecting or promoting American geopolitical interests, (6) exercising bureaucratic and political expedience, (7) giving vent to the personal beliefs, emotional states, and personal ambitions of America's top governmental and non-governmental leaders, (8) acquiescing to limitations imposed by the decision-making process, (9) maintaining non-entanglement or cautious entanglement with Europe, (10) promoting freedom of the seas, of commerce, and of citizen mobility, (11) maintaining a protective tariff, (12) settling international disputes through the most peaceful and least violent means possible, (13) protecting the nations of Western Europe, (14) protecting the nations of the Western Hemisphere, (15) perpetuating existing nations and regimes, and (16) maintaining an insular outlook on the world.

Most of these principles clearly reflect American self-interests, but some reflect important moral values that transcend mere self-interest. For example, promoting freedom of the seas, peaceful settlement of disputes, perpetuating existing regimes, and protecting the nations of Western Europe and the Western Hemisphere are principles of basic morality and idealism. American President Woodrow Wilson is one of the leading proponents of the moralist or idealist school of international relations. He believes rational dialogue, democratic decision-making at the national and international levels, non-violence, and international cooperation are keys to attaining the higher moral goals of global peace and the full realization of mankind's potential. But, even Wilson understands that, sometimes, high moral principles must give way to brute strength and raw power in order to achieve higher moral goals. Wilson's address to Congress asking for a declaration of war in April 1917 clearly shows this mixture of idealism tempered with realism.

"When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of February last I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable.... There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making; we will not chose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our Nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.....

Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governing peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles, Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances....

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

The right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts-- for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free...." (Wilson, Address to Congress, 1917)

Foreign policy "realists" argue these sixteen basic principles are merely a smoke screen obscuring the one true justification for all foreign policy initiatives. That one single and true justification for all foreign policy decisions and actions is the quest for power. Hans J. Morgenthau, the leading proponent of the "realist" school of foreign policy, believes those in the "idealist" school are merely deceiving themselves when they claim foreign policy is based on principles of justice, morality, peace, or mutual benefit.

"International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power. Whatever the ultimate aims of international politics, power is always the immediate aim. Statesmen and peoples may ultimately seek freedom, security, prosperity, or power itself. They may define their goals in terms of a religious, philosophic, economic, or social ideal, They may hope this ideal will materialize through its own inner force, through divine intervention, or through the natural development of human affairs. They may also try to further its realization through nonpolitical means, such as technical co-operation with other nations or international organizations. But whenever they strive to realize their goal by means of international politics, they do so by striving for power. " (Morgenthau, 1960, 3)

Morgenthau differs with President Wilson's assumptions concerning the ability of mankind to ever achieve a rational, peaceful world.

" The history of modern political thought is the story of a contest between two schools that differ fundamentally in their conceptions of the nature of man, society, and politics. One believes that a rational and moral political order, derived from universally valid abstract principles, can be achieved here and now. It assumes the essential goodness and infinite malleability of human nature, and blames the failure of the social order to measure up to the rational standards on lack of knowledge and understanding, obsolescent social institutions, or the depravity of certain isolated individuals or groups.

It trusts in education, reform, and the sporadic use of force to remedy these defects.

The other school believes that the world, imperfect as it is from the rational point of view, is the result of forces inherent in human nature. To improve the world one must work with those forces, not against them. This being inherently a world of opposing interests and of conflict among them, moral principles can never be fully realized, but must at best be approximated through the ever precarious settlement of conflicts. This school, then, sees in a system of checks and balances a universal principle of all pluralist societies. It appeals to historic precedent rather than to abstract principles, and aims at the realization of the lesser evil rather than of the absolute good...." (Morgenthau, 1960,10)

American foreign policy during the past 200 years, and more, is based on a combination of both moralist/idealist principles and realist principles. Idealist foreign policy-makers are concerned with how nations ought to conduct their foreign affairs and attempt to develop foreign policies that promote human well-being. Realist foreign policy-makers are concerned only with the actual facts of how nations do conduct their foreign policy and attempt to formulate foreign policies that promote national interests.

Idealists emphasize legalism and legal obligations between nations and believe treaties can resolve problems. The Kellogg-Briand Treaty of the 1920s outlawing war is an example of idealist belief that treaties and law have practical substance. Realists, on the other hand, see law as just so much paper, to be discarded when national interests come in conflict with law. Idealists believe law is a substitute for power. Realists believe law depends on the exercise of power; law is only as good as its enforcement.

Idealists base foreign policy on basic values and goals and a belief that all societies share basic values and goals. One such value is national self-determination. Unfortunately, the idealist belief in national self-determination is not a goal shared by imperialist colonializing nations or nations with mercantilist economic systems. The realist accepts the reality of dominance, subordination, conquest, exploitation and dependency. Idealists believe intervention is appropriate in support of important human values. They encourage, for example, intervention to prevent geonicide or promote human rights. Realists understand such intervention is likely to fail if the value of human rights is not firmly engrained in the national character of the foreign society being intervened upon.

Idealists assume common agreement on basic terms and concepts. Realists assume terms and concepts mean different things in different contextes. Realists understand, for example, that "democracy" means "popular sovereignty" and "one-man-one-vote" to an American Democrat, and that the same word means consent for a "dictatorship of the proletariate" to a Soviet Communist.

Idealists believe nations can stand alone, in isolation, concerned only with domestic improvement. Realists believe all nations are interdependent and that preoccupation with the affairs of other nations is necessary, and direct intervention in those affairs is often required. The nation that stands alone, dies alone. Idealists believe America can influence world affairs without intervention through use of the power of example. For decades, the United States policy toward international affairs is "neutrality," "no entangling alliances," and the "free hand" of discretion to make our own foreign policies in disregard for world events. The result of this idealist position is the War of 1912, World War I, World War II, and the infamous "Cold War."

Realists also have their version of isolationism. The nation's overseas commitments and interventions are limited to those directly promoting national security, American economic well-being, or some other vital national interest. National power is invoked only to further national interests, not the interests of allies, the Third World, or the international community. American power is applied selectively and with discimination.

Idealists are both isolationist and interventionist, depending on the value or ideal involved. Realists are also both isolationist and interventionist, depending on the presence or absence of a vital national interest.

American foreign policy reflects both idealist and realist principles. But, in the final analysis, whether implemented by idealists or realists, that foreign policy is based on sixteen basic principles which dominate American foreign policy decision-making during the nations' 200 year history.

Basic Approaches to American Foreign Policy

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