User:Jaydavidmartin/Promised Land, Crusader State

Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776

Author	Walter A. McDougall
Language	English
Subject	United States foreign policy
Publisher	Mariner Books
Publication date	1997
Media type	Print
Pages	286
ISBN	0-395-90132-4

Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776 is a 1997 book by American historian Walter A. McDougall outlining the historical foreign policy traditions of the United States. McDougall splits American foreign policy into two eras, each consisting of four traditions: the "Old Testament", dominant from 1776 until the 1890s, consisting of the doctrines Liberty at home, Unilateralism abroad, an American System of states, and Expansion; and the "New Testament", dominant in the twentieth century, consisting of Progressive Imperialism, Wilsonianism, Containment, and "Global Meliorism".

Summary

McDougall splits the history of American foreign policy into two periods: the "Old Testament" and the "New Testament". Each, in turn, is divided into four traditions: the Old Testament into Liberty at Home, Unilateralism, The American System, and Expansionism; the New Testament into Progressive Imperialism, Wilsonianism, Containment, and Global Meliorism. Each tradition can be roughly described as follows:

1. Liberty at home: The United States is free to shape its internal affairs—to advance the "blessings of liberty"—independent of any foreign powers.
2. Unilateralism: The United States will utilize unilateral action when necessary to defend liberty at home.
3. The American System: The United States will defend its national interests in the Western Hemisphere so as to stave off foreign interference in its domestic politics.
4. Expansionism: The United States will be free to grow within the much of the North American continent.
5. Progressive Imperialism: American power will be used to remake foreign societies.
6. Wilsonianism: The United States will implant itself into a liberal international order, forfeiting some degree of national sovereignty in the pursuit of multilateralism and collective security.
7. Containment: The United States will restrict the influence of the Soviet Union so as to stave off the spread of communism.
8. Global Meliorism: The United States will promote economic development and human rights in foreign countries.

He places the Old and New testaments into sharp distinction: the Old, he contends, was basically defensive, centered around preventing the outside world from shaping the politics of America, which was conceived of as a "Promised Land" which served as an example for the rest of the world, while the New was primarily offensive, concerned with empowering America to do precisely what it had resisted for itself—to shape the politics of foreign countries as a "Crusader State". It is from this distinction that the book receives its name.

In his own analysis, McDougall looks favorably on the Old Testament while . While he says that the United States fight against fascism and Communism is perhaps America's "finest hour", he asserts that "the Crusader State has...made many mistakes and done much that is bad and ugly, not least to itself". He further contends that the Founding Fathers "flatly denied that the United States ought to be in the business of changing the world, lest it only change itself—for the worse".

Mcdougall also stresses that several of the traditions that he lays out were intended as correctives to conventional historical wisdom. In particular, Liberty at home is a corrective to the belief that American exceptionalism was intended by early American leaders to be reflected in foreign policy; Unilateralism is a corrective to the "myth" of isolationism; The American System and Expansionism are meant as correctives to the all-encompassing influence ascribed to the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny, respectively; and Wilsonianism is meant as a corrective to liberal internationalism.

Old Testament

The "Old Testament" includes the four policy traditions that defined US foreign policy from the founding of the United States in 1776 to the turn of the 19th century: Liberty at Home, Unilateralism, The American System, and Expansionism. Importantly, McDougall argues that each tradition naturally follows from those before it to form a "logical, consistent, and well-proportioned set of traditions that guided early American statecraft". He broadly describes the system as such:

If the United States was to remain free and independent—the first tradition—then it must pursue a unilateral foreign policy—the second tradition. If Unilateralism was to survive, then it must promote an American System of states—the third tradition. But it was not enough that the United States remain aloof from Europe. It must preempt European bids for influence over the vast unsettled lands that remained in North America—hence the fourth tradition.

Liberty at home

McDougall contends that the earliest United States foreign policy was a practical commitment to defending "liberty at home"—that is, to take only those diplomatic and military steps necessary to defend the system of government they had recently established, which in the eyes of early Americans was one devised to secure the "blessings of liberty". He relates this to the idea of American exceptionalism, the belief (common among early colonial rebels in the US) that America is inherently different and uniquely good in comparison to other countries. He pushes back on the idea promoted by some scholars that exceptionalism logically entails that early American leaders must have intended foreign policy to advance American ideals outside of its borders. Rather, he elucidates from the writings of early American leaders that exceptionalism entailed little more than protecting America from foreign interference—that it was intended only to defend the "beacon of hope", or "shining city on a hill", that America represented. According to McDougall:

[T]o the generation that founded the United States, designed its government, and laid down its polices, the exceptional calling of the American people was not to do anything special in foreign affairs, but to be a light to lighten the world...The foreign policy powers of the executive branch were the shield, sword, and lawyer's brief for American Exceptionalism; they were not themselves an expression of it...Foreign policy existed to defend, not define, what America was.

McDougall points to four "challenges" to support his thesis. (the struggle for independence, the reaction to the French Revolution, the transition of power from Federalists to Democratic Republicans, and the response to Latin American revolutions) The first challenge was America's initial struggle for independence in the Revolutionary War. ... The Constitution, while espousing high-mined ideals towards the American people and containing myriad restrictions on the domestic power of the government, places no idealistic restrictions on the actions of the state in foreign affairs. The second is the reaction to the French Revolution, which acted as a potential crossroads for American foreign policy as it forced American leaders to decide whether the country would keep to itself or commit to aiding revolutionary democratic movements (much like it had been assisted in its own recent revolution).

Unilateralism

McDougall argues that unilateralism was the next American foreign policy tradition—and one that flowed naturally from the first. He says that the "self-evident course for the United States was to avoid permanent, entangling alliances and to remain neutral in Europe's wars except when our Liberty—the first hallowed tradition—was at risk". The reasoning for this, he claims, is quite straightforward:

First, if the United States became enmeshed in war and imperialism on the European model, it would have to raise large armies and navies, tax and conscript its people, and generally compromise domestic freedom, the Republic's raison d'être. Second, if it became enmeshed in European conflicts, the United States would be forced to play junior partner in alliances with mighty empires, perhaps losing, or losing sight of, its own national interests. Third, if it became enmeshed in foreign conflicts, the European powers would compete for Americans' affections, corrupt their politics with propaganda and bribes, and split them into factions. Fourth, if the United States joined Europe's rivalries, the arena of battle would surely include America's own lands and waters, as they had for over a century.

He contrasts this tradition of unilateralism with the oft-stated myth that early American foreign policy was "isolationist". "Isolationism", he points out, was never used to describe US foreign policy until the 1890s, when it was used as a pejorative against anti-imperialists. McDougall thus refers to isolationism as "no tradition at all, but a dirty word that interventionists, especially since Pear Harbor, hurl at anyone who questions their policies".

The American System

If the United States was to nurture its independence and Liberty at home, it must steer clear of Europe's wars and ambitions and preserve its freedom of action. Hence the dicta of Washington and Jefferson against entangling alliances. But to refuse to "go over to Europe" was not enough; the United States must also see to it that European powers did not "come over to America." For if they did, they would inevitably threaten American interests, force the United States to play a role in the European balance of power, or, what was worse, create a second balance-of-power system in the Western Hemisphere itself. Hence the United States must work to fashion, as its limited means allowed, a uniquely American international system.

Expansionism

The fourth and final tradition of the Old Testament is expansionism, which captures the reasoning for the enlargement of the territorial boundaries of the United States from its initial restriction to the East Coast at the time of the founding to the total possession of all land stretching from the East Coast to the West Coast by the 1850s. McDougall points out that expansion was already an inevitability—people were going to venture further west regardless of any government direction or lack thereof—and expansionism was simply the ideological rationalization of that inevitability. This bottom-up nature contrasts with the first three traditions, which were essentially concerted decisions by the American government and which could have differed had different winds prevailed. However, he contends that the wide embrace of the ideology of expansionism among the early American population flows naturally from the first three traditions: not only was a central element of liberty at home the freedom to grow, but to defend the American System from European encroachment it must maintain the ability to preempt European bids on North American land by unilaterally expanding its borders.

McDougall further explicates the ideology of expansionism by pointing to the eight ideological motivations of expansionism identified by historian Albert K. Weinberg:

1. Natural right: The United States had a natural right to "regulate the future destiny of North America".
2. Geographic predestination: The unoccupied portions of North America were without value unless developed; hence, it was geographically predestined that the United States should expand further into the continent to develop it.
3. Natural growth: It was only natural that a nascent country grow.
4. The American sphere: New lands would gravitate into the American sphere (for example, John Adams believed Cuba would gravitate towards the United States after gaining independence from Spain).
5. Virtuous industry: Virgin land existed for man to develop, so naturally Americans should expand into the undeveloped continent.
6. Liberty: American growth ipso facto meant an increase in liberty; hence, expanding republicanism provided a justification for the expansion of the United States.
7. Manifest Destiny: As people moved into and developed more of the continent, it was the duty of the United States to admit all qualified territories freely into its republic. This, according to McDougall, was the "pure" expression of Manifest Destiny; however, he notes a second "belligerent, insatiable, and impatient" version developed that pushed for the forceful expansion of America's borders.
8. Regeneration of other cultures: The United States should "liberate" foreign places—even densely populated ones—to bring them into the "blessings of American civilization".

McDougall counters the traditional historical narrative that American expansion was primarily motivated by the belligerent version of Manifest Destiny. Rather, he argues that most nineteenth century Americans would have accepted the first seven elements but would have rejected the eighth element; he points, for example, to President James K. Polk's decision to accept the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, purchasing Texas, New Mexico, and California from Mexico—after emerging victorious from the Mexican-American War— while rejecting the minority opinion that all of Mexico should be taken over. He also pushes back against the idea that expansionism was motivated by an ideology of racial superiority, i.e. that expansion was a deliberate effort to dispossess Native Americans or that a "victory culture" promoted expansion for the purpose of defeating and slaughtering Natives. In his view, expansionism was never motivated by racial superiority (which was a widely held belief through much of American history), it was motivated by those eight elements listed above and racial superiority was only used to reconcile the contradiction that Americans believed they were expanding liberty while at the same time doing immense harm to Natives.

New Testament

"Beginning in 1898, the first sort of moralism began to give way to the second, whereupon the prophets of the Crusader State canonized a new foreign policy testament. The role of John the Baptist was played by the Progressive Imperialists, who heralded the imminent gospel. Wilson played the savior and, as his hagiographers put it, was promptly crucified. The architects of Containment and Meliorism then wrote the epistles that taught Americans how to live out their new faith."

Wilsonianism

"We are participants, whether we would or not, in the life of the world. The interests of all nations are our own also. We are partners with the rest."

—Woodrow Wilson

The sixth US foreign policy tradition identified by McDougall is Wilsonianism, the brand of liberal internationalism associated with US President Woodrow Wilson. In line with the interventionist nature of Progressive Imperialism, but favoring a more universalist, multilateral approach of collective security, open diplomacy, reduction of armaments, self-determination, and an intergovernmental association of nations, McDougall concludes that Wilsonianism largely conflicted with the first four traditions by thrusting America upon the world in an attempt to shape it along abstract, American ideals.

Deeply tied as it is to Wilson, McDougall expends considerable space analyzing the man's philosophies and temperament. Describing Wilson as someone who "loved, craved, and in a sense glorified power", he adduces that Wilson advanced a far different version of American Exceptionalism than the founders had intended: rather than be a shining city on a hill that would serve as an example—but not an interferer—in the rest of the world, America, with Wilson at the helm, would instead set out to improve the world through its foreign policy. "The idea of America", Wilson asserted, "is to serve humanity". For this reason, Wilson was a supporter of Progressive Imperialism. He cheered the annexation of the Philippines and Puerto Rico, imposed military protectorates on Haiti and Nicaragua, and refused to engage with the government of Victoriano Huerta in Mexico because of Huerta's brutality, despite the fact that this jeopardized American business interests. He even once quipped he would "teach the South American republics to elect good men".

It would be this belief that would motivate Wilson to enter the nation into World War I (begrudgingly—he had initially wanted to negotiate peace, the so-called "Peace without Victory" approach). While there were many factors motivating the US entrance into the world, not least Germany's decision to wage unrestricted submarine warfare, McDougall argues that Wilson's primary motivation was to set the United States—under his leadership—in a position to establish a new, peaceful world order based upon liberal principles:

The damage done to U.S. commerce seems to have interested Wilson little. Nor did he cling to neutrality because it was American tradition, or because he was a pacifist (he was not), or because the American people were almost unanimously in favor of staying out of the war. He did it because he believed that remaining above the battle was the only way that he, Wilson, could exert the moral authority needed to end the war on terms that would make for lasting peace...[principles of]: no more territorial gains achieved by conquest; equality of rights for small nations; government control of arms manufacture and an "association of nations wherein all shall guarantee the territorial integrity of each."

Wilson, for this reason, always described the United States as an "associated power" and not an "allied power" of the Allies so as to distinguish the aims of the United States, which would seek to advance a liberal internationalist world order after the war, from the Allie's war aims, which sought to reestablish the old imperial order at the conclusion of the war. Adding to the mix, during the War the Bolsheviks seized power from the Tsarist autocracy in Russia and set about establishing an international communist order. Thus, the United States under Wilson became one of four contestants for the world's future: "the German militarists, the democratic but imperialist Allies, Wilson with his program of liberal internationalism, and Communists preaching social revolution."

With the Russians out of the war, and the allies victorious, Wilson set about advancing his goal of a liberal international world order, which he had previously elucidated in his famous Fourteen Points. In negotiating the peace treaty to conclude the war, Wilson hammered for his liberal internationalist ideas to be incorporated. In the end, he was forced to compromise on most of his principles for the sake of ensuring the establishment of the League of Nations, an international organization that would serve as the progenitor of the United Nations. But he was unable to convince the United States Senate to ratify the League Covenant (in large part due to his unwillingness to accommodate almost any of the Senate's reservations, according to McDougall), depriving the League of one of the world's great powers—and the nation whose leader had championed it in the first place.

Ultimately, the League would prove mostly ineffectual and the Republican Congress of the 1920s would sink back from many of Wilson's principles, enacting protectionist tariffs rather than advance free trade, severely restricting immigration, and generally pulling back from the world stage. However, Wilsonian principles became ingrained enough as to find their way into every presidential platform since Wilson and, most importantly, would come raging back in modified form under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who would establish a liberal international order and make Wilsonianism the "dominant U.S. diplomatic tradition".

Containment

Containment called forth that spread-eagle, damn-your-eyes, us-against-them defiance never far from the surface of the American personality, and convinced the nation that its oldest and dearest tradition, Liberty, was under siege at home and abroad. Nor did Containment violate American Unilateralism so much as it might appear, for whereas the United States made commitments all over the map, it was clearly the boss of the alliances, and so retained its freedom of action. Containment meshed well with Progressive Imperialism, since it validated the projection of U.S. military power across the oceans and made parts of Asia and the Middle East into virtual protectorates. Containment did excellent duty on behalf of Exceptionalism, in that it opposed both colonial and Communist empires, and thus opened or kept open the markets and resources of half the world. Containment even honored Wilsonianism insofar as it served Liberal Internationalist values, enlisted them as weapons in the Cold War, and used the U.N. whenever possible. Hence "American hegemony"—if you will—"constituted a form of anti-imperialist imperialism".

Global Meliorism

McDougall also has particular contempt for Global Meliorism, saying that it is "the least effective and in some ways the most arrogant of all our diplomatic traditions". He argues that foreign aid has, for the most part, been harmful rather than helpful, that triumphs like the Marshall Plan and the occupations of Germany of Japan were "dubious and anyway no model for other parts of the world", and considers its failures—like the Vietnam War and poverty in America's own inner cities—both extremely destructive and harmful to the international reputation of the United States. McDougall wholesale recommends the United States "close its Meliorist shop and abolish all its do-gooder agencies" and instead bolster its own institutions and values domestically so that it may serve as an example to the world.

Reception

David C. Hendrickson, writing in Foreign Affairs, calls the book a "beautifully crafted examination, rich in argument and historical detail, of the traditions of American foreign policy".

It received a mixed review in the conservative American magazine Commentary. While praising it as an "excellent starting point for...examing our present circumstances, consulting our past, and developing a new foreign-policy tradition", professor at Princeton Aaron Friedberg says that "there is...much to quarrel with in Promised Land, Crusader State". In particular, he finds McDougall's treatment of the period following World War II to be "problematic", regarding McDougall's reasoning for viewing containment positively while viewing "global meliorism" negatively to be awkward and convoluted. He points in particular to McDougall's analysis of the Vietnam War, saying that McDougall's caricature of the war as a product of meliorism is a narrative contortion that ignores that the war was motivated in large part by containment itself.

George Nash, writing in the Wall Street Journal, provides a mostly positive review. He says that McDougall has "written a lively and provocative book that does much to clarify our diplomatic traditions", and will be particularly liked by "by libertarians, Buchananite conservatives and all who detest the utopian pretensions of liberal internationalism". He does, however, spout off a list of probing questions for McDougall, asking, for instance, if "American altruism abroad in this century [has] been as futile and destructive as Mr. McDougall believes?"

See also

• Foreign policy of the United States
• Foreign interventions by the United States
• United States involvement in regime change
• Criticism of United States foreign policy
• American imperialism
• Latin America–United States relations
• United States foreign policy in the Middle East
• American Century

External links

• Promised Land, Crusader State — Lecture by Walter McDougall at the University of Chicago
• Promised Land, Crusader State — C-SPAN interview of Walter McDougall