Possibly the biggest story of the past week is our involvement with Ukraine. Most Americans’ opinion of President Trump’s handling of the situation probably has as much to do with their opinion of foreign assistance as it does with the way Trump handled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In weighing in on this debate, historically speaking, it’s worth giving some historical perspective. While Trump is bunking the recent trend, he actually lines up with most presidents historically.
The history of the 19th century is one of noninterventionism. It is important to understand the difference between noninterventionists and isolationists. Sometimes these words are used interchangeably, and 19th century presidents are often incorrectly referred to as isolationists. An isolationist wants to cut off all communication and trade with foreign nations as well as military alliances, whereas a noninterventionist wants to trade but not get caught up in alliances that may pull them into conflicts.
George Washington, as seen in his Farewell Address, was a strong noninterventionist. He wrote, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.”
For the next 100 years presidents followed Washington’s advice and the only wars we fought were ones we started. Everything changed with the progressives. A large part of progressive ideology was to make everyone else like us. With this philosophy, America went to war with Spain in 1898 and then send our boys to Europe to fight WWI to make the world safe for democracy. Yet the massive destruction to property and loss of life actually led to the end of the progressive movement, and in 1920 Warren G. Harding won the presidency with the slogan “Return to Normalcy.”
During the 1920s and ’30s Americans returned to an ‘America first’ ideology of noninterventionists as we had no interest in going back over to Europe to save them again. Even when Hitler took over Germany in 1933, Americans saw it as a European problem. In 1938 as Hitler began flexing his muscles, other nations were forced to declare war on his Third Reich. Americans remained strictly neutral.
While Americans called for nonintervention, many felt President Roosevelt was steering us towards war. To fight, FDR men like ex-president Herbert Hoover and famous aviator Charles Lindbergh started the “American First Movement.” However, after Pearl Harbor, most of the opposition, including Hoover, fell away as Americans prepared to defend Europe for a second time.
Our modern fight between noninterventionism and internationalism came on the heels of WWII when America had to decide between returning home and scaling down the military or remaining in Europe and Asia preparing to fight communists. What became known as the Great Debate pitted President Truman and his pro-NATO allies against Hoover, Sen. Robert Taft and the Fortress America crowd. NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was an international body of democratic nations committed to supporting each other in the attempt to contain communists to its current borders. A concept that became known as containment.
Taft, son of ex-President William Howard Taft and leader of the Republicans in the Senate, fought against NATO. He believed the burden of cost and fighting around the world would fall unfairly on the U.S. It would require America to take on the burden of every corner of the globe and drag us into countless unnecessary wars. He also did not like the idea of America being under the direction of any international organization that could dictate our actions.
Taft and Hoover both fought against military involvement in Korea and the stationing of 100,000 troops in Europe. They argued that Truman’s policies were unconstitutional. Congress was given the power to determine where and when to declare war. If troops were stationed around the globe then they were bound to come into contact with communist forces requiring military action, basically taking Congress out of the equation. Their idea was to focus on a Fortress America. With America’s special geographic position, we could pull back all our troops to defend North America. This way the U.S. would not be forced into foreign conflicts and could defend our boarders from any threat. Something similar to Washington.
The idea of Fortress America did not win the day. Instead, Truman declared support for any nation threatened by authoritarian forces, arguing that these nations could not survive on their own and the best way to keep the world free and safe was to contain communism to it current boundaries. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson all considered themselves cold warriors and continued with containment as their foreign policy. They believed in what is called the “Domino Theory” or that if one nation like Vietnam fell to communists all the sounding nations would topple as well.
President Carter did change our foreign policy some as he believed we should base our support on human rights and not just on anti-communism, but President Reagan picked back up the containment torch when he said, “We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth.” It was Reagan who finally defeated the communist threat and saw the end of the Soviet Union.
With the end of Soviets, President Clinton inherited a world with former Soviet bloc nations in shambles and a growing threat of terrorists. After early mistakes in Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti, Clinton began following his “Doctrine of Enlargement” which meant supporting nations when practical with little risk to American lives and low costs. Some scholars have seen Clinton’s hands-off approach as emboldening groups like Al-Qaeda to attack America. This of course led to President George W. Bush and 9/11 and the new Bush Doctrine which basically states we must fight terrorist where they live so we do not have to fight them at home.
So what we have seen is that our foreign policy has been circular. For our first 100 years we followed Washington’s policy of nonintervention but then decided we could fix the world with the progressives. World War I made us question our choices and we turned to Fortress America and looking out for ourselves until we were attacked by the Japanese. After WWII we debated our role in the world and concluded that like with Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibilities. Trump has proven time and again that he tends to set his own course. Only time will tell how his policies will affect America and our place in the world.
James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at HistoricallySpeaking1776@gmail.com.
