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Noninterventionist Thought in American History

By Mark Grueter

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This is Part Two of a three-part series.  Click here to read Part One. 

History and Analysis

In order to place Part One of this article into the appropriate context, I will provide a cursory overview of selected historical events related to noninterventionist views on both the left and the right.

The issue harks back to George Washington’s oft-repeated Farewell Address: “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…It is our true policy to steer clear of any permanent alliances with any portion of the world.” President Washington also warned against “overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty” (qtd. in Kauffman 17). Recall how left and right skeptics, including Lindbergh and Vidal as referenced in Part One, still borrow this.

In 1821, John Quincy Adams gave a momentous speech in which he stated that America ought to never “go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” These words are still invoked by many contemporary critics of American foreign policy. However, quotations from our Founding Fathers merely scratch the surface of what is truly a profound narrative.

The Monroe Doctrine, which would dictate American foreign policy for some time to come, was formed in 1823 when James Monroe reinforced Washington’s advice and added a corollary that opened the door to future conflicts:

In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do…[But] the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by European powers…(qtd. in Buchanan, A Republic 89).

Louis Hartz broke new ground by writing about how “Americanism” is an ideology that represents both strong isolationist and interventionist tendencies. (Mind the language). Americans move back and forth between an urge to either transform “alien” things or withdraw from them, because we cannot live comfortably side by side with them. For Hartz, both tendencies are manifestations of an overwhelming, liberal ideology (Hartz 286).

Historian Bill Williams argues that America was destined to become imperialistic. From the beginning, as voyagers fleeing the Old World, Americans acquired an “assertive self-consciousness,” which peaked and flourished right after the American Revolution, and had the effect of intensifying American ambition for years to come (Williams, The Tragedy 21). The American colonial experience created revulsion to a specific brand of imperialism - as practiced by the British Empire. But most Americans did not object to imperialism or colonialism as a general principle. In the 1750s very few, if any, were talking about “independence” from the Crown. The revolution eventually occurred, in part, because of a longing to restore English culture and right, which was being trampled upon by the reigning monarch. This is really no paradox, as revolution originally meant restoration.

As a further explanation of foreign adventurism, Williams stresses the significance of the dominant perception throughout American history that expansion was required in order to sustain freedom and prosperity at home (66). As a notable noninterventionist himself, Williams concludes that this perception was and is simply false and that the physical growth of America was all a tragic blunder - a mistake that lead to empire and all of the decadence that comes with it.

History Professor Robert V. Daniels wrote that isolationism and imperialism were able to enjoy a relatively smooth co-existence in America through the end of the Cold War. Since then, however, Daniels claims that the tension - which Hartz originally described - is now splitting the “national psyche” - Americans are shifting idiosyncratically and recklessly between the two poles (Wirten 2).

However, considerable friction arose from the beginning between lofty republican ideals and the lure of distant lands. The rhetoric of avoiding foreign wars is always countered with acts of expansion and/or imperialism in a way that is peculiar and idiosyncratic. For Hartz, it is exceptional.

American leaders pretended that there was a moral difference between expansion/colonization within a contiguous territory and acts that involved “going abroad” in order to expand or colonize, as no traceable objection was raised to marching south and west along the frontier. The former was acceptable because it was all part of Manifest Destiny; protest arose with the latter (starting with Hawaii and Cuba) because it would involve crossing bodies of water. On moral grounds and in hindsight, this distinction appears contrived and rather lacking in substance. Either forcible interference with and/or dispossession of the land and territory of an indigenous group of people is justifiable or it is not.

Gore Vidal is at least semi-serious in blaming exactly four individuals for destroying any possibility that still remained of restoring Jeffersonian republican ideals: Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, Brooks Adams, Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt (Vidal The Essential 759). Vidal explains that the “four Horsemen” all agreed that the U.S. had always been an oligarchy - where “men of property can do well and the others are on their own” (759). The sole remaining question, as Brooks Adams pointed out, was whether to coerce or to bribe the powerless majority (Vidal cites LBJ’s Great Society as an instance of bribery). This was all made abundantly clear in The Federalist Papers, Vidal assures us. Noam Chomsky agrees - he often cites John Jay as evidence of America’s overt intentions, “Those who [sic] own the country ought to govern it,” wrote Jay. Thomas Fleming, a noted “conservative” war critic concedes this and follows it up with an assertion that the American State does not rely on coercion to control people (like the Nazis and Soviets did) - it practices the art of “seduction” instead, which is much more effectual (Hitchens and Caldwell 359). And while that is not necessarily an original suggestion, it is well put.

Contrary to the establishment of the republic, says Vidal, the empire was worked out in complete secrecy. Roosevelt wanted America to become a nation “armed to the teeth and hostile to everyone” and his dream came true - today, America is just that (The Essential 759).

The subversion began as Admiral Mahan constructed the rationale and the strategy: island nations, such as England and America, could only prevail in the world through sea power. Vidal ironically notes, “Mahan’s thesis is agreeably circular…We must build a great navy in order to acquire overseas possessions. Since great navies are expensive, the wealth of new colonies must be used to pay for our fleets. In fact, the more colonies acquired, the more ships; the more ships, the more empire” (757). And so the process began, aided by Lodge in the Senate, Mahan at the Naval War College, Adams in the press, and Roosevelt as de facto Secretary to the Navy: “Hawaii was annexed. Then a part of Samoa. Finally, colonial Cuba, somehow, had to be liberated from Spain’s tyranny” (757).

Faced with criticism, Roosevelt defended the war in the Philippines by comparing it favorably with how early-generation Americans handled their own brown natives, “Every argument that can be made for the Filipinos could be made for the Apaches. And every word that can be said for Aguinaldo could be said for Sitting Bull” (759).

Charles A. Beard held that the very nature of early republicanism in America helped create the fear of outsiders that would explain American foreign policy for years to come (as well as the general distrust of all things seen as external). Provincial attitudes were firmly embedded in the culture, but for Beard, this was not exceptional, because that style of republicanism - of small, autonomous communities - traced back to sixteenth-century Italy. The prevailing paranoid style as related by Hofstadter, Hartz and now Beard lead to nonintervention and withdrawal, as well to as acts of intervention and aggression. It was paranoia and propaganda, after all, that led Americans to support the invasion of Cuba after the sinking of the Maine killed over 200 - whether Spain actually sunk the ship did not matter. What mattered was that Americans were led to believe that Spain did by William Randolph Hearst’s sensational headlines and Roosevelt’s incitements.

Richard Hofstadter adds to this theory by describing how America’s “restlessness” leads it to go off on moral crusades that it cannot do justice to. Such ambition helps with endeavors such as technological innovation, but this same controlling, interfering mentality - which can come from either a liberal or conservative source in the form of moral absolutism - is what leads America to embark on foreign adventures (Hofstadter, The Age 19). In one configuration this force emerges as violence or aggression and in another, one might stipulate, it materializes as religious missionary work or the creation of the secular Peace Corps. In both cases, it is disguised and rationalized as humanitarian intervention.

Hofstadter challenges the populist movement by criticizing its affected anti-imperialism: “Under a patina of pacifist rhetoric they (the populists) were profoundly nationalistic and bellicose” when it came to the invasion of Cuba and later Haiti (85). Populist attitudes, as represented by Democrat William Jennings Bryan and the Populist Party itself, ended up allying, in a way, with the imperial elite on the East Coast - the Mugwumps - men such as Brooks Adams and Theodore Roosevelt. Hofstadter implies that Bryan’s opposition to imperialism in the Philippines was primarily based on his belief that Filipinos were inferior as a race and therefore could not become governable subjects.

Bill Williams argues that the compromised populist position of the early 20th century - that of “embracing imperialism without colonialism” - was ineffective as a tool of opposition (From Colony 480). Hartz agrees that Bryan represents the American spirit of a withdrawal from “alien” things (297) rather than any principled position. Thus, the type of pseudo-isolationism/pacifism that is today commonly betrayed by isolationists-interventionists such as Jessie Helms and Jessie Jackson, surfaced from the beginning of America’s turn toward empire. It is the essence of the populist impulse.

Leftists such as Vidal, Emma Goldman and Noam Chomsky are consistently and adamantly opposed to American war and imperialism. Leftist populists such as Bryan, intellectuals like Christopher Hitchens, and current Democrats in Congress are highly selective in opposing and/or supporting American war and imperialism. Similarly, right populists such as Ross Perot, Ron Reagan, and George Wallace represent the simultaneous American impulse of contraction and expansion. Rightists like Buchanan and Lindbergh oppose all forms of intervention and thus find themselves more closely tied with their extreme opposites. (By the way, I recognize the alleged weakness in asserting that Buchanan is staunchly antiwar, considering that he was once one of the most vociferous cold-warriors in the country. However, extensive evidence now shows that Buchanan has undergone a genuine conversion).

But have the Old Right and the New Left really become “politically coordinate;” putting aside for the moment the even bolder contention that they are “morally coordinate”? One might argue that right-wing opposition to wars is grounded in indifference to the plight of foreigners. Leftist opposition, on the other hand, is mostly selfless. Some argue that left-wing opposition develops out of the assumption that American power can only make life miserable - all intervention into the internal affairs of others is injurious.

There is a grain of truth in this. But it is inaccurate and self-righteous to label all right-wing noninterventionists as devoid of compassion toward the plight of foreigners. Right-wing opponents of war very likely take a realist view of foreign policy. It is not necessarily that right-wing anti-imperialists do not care about other humans; instead, it could be that they believe nations act in their own self-interest and that there is simply very little America can do, because of divergent cultural traditions - other than trade and communicate with others - in order to help them. What is striking here is that both sides are aligned in the belief that America will not or cannot positively influence the lives of foreigners by intervening in their affairs. This is striking because the great preponderance of political, economic and cultural leaders believe that exercising American power can and does contribute to the betterment of mankind.

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On Exceptionalism

The notion of American exceptionalism lurks at every corner. The word “exceptional” has two definitions: it either means “different, uncommon” or “well above average.” The distinction is important when studying a thinker like Louis Hartz. Hartz argued that the utter domination of liberalism was unique to America, but that a liberal absolutism that destroys memory and circumvents the development of alternative ideas is a suffocating and wholly negative phenomenon. Thus, America is different, yet below average. One historian argues that Hartz was a European exceptionalist - a believer in western civilization who became disillusioned after studying the American experiment (Cumings).

And to assert that one nation is exceptional, or unique, does not necessarily imply that it cannot be compared to other nations or that it is completely unaffected by international events. All nations are peculiar and exceptional in one way or another. American history can be understood in both a globalized and localized sense and no nation’s history in the modern world can be understood if only observed in total isolation.

It is true that certain religious forces, present in both interventionist and noninterventionist thinking, believe America is both unique and superior to other nations. A presumed divine blessing guides some Americans to believe that their culture and values reflect what is true and enlightened, and that the country’s continually favorable geographic disposition is no mere coincidence. But do any American governors actually believe in this sort of jingoism, or do they just affect to do so for political purposes? At any rate, there are significant segments of every population in every country and civilization that believe their respective values are “better than” those of others. Any discussion of American exceptionalism might care to mention Russian exceptionalism, British exceptionalism and/or Chinese exceptionalism.

The notion of American exceptionalism works more profoundly when taken to account for America’s curious propensity to contract and expand simultaneously; or to help explain American populism, which is directly related to that phenomenon.

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Click here for part three. Click here for a list of sources.

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Mark Grueter lives in New York City, where he is pursuing his master's in Liberal Studies at the New School University's Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science.  He can be contacted at [email protected].

© 2003 Me Three