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 10

Freedom of the Seas, including Freedom of Commerce, and Freedom for Citizen Mobility

America is a seafaring nation. Colonial Americans use the sea for commerce with the colonial "mother country," as a highway for transport up and down the Atlantic coastline, as a rich fishing ground, and as a highway for commerce with European colonies in the Caribbean.  Merchants in the new nation depend on sea commerce for trade and depend on trade for wealth.

Because America is founded by people who cross the seas themselves, or are descended from people who made the voyage across the seas, and because the commerce, wealth, and survival of the young nation depends on the sea, Americans are vocal and forceful defenders of the principles of freedom of the seas and of freedom of commerce.

The right to operate a navy and to maintain a merchant marine is inherent in the definition of national sovereignty.  As a raw materials and commercial colony of Great Britain under the British mercantilist economic system, America is limited in its rights to the seas and commerce, but, as a newly independent nation, the United States quickly seeks to exercise its rights to the seas and its rights to free and unimpeded international commerce.  America encounters two obstacles to the exercise of its national rights.  The first obstacle is the Barbary Pirates; the second is Great Britain.

During the first few decades following American independence, the Barbary Pirates of the North Coast of Africa confiscate American ships and cargo and hold American seamen for ransom. America eventually responds by building a navy with cannon and marines, by invading North Africa, and by overwhelming the warlords who commission the pirates.

During the first fed decades following American independence, and even after acknowledging defeat in the American Revolution and granting the colonies their independence, Great Britain continues to refuse to accept America's claim to free access to the sea.  During much of the French Revolution and Napoleonic era, from 1789 through 1814, Great Britain enforces a commercial blockade on France and seeks to halt all trade with any French colony, including those in the Caribbean.  Although the United States maintains strict neutrality in the European confrontations during this time period and demands the right to free commerce with any and all nations of the world, Great Britain includes American shipping in the British blockade of France and of the French colonies and deals harshly with any American shipping violating the blockade.  Great Britain commandeers American ships and impresses American seamen into involuntary British naval service when American ships are encountered in the high seas. Many American congressional and political leaders urge war with England to assert American rights. England responds to the threats of war by invading American soil in the War of 1812.  It is only the good fortune of having Britain encumbered with a second on-going war in Europe against Napoleon that prevents a British victory in America. Exhausted with war, English authorities negotiate a conclusion to the war and American rights to the seas and to commerce are finally assured.

Issues of free trade, freedom of the seas, and free movement of American goods and citizens require constant continuing national attention, however.  Many nations, including the United States, impose tariffs, duties, and trade restrictions that limit the free movement of raw materials and commercial goods. The tariff is a major revenue source for most governments, including the U. S. government. The Democratic Party platform of 1856 states  "The time has come for the people of the United States to declare themselves in favor of free seas and progressive free trade throughout the world."  The Democrats are concerned about limits imposed from abroad and limits imposed domestically; their domestic concern is with the negative impact of America's protectionist tariff on both imports and exports, especially on raw materials and commercial goods flowing in and out of the southern states.  These trade restrictions, especially those imposed domestically by the government in Washington, D. C., are a major cause of the Civil War. Democrats remain vocal opponents of the protectionist tariff throughout the Nineteenth Century; Whigs and Republicans are the defenders of the tariff. Tariffs remain an issue until most are abolished at the start of the ear of free trade in the late Twentieth Century.

By 1884, America is swept by a claim to manifest destiny and a desire for world leadership in commerce. Political party platforms of this era call for increasing the size of the navy and merchant marine and for an assertive trade policy.  The 1884 Democratic Party platform demands restoration of American naval power, calls for removal of tariffs and legal burdens on U. S. shipping, demands the U. S. wrest control of world commerce and world markets from Great Britain, and proclaims the U. S. merchant marine to be "on the point of outstripping that of Great Britain."  The Republican Party platform of the same year (1884) calls for removing legal burdens under which U. S. shipping is depressed and demands the "restoration of the navy... so that it may again be true that we have a commerce which leaves no sea unexplored and a navy which takes no law from superior force."   In 1888, Republicans renew their platform call for   "rehabilitation of our American merchant marine"   and "demand appropriations for the early rebuilding of our navy,... coast fortifications and modern ordinance."   Republicans condemn the incumbent Democrat administration's foreign policy  for "its inefficiency and cowardice" including allowing European nations to extend "foreign influence in Central America and... foreign trade everywhere among our neighbors" and the "pusillanimous surrender of essential privileges to which our fishing vessels are entitled in Canadian ports under... treaty,... maritime legislation,... and the comity of nations..."

In their party platform of 1892, Republicans, again, call for  "restoration of our mercantile marine by home-built ships, and the creation of a navy for the protection of our National interests and the honor of our flag."   Americans construct that modern navy, known as the "Great White Fleet" and cruise around the world to show American naval might. That modern fleet is more than a match for the aging Spanish fleet in the Spanish American War a few years later.  America retains its naval strength throughout the Twentieth Century, facing challenges only by German submarines in World War I and World War II and by the Japanese navy in World War II.

The rights of American citizens traveling and living abroad face repeated challenge from foreign powers, beginning with British efforts to impress American sailors into British naval service and the refusal of many nations to recognize the American citizenship of their former subjects immigrating to America.

Dating from the founding of the republic, Americans are consistent and vocal defenders of the freedom of persons and goods to travel across the seas. Eventually, this freedom of movement is extended to include the skies and the void of space. With only a few exceptions, including the American blockade of Cuba during the 1860s and the embargo on trade with South Africa in the 1980s and Iraq in the 1990s and 2000s, Americans defend free and unimpeded movement of people and commerce between all nations and oppose the use of physical blockades or legal trade restrictions to prevent movement of goods or people into or out of nations. American warships force open Japanese ports in the middle of the Nineteenth Century when Japan seeks to isolate itself and its people from the world. American merchant ships run the submarine blockade of Britain by Germany in the years before American entry into both World War I and World War II. American cargo aircraft break the Soviet blockade of Berlin in the 1940s. America reflags foreign oil tankers with its own flag and uses American naval power to insure free passage of tankers in the Persian Gulf in the 1980s and 1990s.  America opposes barriers to free trade imposed by Europe and Japan in the 1980s and 1990s.  America condemns the Soviet Union's refusal to permit Jewish Russians to emigrate to Israel. America defends freedom of movement of tourists, business people, job seekers, refugees from natural and man-made disasters, and anyone desiring to emigrate or immigrate.

Support for free immigration to the colonies and to the new United States is one of the first items to be included in the platforms of the major American political parties.   In the first two Democratic Party platforms, written for the presidential campaigns of 1840 and 1844, Democrats proclaim their support for open immigration and the right of immigrants to own land and become citizens.  The platforms proclaim the United States is "the land of liberty, and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation."   After the Civil War, the new Republican Party  becomes a champion of immigration.  The Republican Party platform of 1868 says "Foreign immigration... should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy."   The open immigration policy is extended to all nationalities and races, except Chinese; efforts are made to specifically exclude Asians. These efforts are later extended to include paupers from all nations.  In the Republican Party platform of 1924, the immigration door begins to close even further.  Republicans call for establishment of new immigration and naturalization policies and for programs to insure immigrants are educated to "our language, customs, ideals and standards of life."  By the middle of the Twentieth Century, foreign immigrants enter the United States on a quota system. By the end of the Twentieth Century, immigration restrictions are relaxed, largely because of the inability to prevent a flood of illegal immigration into the United States. With the advent of America's "war on terror," immigration restrictions and enforcement of the nation's borders become a renewed priority.

There have been some significant lapses in America's defense of freedom of movement over the years.  For example, America  imposes blockades of its own, most recently in Cuba, Vietnam and Haiti. America enactes laws restricting the free flow of goods into and out of America, including trade restrictions on South Africa, retaliatory trade limits on Japan, and bans on the export of "strategic" technology. America interrupts the free emigration and emigration of the world’s citizens, beginning with the immigration laws against the "yellow peril" from Asia in the Nineteenth Century to the recent interdiction of "boat people', from Haiti and Cuba.

The case of American opposition to immigration of Asians into the United States throughout the last half of the Nineteenth Century is especially interesting.  The Democrat, Whig and Republican parties are all supporters of free and open immigration policies, yet, in their centennial party platform of 1876, Democrats make a direct attack on Asian immigration.  In their 1876 platform statement, and in the years to come, Democrats claim their opposition is intended to prevent abuse of Asian immigrant workers, prevent the unemployment of American workers and maintain immigration opportunities for European immigrants.

"Reform is necessary to correct the omissions of a  Republican Congress and the errors of our treaties and  diplomacy, which has stripped our fellow-citizens of foreign birth and kindred race, re-erasing (re-crossing) the Atlantic from the shield of  American citizenship, and has exposed our brethren of the Pacific coast to the  incursions of a race not sprung from the same great parent stock, and  in fact now by law denied citizenship through naturalization  as being unaccustomed to the traditions of a progressive  civilization, one exercised in liberty under equal laws, and we denounce the policy which thus discards the liberty-loving German and tolerates  the revival of the coolie-trade in Mongolian women for immoral purposes, and  Mongolian men held to perform servile labor contracts, and demand  such  modification of he treaty with the Chinese Empire, or  such legislation within constitutional limitations, as shall  prevent further importation or immigration of the  Mongolian  race."  (1876 Democratic Party Platform)

In their 1876 platform, Republicans take a more moderate position, saying they intend "to investigate the effects of the immigration and importation of Mongolians on the moral and material interests of the country."

The 1880 Democrat platform calls for "no more Chinese immigration, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and that even carefully guarded."   By 1880, Republicans are also concerned about Asian immigration but, rather than an outright ban, Republicans say the U. S. should "limit and restrict that immigration by the enactment of such just, humane and reasonable laws and treaties as will produce that result."     In their 1884 platform, Republicans become as outspoken as Democrats on Asian immigration.

"The Republican party... is unalterably opposed to placing  our workingmen in competition with any form of servile labor, whether at home or abroad.  In this spirit, we denounce the importation of contract labor, whether from Europe or Asia, as an offense against the spirit of American institutions; and we pledge ourselves to sustain the present law restricting Chinese immigration, and to provide such further legislation as is necessary to carry out its purpose."  (1884 Republican Party  Platform)

In its 1884 platform statement, Republicans include contract labor from Europe in their denunciation but specifically focus on Chinese labor.  In their 1888 platforms, Democrats call for total exclusion of Chinese immigration; Republicans join them and "declare our hostility to the introduction into this country of foreign contract labor and of Chinese labor....  We demand rigid enforcement of the existing laws against it, and favor such immediate legislation as will exclude such labor from our shores."  In subsequent platform statements in 1892 and 1896, Democrats continue to call for exclusion of Chinese immigrants but Republicans delete specific reference to Chinese as a problem and, instead, call for an immigration ban to include "restriction of criminal, pauper and contract immigration"  in their 1892 platform and "foreign pauper labor"  in their 1896 platform.  In their 1900 party platform, Democrats "favor the continuance and strict enforcement of the Chinese exclusion law, and its application to the same classes of all Asiatic races."

By 1900, both Republicans and Democrats are interested in increasing commercial relations with Asia; attacks on Asian immigrants disappear from both party platforms in 1904.

In an ironic turn of events, the expansion of communism throughout Asia in the late Twentieth Century results in Asians being given preference in immigration. Nationalist Chinese, South Koreans, South Vietnamese, Hmong Tribesmen, Laotians, Cambodians and others escaping communism are each given preferences in their turn.

Principle 11

Maintenance of a Protective Tariff

One of the most persistent themes in American foreign policy history  is the debate over protective tariffs.  A tariff is a charge or "tax" levied on goods coming into the U.S. from abroad.  It makes foreign products more expensive to buy, thus, hopefully, decreases consumption demand for those products.

Mercantilist economics rely heavily on tariffs to limit the quantity and value of products coming into a country in order to limit the quantity and value of the specie-- mostly gold and silver-- flowing out of the country to pay for those products.  Mercantilist nations of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries measure their success in international affairs and their national strength and power in terms of the excess of gold and silver hoarded in their national treasuries.  Whenever national monopolies or merchants sell products abroad, gold and silver flows into the country from abroad to pay for the product. But, whenever foreign products are purchased, gold and silver flows out of the country to pay for the product.  The secret to national success and power is to sell more abroad than is purchased from abroad.

Capitalist economies also rely on protective tariffs, but they are interested in protecting domestic manufacturers by insuring those manufacturers have a domestic market for their product, even if foreign producers can manufacture the product at a lower cost and sell it for a price cheaper than domestic products of similar quality.

Domestic governments rely on tariffs as an important source of revenue, especially during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.  Prior to the American Civil War, the U.S. government is largely funded by tariffs.   This means, of course, the costs of government are largely borne by that segment of the population which relies most heavily on foreign manufacture for the goods they consume.  Many people, and political leaders, in the American South believe they consume a higher proportion of imported goods than do people in the North and believe, therefore, the tariffs are especially burdensome on the South.  There is even an attempt by southern states to "nullify" federal-government enacted tariffs.  The protective tariff issue plays a key role as a cause of the American Civil War.

Throughout most of the Nineteenth Century and the early Twentieth Century, Democrats oppose protective tariffs; Whigs and Republicans support protective tariffs.

The Democratic Party platform of 1848 likens American industrial monopolies, created largely by the effect of tariffs, and special interest legislation to the despotism of the Old World.  In 1856, Democrats again attack monopolies and special interests and declare themselves to be in favor of progressive free trade throughout the world.  The 1860 Republican platform declares Republican support for using tariffs for protectionist purposes but also appears to acknowledge that the current tariffs may benefit only a portion of the nation.

"That, while  providing revenue for the support of the general  government by duties on imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of those imports as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country..." (1860  Republican Party Platform)

In the 1880s, the tariff issue is again an important feature in the major party platforms as American manufacturing continues to expand.  The 1884 Democratic platform calls for removal of the tariff, but Republicans defend the tariff, saying "the imposition of duties on foreign imports shall be made, not 'for revenue only,' (but) shall be so levied as to afford security and protection to the rights and wages of the laborer"   and condemn "the so-called economic system of the Democratic party, which would degrade our labor to the foreign standard"  through wage competition.  Republicans believe American manufacturers will be forced to lower domestic wages if they are forced to compete with goods made abroad in low-wage countries.  By using tariffs to keep the cost of foreign goods high, Republicans are protecting the relatively high American wage rates.  In the 1884 platform, Republicans identify "sheep husbandry" as an industry needing protection; in future platforms, they identify more industries in need of protection.  What Republicans tend to ignore, and Democrats begin to recognize, is the impact of foreign tariffs enacted in retaliation against American tariffs. These foreign tariffs are especially burdensome on those American industries that are at a comparative cost advantage in world trade and could sell substantially more goods abroad in a free market without tariffs.  Reciprocity agreements with foreign nations help to remove these retalitatory tariffs.

Democrats argue that tariffs harm consumers and create privileged industries.  In their 1884 platform they call for tariff reduction to a level that does "not exceed the needs of the Government (to pay for) pensions, interest, and the principle on the public debt." The Democrat's 1888 platform again stresses the need for tariff reductions so American industry can export abroad and workers can purchase the necessities of life imported from abroad.

"A fair and careful revision of our tax laws, with due allowance for the differences between the wages of American and foreign labor, must promote and encourage... industries and enterprises by giving them assurance of an extended market and steady and continuous operations."  (1888 Democratic Party Platform)

Republicans remain "uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection; we protest against its destruction."  in their 1888 platform. The Republicans are running against an incumbent Democrat president who successfully rolls back some tariffs.  Republicans claim the President and his party "serve the interests of Europe"  in demands for tariff reduction.  When a Republican president assumes the office, tariffs are restored. In their 1892 platform,  Republicans explain their continued support for tariffs.

"All  articles which cannot be produced in the United States, except luxuries, should be admitted duty free, and that on all imports coming into competition with the products of American labor there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home.  We assert that the prices of manufactured  articles of general consumption have been reduced under the operations of the tariff  act of 1890." (1892 Republican Party Platform)

Democrats, in 1892, call for tariff reduction and genuine free trade "on the basis of reciprocal advantages to the countries participating."     In 1896, Democrats renew their call for lower tariffs and the break up of domestic monopolies and trusts, many of them supported by tariff protection.  Republicans, in their 1892 platform, again explain their support for protective tariffs.

"Protectionism and Reciprocity are twin measures of American policy and go hand in hand. Democratic rule has recklessly struck down both, and must be re-established.  Protection for what we produce; free from admission for the necessities of life which  we do not produce; reciprocal agreement of mutual interests, which gain open markets to us in return for our open markets for others.  Protection builds up domestic industry and trade and secures our own markets for ourselves; reciprocity builds up foreign trade and finds an outlet for our surplus."  (1892 Republican Party Platform)

The domestic political debate over tariffs continues throughout the next decades. Tariffs are temporarily reduced during Democratic administrations and restored during Republican administrations.

The Democratic Party platform of 1924 brags about President Wilson's earlier tariff reductions and condemns the newly enacted tariff laws of the new Republican administration, claiming those tariffs force Americans "to buy manufactured goods at sustained high domestic levels"  and damage the American agricultural export market; Republicans claim the tariffs protect and promote American industry and labor.

The debate over tariffs continues to the beginning of the Twenty-first Century, with many of the same arguments in support of tariffs and in opposition to tariffs used in the Twentieth Century as are used in the Nineteenth Century.  The globe is moving toward a system of free exchange and a system of free markets unencumbered by tariffs.  The European Common Market, the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and numerous other international compacts gradually remove most tariff burdens to international trade and commerce. The tariff restrictions that remain are largely used in diplomacy and as a tool of foreign policy negotiations and are used to protect a few specific domestic industries from "unfair" foreign competition.

Principle 12:

Peaceful Settlement of Disputes

When faced with a choice between peaceful settlement of disputes or armed conflict, the United States prefers peaceful settlement of disputes, although vocal groups within the citizenry, media or political arena may prefer  armed conflict.  The United States enters war cautiously and as a last resort.  Once committed to armed conflict, the U.S. intention is usually to win quickly and decisively.

The American government often submits to international blackmail and abuse without resort to arms.  In the years following American independence, British naval vessels commandeer American ships and impress American seamen into British service and, in spite of considerable political and public pressure, the U.S. government works for a diplomatic solution.  America submits to the tribute demands of the Barbary pirates for years before finally invading North Africa.  In recent years, petty dictators in Libya, North Korea, Somalia and Latin America, and fanatical authoritarian regimes in Iran, Iraq and throughout Africa, from time to time, abuse, humiliate and vilify the most powerful military nation on Earth without suffering the sting of retaliation.  Four decades of intense disarmament and arms-control negotiations with the Soviet Union could easily be avoided if America is willing to respond with a swift American first strike after any one of dozens of Soviet provocations, extending from the Soviet blockade of Berlin in the 1940s, through the Hungarian invasion, the U-2 spy airplane downing, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the de-stabilization of Africa, Central America and the Middle East, and the invasion of Afghanistan, to the downing of a Korean commercial aircraft in the 1980s.  America practices remarkable self-restraint. Soviet aggression, no matter how egregious, is countered with diplomacy, not the force of arms aimed either at the point of aggression or the heartland of the Soviet Union itself.

When America does commit to battle, its intention is to win quickly and decisively. The overwhelming defeats of the Mexicans and the Spanish in the 1800s, the rout ending most confrontations with Native Americans, the massive assault of both men and machine against Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein's Republican Guards and the atomic bombing of Japan are all evidence of America's resolve to win quickly and decisively once America finds that treaties and diplomacy will not achieve satisfactory results.

Since World War II, some critics question America's military resolve, citing American unwillingness to shift from diplomacy to combat in post-war international crisis, American timidity in Vietnam, Somalia, Lebanon and Haiti, American unwillingness to become involved in resolving the crisis in Liberia, Rwanda and Bosnia, American failure to aggressively support the liberal oppositions in break-away Soviet republics and Communist China, and American failure to finish the mission to smash Iraq during the Gulf War and "Desert Storm."  On the other hand, America acts quickly and decisively in the Dominican Republic, Panama, Grenada, and, most recently, in the Gulf War with Saddam Hussein. The action against Iraq's invasion of its neighboring country comes swiftly, even if the action is not decisive. General Douglas MacArthur’s surprise attack on North Korean aggressors with the Inchon Landing, although publicly condemned by American President Harry Truman, is viewed popularly by the American people as a counter-attack within the finest tradition of American resolve to win once the decision is made to move from diplomacy to the battlefield.  In combat, America sufferes only one genuine defeat in more than 200 years of confrontations; that defeat comes in Vietnam and is partly attributed to the inadequacy of American allies, especially the South Vietnamese, is partly attibuted to problems associated with bureaucratic and political infighting, limitations imposed by the decision-making process, and personal shortcomings of President Lyndon Johnson, and is partly attributed to America's willingness to spend many long years at the negotiating table seeking a diplomatic and peaceful settlement of the conflict while at the same time restricting the movements of its troops on the battlefield as a show of good faith in its negotiations.

The United States increasingly relies on the United Nations and other international organizations as instrumenst for the peaceful settlement of disputes. The U. N. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are intimately involved in helping to resolve conflicts in the Balkins and in the Middle East. Republican President George Bush and Democrat President Bill Clinton both rely heavily on international organizations in their attempts to find peaceful solutions in both regions before committing to military action, demonstrating both the continuing importance of the key principle and the principle's bipartisan support.

As American moves into the 21st Century, President George W. Bush declares an intention to initiate a first strike posture toward nations that support international terrorist groups and toward nations intent on developing weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological weapons. In spite of this posturing, the president continues to work through the United Nations to resolve conficts before resorting to the first strike. The principle of "peaceful settlement of disputes" may have been weakened by President Bush's first strike declaration, but the principle has not been entirely abandoned.

Principle 13

Protection of the Nations of Western Europe

During the Twentieth Century, America  reestablishes its cultural and psychological ties with Europe.  Three times during the Twentieth Century America is forced to commit its wealth, manpower, and war machinery to support the nations of Western Europe.  First, in World War I against an assault by the Prussian-Austrian-Turkish-German bloc of Central Europe; second, in World War II against German aggression; finally, in the "Cold War" against Soviet Union aggression.  America commits both money and manpower to the Marshal Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II.  The rebuilding includes both the victorious allies and the vanquished Germans.  America commits still more money and manpower to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to insure the "West" remains free from communist aggression from the "East."  That effort begins when President Harry Truman commits the American reputation and American military power to containing communism inside the Black Sea when the Soviets threaten Turkey and Greece and threaten to increase their influence in the Mediterranean Sea and continues even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. NATO appears destined to expand and to assume new missions rather than to wither away.  In the course of these "rescues" of Western Europe, diplomatic, political, cultural, economic, and personal ties are strengthened and the Europeans and Americans are drawn closer together.

 In international confrontations involving Western European nations confronting Second or Third World nations, the U.S. tends to side with the Western Europeans.  The United States takes a basic hands-off approach to the liberation and independence movements in European colonies in Africa and Asia during the 1950s and 1960s; the U.S. could intervene on the side of the nationalists and earn some favor with the independence regimes replacing the colonial regimes, but America does not do so.

In recent years, America inherits the French war in Vietnam and makes the war its own.  In the British confrontation with Argentina, a Latin American nation that should receive U.S. protection under the Monroe Doctrine, the United States not only sides with Great Britain diplomatically, but supplies the British armed forces with military intelligence information. As the individual nations of Europe move closer together in the Common Market and, later, in the European Union, the United States develops increasingly closer ties with both the individual nations and with the European Union even if closer ties with the Second and Third World of developing nations might be of greater economic advantage. The key princliple of "non-entanglement with the nations of Europe" is in rapid decline as the United States seems more and more intent on uniting itself politically, economicly, and culturally with the developed nations of Europe. This may change, however, if the European Union becomes Euro-centric, if the Europeans fail to support U. S. anti-terrorism efforts, or if America returns to its old isolationist ways. Still, when the nations of Europe again call for help from across the Atlantic, America will surely return to European soil to once again defend the nations of Europe.

# 14 missing

Principle 15:

Perpetuation of Existing Regimes

Many  nations of the world suffer from domestic civil unrest. This unrest usually takes the form of a revolutionary challenge to the existing governments of those nations and to the current regime in control of those governments.  Many developing nations lack a functioning mechanism for the peaceful transfer of power from the current governmental regime to its successor regime, or for replacing one form of government with another, or replacing one constitution with another.  Civil unrest leads to civil disturbance and ultimately to a coup d'état or civil war.  In both coup d'état and civil wars, the United States tends to support the status quo; the  status quo is the existing regime.  Only after the challengers successfully replace the existing regime or government, and demonstrate an ability to control the entire nation, will the United States recognize the challengers as the legitimate government of the nation.  Since the U.S. is seen by the new government as a supporter of the old regime, the new regime often initially rejects American overtures of friendship, recognition and support.

The tradition for cautious recognition of new regimes goes back to President James Monroe and his caution recognizing the new liberal revolutionary governments of most Latin American nations in the early 1800s.  In the 1900s, the United States gives active support to the Nationalist Chinese against their Communist Chinese replacement, to the governments of South Korea and South Vietnam against legitimacy claims by their sister nations to the north, to existing regimes in Iran, Nicaragua, Congo, Cuba, Philippines, Greece and a host of other nations against their rival domestic replacement regimes.  In most cases, the rivals eventually lay successful claim to the government of these nations.  Until the claims are successful, and control of the nation consolidated under the new regime, the U.S. continues to support the previously existing government. In some cases that U. S. support continues even after the leadership of the supported regime is forced into exile.

Over the past three centuries, American support of existing regimes takes a variety of forms. In Haiti, the United States intervenes to prevent European powers from seizing the nation for failure to repay national foreign debts; the United States takes control on the nation's finances until the nation can be returned to solvency.  In Mexico, the United States sends troops to "help" the Mexican government restore order when Mexico-- and the American Southwest-- is threatened with revolutionaries and banditry.  The U. S. launches a similar intervention in Colombia to "help" that nation's leaders suppress the activities of drug warlords.   In Granada, the U.S. "helps" free that nation from the threat of Cuban civil engineers alledged to be plotting to seize that small Caribbean island.   The United States rarely intervenes to support opposition elements, but intervention to bolster the existing regime is more commonplace, although still relatively rare compared to the interventionism of colonial and communist powers of the past three centuries.

This support for the existing regime grows out of America's liberal tradition.  The United States has no right to intervene; the people must choose their government for themselves, and the government must choose its policies for itself. This is called self-determination. This bias toward non-intervention is a major constraint on American foreign policy, especially when dealing with the emerging, underdeveloped nations.

 "(T)he United States must deal with officialdom.  Even when the United States believes that officialdom is corrupt, digs its own grave, and endangers the West's position by throwing reformers into the arms of the Communists, it is officialdom that  the United States must convince....  To say that the United States must deal with officialdom does not mean that the United States cannot keep in touch with opposition parties, or encourage reformers, or frown on gravediggers in power.  Indeed, it may well be that the United States has been much too shy in all these respects.  But even if the United States became a virtuoso in the difficult art of  combining diplomatic correctness with subdiplomatic manipulation, there would still  remain sharp limits to what a non-totalitarian power can achieve.  There is more than a difference of degree between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Communist International."  (Hoffman, in Ikenberry, 47)

In a few cases, the United States breaks with its tradition of supporting existing regimes.  In the case of some Latin American "banana republics" in the early 1900s, American concern for promoting commerce, protecting Western values, protecting American interests and furthering American manifest destiny leads the United States to actively engineer the overthrow of existing regimes and engineer their replacement with more desirable regimes or governments.  During the "Cold War", American fear of communism leads to American covert operations intended to replace pro-communist regimes, or inadequately anti-communist regimes, with strongly anti-communist regimes in the Middle East, South-East Asia, and Central America.  For example, the United States Central Intelligence Agency assassination of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem in the early 1960s is intended to lead to a replacement regime which could deal more effectively with the South Vietnamese communist rebels.  And, United States covert support for the Contra opposition in Nicaragua in the 1980s  is intended to destabilize the elected communist government in that nation.

 The United States also traditionally opposes the division of existing nation-states into smaller self-governing nation-states, even when civil strife within the nation appears to remand such a division.  The United States not only supports the existing government and regime, but the existing boundaries of the nation. Ethnic minorities within many nations make demands for ethnic self-determination and self-rule; the U.S. rarely supports these demands.  The rejection of these demands may be a consequence of America's "melting pot" ethnic and racial history.  If people of several nationalities, races and cultural traditions can cooperate to found, develop and govern the United States, peoples should also be able to do the same in other nations of the world.

 In some cases, national boundaries are created as an arbitrary consequence of colonialism or international diplomacy rather than created by any logic based on natural geography, ethnic or religious or cultural inclusion (or exclusion), ancient empires, or natural or manmade barriers.  The U.S. supports maintaining existing boundaries even when those boundaries fail the test of rationality and common sense.  The U.S. opposes Katanga independence in the Congo, ethnic separatism throughout Africa and Asia, the breakup of Yugoslavia into its constituent republics and further fragmentation of the Soviet Union beyond that of the initial collapse. In some cases, American national interests may be furthered by a division of a nation-state.  For example, the establishment of an independent Kurdish nation in the Middle East would work to the detriment of America's enemy, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and the establishment of an aboriginal homeland in Brazil would help protect the equatorial rain forests essential to maintaining American weather patterns, yet the United States gives  little support to either initiative.

 Perhaps, if the organic analogy is correct, nation-states, including the United States, realize, in order for each to survive, they must support the survival of all others.  If citizens in one nation-state can freely replace regimes and governments and successfully demand the fragmentation of existing national boundaries to allow for self-determination and self-government of constituent minorities in one nation-state, a similar fragmentation can happen in all nation-states. The United States federal government fights a costly Civil War in 1861-65 to prevent that fragmentation from happening in the United States; the United States government certainly does not want to encourage Americans to think in secessionist and separatist terms again by encouraging independence, secession, revolution, and separatism in other nation-states around the world.

Principle 16:

Insularity and Isolationism

 

Insularity is a detached, insulated, self-focused, narrow-minded state of mind associated with people living on an island. The island is their world and their only consideration.  Insularity is a form of isolationism.  Isolationism is withdrawal from the remainder of the globe;  the other nations of the world are recognized, but a choice is made to remain withdrawn and detached from interaction with those nations.  Insularity goes one step further than isloationism; the other nations of the world are no longer recognized.  Insularity fails to give the remainder of the globe consideration or thought; the remainder of the globe does not even exist.

Americans exhibit, from time to time, both isolationist and insular attitudes.  For the first century and a-half, or three-quarters of the time the U.S. has existed as an independent nation, America acknowledges the Great Powers of Europe, but refuses to enter alliances with them; the U.S. maintains a position of isolation. From time to time, the United States goes about its own business, forgetting the remainder of the world exists. This insularity is especially the case with Third World economic and social development needs. America proceeds with its own economic and social development giving scant acknowledgment to the needs of the poor, the starving, the socially oppressed, the abused, the exploited, and the neglected peoples of the Third World.  Only the intrusion of a great media event, such as mass famine in Ethiopia, ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, female circumcision in the Middle East and Africa, or bride burning in India, shakes Americans to the realization that the United States is only a small part of the world.  In the case of economic and social development, at least a portion of American foreign policy is shaped by American insularity; it is that portion of American foreign policy that is best called "neglect."

Political scientists believe they have evidence of an American foreign policy cycle that prominently features periods of isolation and insularity.

"Several  writers have advanced the views that United States foreign policy tends to swing like a pendulum (an image used by both President Nixon and Senator Fulbright) from extremes of over involvement to under involvement.  Stanley  Hoffman, for example, discerned 'the two tempi of America's foreign relations,' alternating 'from phases of withdrawal (or when complete withdrawal is impossible, priority to domestic  concerns) to phases of dynamic, almost messianic romping on the world stage.'  Hans Morgenthau saw United States policy moving 'back and forth between the extremes of an indiscriminate isolationism and an equally indiscriminate internationalism or globalism.'

Getting more specific, historian Dexter Perkins divided American foreign relations into cycles of 'relatively pacific feeling,' followed by 'rising bellicosity and war,' followed by 'postwar nationalism,' and then back to 'relatively pacific feeling.'  Getting even more specific, a behaviorally inclined political scientist, Frank L. Klingberg, using  such indicators as naval expenditures, annexations, armed expeditions, diplomatic pressures, and attention paid to foreign matters in presidential speeches and party  platforms, discovered alternating phases of 'introversion' (averaging twenty-one  years) and 'extroversion' (averaging twenty-seven years).    Klingbery added: 'If  America's fourth phase of extroversion (which began around 1940) should last as long as the previous extrovert phases, it would not end until well into the 1960s.'

Other writers have found a roughly generational interval of about twenty-five years between upsurges of world violence....  Denton and Phillips suggest what we might  term a 'forgetting' theory to explain the twenty-five year cycles of violence;  That  generation, and particularly its decision makers, that experienced an intensive war tends to remember its horrors and avoid similar conflicts.  The following generation of decision makers may forget the horrors and remember the heroism; this generation is more likely to engage in violence.  This explanation ... is flatly at odds with our Pearl Harbor generation... virtually all of whom experienced World War II firsthand, displayed little reluctance to apply force overseas.  This generation was of course repelled by the violence of World War II but used it to explain why aggression must be 'nipped in the bud' to prevent another large conflagration...

(D)uring one epoch American foreign-policy thinkers may largely ignore threats and in  another epoch they  may take threats very seriously....  (T)he Cuban uprising of the 1870s elicited relatively little response from the United States compared to our response in the Cuban uprising of the 1890s.  America paid little attention to East Europe in the 1930s and a great deal of attention in the 1940s and 1950s...."   (Roskin, in Ikenberry,  556-558)

The shift from active foreign relations to relative isolation and insularity appears to be well documented.  When the "spirit of the age ("the Zeitgeist") calls for isolationism, American foreign policy  makers are difficult to awaken.

There are also additional practical reasons for American isolationation and insularity. First, Americans lack the language training and language skills to communicate freely around the globe. Europeans often speak and read two, three, or more languages. Many Third World residents speak and write in a native language and a "colonial language." Americans tend to speak and write in only one language-- English.  Second,  Americans lack an understanding of foreign culture-- literature, philosophy, religion, political thought, everyday folkways, largely because Americans lack the language skills to communicate with those cultures. Third, when Americans seek information about foreign lands, that information is often relayed through sources expert in the language and culture, sources outside the U.S.  The information these sources provide is filtered through their own national interests and through the context of their own culture and nationality. All to often, Americans learn about affairs in the Third World through European journalists and scholars, who often put a decided European slant to that information, or through propagandists who can easily fool Americans because Americans lack the skills to confirm the information. This combined ignorance of language and culture isolates Americans from the rest of the world, even in times when America chooses not to be isolated.

The terrorist attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 may have marked the beginning of the end of American isolation and insularity. America finally realizes that isolation is no longer a practical possibility. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and friendly neighbors to the north and south no longer provide a protective barrier against the outside world. If America can no longer remain isolated, it can no longer take an insular view of the world. The issues and interests of all the peoples of the world must now be taken into consideration in developing American foreign policy. If America does not pay attention to the world, the world can easily come to America and make her pay attention.

[ Back To Page 1 ]

[ Home ]

Click here to enter this with hundreds of postings

Address Questions or comments to [  admin@pushhamburger.com  ]