The New American Empire?
Americans have an enduring aversion to planting the flag on foreign soil. Is that attitude changing?
However, at the turn of the last century, there emerged an alternative--and, in McDougall's mind, less prudent--vision: America as Crusader State. It found expression in the ideas of progressive imperialism, liberal internationalism, containment, and assorted programs of foreign aid and development.
Foreign policy ideas rise and fall in popularity, come back to life, and commingle with others over time. But the recurring debates over American grand strategy--including the Bush Doctrine--can all be connected to the eight strands that McDougall identifies:
Exceptionalism. Americans have never been more unanimous than the founders were in their belief that America had a special place in the world. Even such rivals as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson--who disagreed about almost everything else--could concur that America was the "City on the Hill" and that its people were blessed with civil and religious liberty. They also shared the conviction that their nation might one day grow into what Jefferson called an "empire for liberty." But it would not do so by force. Even such a visionary as Thomas Paine believed America would spread its values only by example. Perhaps the fullest elaboration of the policy implications of this conviction came in John Quincy Adams's Fourth of July speech in 1821: "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion only of her own."
Unilateralism. The Founding Fathers were equally committed to unilateralism, a principled wariness about any obligations to other nations. The phrase "no entangling alliances" came from Jefferson's inaugural address, but the idea was first articulated in George Washington's farewell message: "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world . . . ," Washington declared, adding that the nation could prudently enter "temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies." But extraordinary really had to be extraordinary. Indeed, when James Madison took the nation to war against Britain in 1812, he resisted the temptation to ally with France, which was then also fighting England.
The American system. Americans were understandably wary of European encroachments in the Americas. This concern for U.S. interests in the New Hemisphere gave rise to the principle of the American system, originating in James Monroe's address to Congress in 1823. The Monroe Doctrine, as it later came to be called, issued a clear and simple warning: no new colonies in the Americas. European powers, contending with independence movements in many of their Latin American colonies, generally heeded Monroe's warning. That was fortunate, because there is little proof that Americans would have put up much of a fight if Europeans had encroached. John Quincy Adams applauded the independence movement in South America but made it clear that "it is our true policy and duty to take no part in the contest." Monroe's was, in short, a modest and flexible doctrine, though it came to be seen as a warrant for the more aggressive notion of Manifest Destiny.
advertisement
