The Myth of American Isolationism -- Reinterpreting the Past

We have here a popular history of American foreign policy from the end of the nineteenth century almost up to the present. It centers around the great political and military leaders born in the decade 1880-90, in particular Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, George C. Marshall, and Douglas MacArthur. But this theme gets lost in the author's inability to resist putting into the book everything he finds intriguing. He hops about from scene to scene and personality to personality like a historical Walter Winchell. We are told that Major Eisenhower often played golf with Major George Patton; that William G. Bullitt's wife began drinking at breakfast; that at Ambassador Bullitt's first meeting with Stalin the dictator gave him a hearty kiss, which Bullitt returned; that Marshall always refused to laugh at F.D.R.'s jokes, and suffered accordingly; and that John Foster Dulles had a sister who was "an enthusiastic Hitlerite."

This is gossip?column history, with a stress on the colorful detail. No harm in that, perhaps. There are thousands of dull books on America's involvement in foreign affairs during the twentieth century, and David Fromkin's anecdotal approach may not come amiss.

My quarrel with this book concerns the assumptions on which it is based. Because American historians, and indeed Americans generally, widely share these assumptions, they are worth debating.

Toward the end of his book, Fromkin states: "Ever since 1898 [the beginning of the Spanish?American War], the fundamental question about American foreign relations had been whether the United States would choose to play a continuing role in world affairs." The notion that the United States has a real choice in such a momentous decision is related to the beliefs that the United States is naturally isolationist and that, until the Second World War, isolationism was the norm in U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, as a result of the humiliations and frustrations of American involvement in Somalia, there have recently been suggestions in the media that the United States is about to return to isolationism.

THE ISOLATIONIST IMPULSE

I want to suggest a different point of view, which, oddly enough, Fromkin's narrative confirms at various points. First, there is nothing unique, as many Americans seem to suppose, in the desire of a society with a strong cultural identity to minimize its foreign contacts. On the contrary, isolationism in this sense has been the norm whenever geography has made it feasible. A characteristic example is ancient Egypt, which, protected by deserts, tried to pursue an isolationist policy for 3,000 years with unparalleled success. In their ideograms and hieroglyphs, the Egyptians made an absolute distinction between themselves and others. To find a more modern example of a hermit state we need look no farther than Japan, which used its surrounding seas to pursue a policy of total isolation, again reflected in its ideograms. China, too, was isolationist for thousands of years, albeit an empire at the same time. Britain has been habitually isolationist even during the centuries when it was acquiring a quarter of the world. The British always regarded the English Channel as a cordon sanitaire to protect them from what they regarded as the continental disease of war. So, too, the Spanish were misled by the Pyrenees and the Russians by the great plains, into believing isolationism feasible, as well as desirable.

The United States, however, has always been an internationalist country. Given the sheer size of the Atlantic, with its temptation to hermitry, the early rulers of the United States were remarkably international?minded. The original 13 colonies had, as a rule, closer links with Europe than with each other, focusing on London and Paris rather than Boston and Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin has perhaps a better claim to be called a cosmopolitan than any other eighteenth?century figure. He was no slouch as a diplomat; indeed, he believed strongly in negotiations and mutually advantageous treaties between nations. Had the British War Office allowed him, George Washington might easily have been a professional soldier in George III's imperial army, pursuing a career in Europe or perhaps even India. America's ruling elite was always far more open toward, interested in, and knowledgeable about the world (especially Europe) than the French Canadians to the north and the Spanish? and Portuguese?Americans to the south. At Ghent in 1814, the U.S. team that negotiated the end of the War of 1812 -- John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, Jonathan Russell, James Asheton Bayard, even Henry Clay -- was every bit as globally conscious and well informed as its English counterpart.

The truth is that, despite the oceans on both sides, the United States was involved with Russia (because of Oregon and Alaska), China (because of trade), Spain, Britain, and other European powers from its earliest days. Isolationism in a strict sense was never an option, and there is no evidence that the American masses, let alone the elites, favored it, especially as immigration widened and deepened ties with Europe. It is true that the United States, through most of the nineteenth century, was concerned with expanding its presence in the Americas rather than with global politics. But exponents of "America First," like John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and John L. O'Sullivan_who coined the phrase "Manifest Destiny" in the 1840s_were imperialists rather than isolationists. The only time imperialism was an issue in an American election was in 1900, when the Democrats used it to attack what they saw as President William McKinley's expansionist policies. The voters' approval of American imperialism, if that is what it was, was reflected in McKinley's massive victory, by 292 to 155 electoral votes.