American foreign policy

Preface

It is no unmixed evil that the feeling of confidence in the limitless extent of the country's resources and in its economic self-sufficiency should lately have been shaken. So long as an apparently boundless horizon extended before us, we moved on a plane different from the rest of the world and indifferent thereto. To-day, when for the first time we are beginning to understand that our natural resources are limited, that the end of the nation's possibilities for internal development is almost within sight, and that its capacity of consumption has been unable to keep pace with its production, the necessity of providing foreign markets for our industry is increasingly felL Accompanying this has come the realization of the need for a navy sufficiently powerful to protect our over-sea vi PREFACE

commerce and our coast line, our policies in Latin America and our distant dependencies in the Pacific. The country has at last realized the importance of a fleet as an insurance against war. It has still to be aroused to the necessity of an efficient diplomacy as an adjunct to the navy, both in the extension of our commerce and influence abroad and in the preservation of peace while carrying out the national policies.

Hitherto our attainment to national greatness has been unaccompanied by the corresponding preparation in the public mind for a foreign policy conforming to the magnitude of the country's new responsibilities and the loftiness of its manifest destiny. American public opinion, only lately awakened to the importance of intercourse with other nations, has still to be trained to the consciousness of what it may rightly demand from diplomacy as an instrument for the nation's welfare. It remains weighted by the handicap of tradi-

PREFACE vu

tions which, though they have outlived their utility, have not yet lost their hold. The same process of renovation which, acting in industry, has borne us into the forefront of nations requires infusion into the mechanism of our foreign policy, in order to adapt it to the present and future exigencies of the Republic's international position.

The purpose of these studies is to draw attention to the duty of diplomacy to further our foreign policy in different regions of the world, and to the conditions of national security upon which must rest its assertion.

The Author.

Contents

I. The Policy of Understandings . 1

II. Relations with Europe. ... 30

III. The Recognition of the Monroe

Chapter I

Our prejudice against foreign alliances has been handed down as the tradition of a century, confirmed by the early diiBBculties the Republic encountered. The result of the Revolution had been to withdraw the new federation from the orbit of European politics. The French fleet sailing from Yorktown cut the cord which linked us with the Old World, and we were left to pursue alone the destinies to which our position and our energies were to summon us. When the acquisition of Louisiana extended the nation's frontiers to the Pacific, our insular position towards Europe offered, save from Canada, no basis for attack, and we were freed from that dread of invasion never absent from the minds of continental statesmen. After the War of 1812, our relations with other countries subsided to a calm level of platonic cordiality, interrupted only by outbursts of sympathy for the cause of liberty abroad, and hardly disturbed except for solicitude with regard to Cuba, Confederate attempts at securing foreign recognition, and, connected therewith. Napoleon the Third's abortive Mexican adventure. The attitude of aloofness we preserved toward the Old World remained practically unchanged for a century. Almost our only point of continuous contact came through the mass of emigrants who were speedily absorbed by the nation's phenomenal growth ; and apart from certain Irish efforts to draw us into Anglophobia, the foreign elements in the country have never, in matters of importance, attempted to influence our diplomacy with regard to their lands of origin. The nation was left to effect its internal evolution free from the consideration of problems of foreign policy, and in struggle only with itself.

Where the very existence of a country is at stake, international relations, when they are not immediately threatening, appear of minor consequence. The long struggle leading up to the Civil War and the period of Reconstruction evolving from it had withdrawn our interest from abroad. Occupied by its industrial evolution, the internal development of the country, which required and consumed its remaining energy, pointed to the West. For a century foreign intercourse rightly appeared to the nation to be of secondary importance. In these years when the material foundations of our present position were being laid, the diplomatic experience early difficulties had given us came almost to be forgotten. Economically and politically, the nation's energies were all engaged and absorbed in other directions.

To the outbreak of the Spanish War, we had little or no foreign danger to fear. In that critical first century of the Republic's development, the necessity for a national policy of isolation was manifestly dictated to our interests. Any other course would have enmeshed us in the European system of balances and obviously have hindered our expansion, even had it led to no more baneful result. The wisdom of this policy, which had impressed itself on the leaders of both parties, appeared to receive further consecration from the political testament of Washington. His counsel had been transmitted from generation to generation, impressive by the weight attached to his great name. That it was directed not against alliances, but against entangling alliances, came almost to be overlooked.

Mr. Olney has justly observed in his acute analysis ^ of the Farewell Address that, correctly interpreted, it holds as true to-day as when delivered. Washington had founded his reasoning on our then feebleness as a nation and on our remote-

ness in distance and in interest from events of a strictly European order. He had said, to quote again oft-repeated words : —

"Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. . . . Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. ... It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world. . . . Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies."

Three things ensue from this. While we were to abstain from all participation or interference in the internal affairs of Europe on account of our remote relation thereto, no mention is made of the rest of the world. It may be argued that the future of other continents did not present itself as of importance to Washington's mind. But even if this assumption were true, are we to allow a prescriptive force to govern our attitude toward questions ignored by our first President when he had carefully limited the application of his advice to specific conditions ? Secondly, while our remoteness invited a certain line of policy, the need for this once ended, it is presumable that our policy would likewise change in conformity to new requirements. Lastly, he advocated in the clearest unmistakable terms the expediency of temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies. Indeed, who could have been more sensible to the fact that without a foreign alliance our national independence would hardly have been established ?

The marvelous expansion of the country during the last century appears to have amply justified the success of all its policies. But there is an unearned increment even in statecraft. The force of impact of the huge moving mass upon the American continent has perhaps gained more for us than any foresight of statesmanship. In the presence of such diplomatic problems as we have hitherto had to solve, the wisdom or error of a few has been of secondary importance. The country's prosperity has been built on the solid rock of common effort rather than on the individual genius of statesmen. Save perhaps with Lincoln, its destinies have never been intimately tied with those of any single man. This result, while it has firmly established the foundations of the nation's welfare by making them largely independent of governmental action, has not been without drawbacks of another order. Little obvious as these were so long as we remained within an insular wall, they became manifest the day of our emergence from political seclusion.

We had rejoiced in isolation without realizing that the strength we were acquiring was destined to outgrow its limitations, and that almost unconsciously we were laying the foundation upon which the future assertion of our foreign policy was to rest. The accumulation of wealth appeared to be the nation's principal interest. Politically and economically, the aloofness which had shielded our infancy, after having been its protection, was beginning to prove an obstacle to further development. Yet, paradoxically, we failed to appreciate the importance of Ihe change which brought our isolation to an end.

The training of our public life had for a century been that of domestic politics. The complications of international relations with their new responsibilities flashed almost as a revelation before the entire nation, which found itself on the morrow of the Spanish War in the presence of problems as novel as they were unforeseen. Without realizing either their gravity or their solution, we have since approached these with calm confidence, a loftiness of purpose characteristic of our highest political ideals. We have given in Cuba, and are giving now in the Philippines, an example of national altruism that history has not often paralleled. The remembrance of our own past security has caused us, however, to consider the problems they present less in their relation to us than in our relation to them, and to devote correspondingly less solicitude to the diplomatic and military exigencies imposed by our dependencies in order to forestall the possibility of later humiliation. Our former weakness had proved our strength. The conquests of our strength and our fortune have now become our weakness.

By the acquisition of the Philippines we have assimilated the conditions of our possession to those of other nations holding Asiatic colonies. Beyond this the occupation of the archipelago affects the assertion of our influence elsewhere, curtailing the independence of what would otherwise have been an exclusively American policy by holding in view the special requirements of our Asiatic position. From a diplomatic and military standpoint, the possession of these dependencies is beyond question such a source of weakness that it may well be asked if a public opinion with higher political training would ever have voluntarily assumed the responsibility of their acquisition, had it been aware of its veritable import. But even a greater weakness, when considered in the light of similar deficiencies shared by other powers, is far from being without remedy if we do not voluntarily deprive ourselves thereof.

Emerging from a century's isolation, we find ourselves at the threshold of a new era with two roads before us. The one supposedly traditional in its character counsels us to rely entirely upon our unaided resources, to be strong in the consciousness of our might as well as of that right which every nation arrogates as peculiar to itself. This policy appeals on the surface to the manliness of the nation. Carried to its logical conclusion it might be practical, but at what sacrifice! A triumph of militarism would be the only effective means by which we could assure the safeguarding of our pretensions and over-sea possessions. Should our ambitions ever clash against those of a state equal to us in sea power, that had adopted the principle of the nation in arms, we could successfully oppose it only at the same cost. Even greater sacrifices would be necessary on our part, since other nations could rely under certain conditions on the aid of allies, from which we should presumably be debarred. In any measure short of an enormous increase in armed strength, so great that no nation or coalition would wish to risk the challenge of our titles, lies danger ahead. A traditional policy inevitably means for us a military policy.

Statesmanship is, above all, guidance in economy of effort. To adjust the requirements of a national policy in conformity with its resources, to see that no greater effort is called for than may be necessary to accomplish a given result, is its method. Armed strength is certainly the foundation of our security, and to neglect it would be to incur greater risk. But while a nation's safety is purchased only at the price of constant vigilance and preparation, there is a limit even to this. Our strength, however great, is only relative — proportionate neither to the magnitude of our ambitions nor to the defenselessness of our foreign policies.

Any undue increase in armaments such as would be necessary to guarantee us against all dangers presents two serious disadvantages. It is costly, especially in a country without conscription, where military expenditure already meets with militant opposition. It further conduces to rivalry on the part of other nations. Moreover, any sudden or unlimited increase would hardly be in tenor with our repeated declarations of peaceful intentions. Yet such is the force of an outworn tradition that its alternative, or rather its supplement, has hardly been considered. Diplomatic means of defense exist as potent as military, and the presence of an ally's fleets may preserve our own from action. The choice lies before the nation : either we must maintain as many troops in the Philippines as our military advisers judge necessary against all contingencies, and provide as many battleships to guard the oceans which encircle us as our naval advisers deem indispensable, or we must consider the advisability of other measures. Complete isolation from the world's affairs on a nation's part is warranted only by extreme feebleness or confident strength. The fruit of recent victories has now deprived us of former invulnerability. National greatness has not been achieved without the peril of novel responsibilities. We find ourselves exposed to danger both in our South American pretensions and in our Oriental possessions, yet without diplomatic recognition of the first, or allies to aid in protecting the second. It is possible that our strength permits us to dispense with both. But for a peaceful nation we may rely too much on battleships, and not enough on diplomacy. The most striking development in modern diplomacy has been the vast extension given within quite recent times to the system of arrangements and understandings which now link together the nations of Europe. These differ radically from the eighteenth-century idea of alliances, which were mainly offensive in purpose even when restricted in their liability. The new conception, on the contrary, is eminently pacific in character, and limited in application to comparatively narrow ends. It aims within certain determined regions to preserve actual conditions and to eliminate possible causes of conflict, chiefly in colonial spheres, by taking cognizance of the special or mutual interests of the powers concerned, and lending to the preservation of such agreements the force that is derived by cooperation of effort.

There is reasonable certainty to-day that Europe will never again witness such a coalition as once annihilated Poland. In fact, the dread of spoliation has given rise to this system of mutual insurance. The

European powers, confronted with greater difficulties than our own, and, perhaps, possessing more ancient experience in the handling of foreign affairs, have founded their security on mutual guarantees intended to preserve policies of common interest. Even Japan, the last comer in the comity of nations, has in recent years been too painfully reminded of the absence of similar precautions not to welcome the first opportunity of preventing its recurrence. For us it may also become advisable to consider the adoption of a foreign policy upon a non-partisan basis, upon broader foundations than would have been warranted by our former position, and in greater conformity with actual necessities. We are still somewhat unused to considering questions of this order in their world-wide aspects. Our situation as a great nation has been established by the logic of facts, and without the corresponding intellectual preparation, so impotent when it does not possess the material foundation for greatness. Circumstances have placed us in the forefront of world powers. But our position has been achieved almost too easily. We have not experienced the discipline of adversity which has schooled other great states. We have not felt the need for caution in our acts of international significance. We have gone ahead almost without a policy other than the Monroe Doctrine and our traditional non-entanglement. At the present juncture, even though the benefits of our new importance are mainly apparent, and we rightly look forward with confident hope to the future, it may be advisable for a prudent statecraft to take cognizance of the possibility of shoals in the course that lies before us. Our diplomacy ought to concern itself with the preparation of a policy which will enable us, so far as human foresight can foretell, to escape such perils while pursuing our destiny as a great nation.

The past has brought us into contact with the Old World both in its collective form as an aggregate of states and with the individual European powers. In the formulation of any policy the experience of history cannot be disregarded, and we have to bear in mind the nature of the danger which may beset us. The continental nations have always inclined, when their contemplated action lay outside Europe, to collective manifestations, as being of a nature to diminish their risk and increase their force, while protecting them from danger behind. We have witnessed the effects of such concerted action against Japan, robbed at Port Arthur of the prize of victory over China. We have seen it operating with varying success against Turkey. We have heard its rumblings, however faint, even against ourselves. The very admission that this peril may conceivably exist means that we cannot with impunity disinterest ourselves from European politics. The future possibility of a concert of powers can never leave us indifferent. More than ever our new dependencies make us vulnerable and offer pawns for possible enemies to take from us.

American diplomacy can have no more important mission than that of guarding against this danger, which would be brought about by the hegemony of one state over others in banding them together for a common purpose. The first principles of our policy demand that we view with disfavor the efforts of any power to assert its own predominant superiority over weaker neighbors. A coalition becomes dangerous when it is guided by a single power. When nations enter upon a strictly equal footing their efforts are too often at variance to be easily effective. American diplomacy has a definite scope before it in exercising watchfulness against the occurrence of such a peril. Nor is our solicitude exclusively political. We should remember what a European commercial union, advocated by many foreign statesmen and economists, would mean for us. Even if such union were without apparent or immediate political scope, its formation, directed mainly against our trade, would create for America a most serious peril : German customs unity preceded German political unity.

Yet neither hostile alliance nor coalition need alarm us so long as we do not voluntarily cripple ourselves by ignoring the means at our command to resist these. This does not imply the necessity for action on our part in events of a strictly European order. The disappearance of Dutch independence, if so unfortunate an event were ever to take place, would, for instance, be keenly regretted by us, but, except for the fate of Holland's colonies, it would not warrant our intervention. Still less would any concern we might feel in the ultimate disposition of Austria be likely to justify military action on our part. The diplomatic solicitude we have in Europe is and should remain that of spectators. But our interests are now too widely spread to permit us longer to disinterest ourselves from any concerted action of the powers, with its almost inevitable extra-European ramifications.

It is only a short step for European influence to extend beyond the Continent and enter into spheres which concern us as well. The line to draw is indeed far more subtle than may at first appear. History bears witness that in diplomacy unimportant beginnings have often unexpected consequences. It is to guard against unpleasant surprises of this nature that we should neglect no opportunity in identifying our action with that of the European states. The more we assert the equality of our rights and responsibilities with theirs, the more we make felt our legitimate influence in the councils of nations, the less likelihood will there be of the formation of any coalition, commercial or political, in opposition to our interests. Political movements possess in themselves an organic growth, and such future danger as may exist for us could more easily acquire head by our aloofness at the time of its inception than by our opposition thereto. Its maturity would present for us greater peril than its infancy. Nor if we act prudently need we ever feel ourselves alone in resisting it. Europe, even under its present cover of friendliness toward us, contains many conflicting interests, and certain of these would normally be favorable to our policy.

We can hardly suppose, however, that the extension unavoidably taken by our diplomacy will not encounter resistance. No power can hope to be successful without incurring the antagonism of others, even though our own peaceful proclivities should preclude us from the former rapacious ambitions of Old World states. But whatever future struggles await us, we cannot forget that diplomacy, like war, may achieve for us victories or defeats. However powerful we may become, a combination may array against us power as great. The burden of our weight, on whichever side of the scales we incline, will inevitably be counterpoised. Even more it will lead almost inevitably to fresh distributions of strength. While the present grouping of triple "entente" and triple alliance, each reenforced by subsidiary aids, may not prove everlasting, it is likely to provide the basis upon which such new accretions will form. Yet even future combinations need not concern us. The balancing of strength is no menace of war. On the contrary, the distribution of liability in such an event among several nations is the most certain guarantee of peace.

Bellicose tendencies are far more likely to exist in a single nation than where several are allied together, and modern alliances tend either to act in the direction of peace, or else to limit the scene of conflict. The recent Russo-Japanese War affords the best example of how the efforts of Great Britain and France, in spite of their respective alliances to each of the contestants, succeeded in isolating the field of hostilities.

As for the argument that our present strength is sufficient, examples are not wanting of states with fleets and armies greater than our own who feel that the interests of peace would best be preserved by a policy of understandings. England, with a sea force far superior to ours, has looked to diplomacy to aid her navy in guarding the British Empire. Allied with Japan, another understanding links her with France, while in the event of war her fleets can make use of Portugal's unrivaled strategic position in the South Atlantic in return for guaranteeing the latter's colonial possessions. Diplomacy has been used by England as an adjunct to naval strength, and her policy has neglected no step to further secure the safeguard of India as the pivot of the British Empire. By these alliances, culminating in the recent agreement with Russia, she has guarded every avenue of approach to her great colony. It may be urged that England's exposed position necessitates such precautions. But has she any possession more vulnerable than are the Philippines ?

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The colonial position of France more closely resembles our own. With dependencies situated at great distance from the home country, she had felt herself unable to protect these in the event of certain contingencies. In spite of the lengthy period of Anglophobia occasioned by colonial rivalry through which she had passed, her diplomacy effected an understanding with Great Britain. France by this means obtained a protection for her dependencies greater than her fleet could give. To this she has added a further guarantee. The defenselessness of Indo-China and the feeling that it lay at the mercy of Japan had been the first lesson of the late war to impress her. Without slighting the susceptibilities of her Russian ally, France has been able to negotiate an agreement with Japan guaranteeing each other's possessions in the Far East.

After these examples of nations possessing colonies, yet supplementing their powers of defense by the aid of other states, we may consider the conditions in which a similar understanding would be advisable for the United States. The problem presents itself of finding a desirable partner willing to enter into a well-defined mutual insurance, with whom no conflicting interests are likely to clash. Our old prejudice against alliances had Europe in view, and to-day, as in the past, any treaty or pact which would entangle us in the internal affairs of the Old World would be condemned. But it is difficult to see the inexpediency of an arrangement which, without adding a ship to our fleet, or a dollar to our expenditure, would restrict the nation's liability to the American continent and the islands of the Pacific, in return for guaranteeing the status quo from Maine to Manila; which would effectively protect the Monroe Doctrine and the Panama Canal, and safeguard the integrity of our dependencies, and in removing the Pacific from the sphere of political change would assure us the sovereignty of the

Philippines for such eventual disposition as the American people deem fit to make. Can it be doubted that an understanding of this nature would immeasurably strengthen our position and our policies, and be a further guarantee for the preservation of peace ?

The price to pay for these benefits would be too heavy if we should be dragged as the result into a continental conflagration, and obliged to take sides in a struggle between the nations of Europe. But the consequence of our understanding with either of the interested parties, in the event of its being engaged in a European conflict, would almost certainly be to restrict and limit the seat of hostilities by removing the Amej'ican continent, and such parts of the Pacific as might be included within its scope, from the field of operations. The alternative is obvious. If any hostile power chose to disregard our warning and challenge our ally within the bounds which we had declared should be removed from the scene of conflict, the clearest dictates of self-preservation would impel us to take arms for a cause which would then become our own. But this contingency is almost too improbable to mention.

Such an understanding would thus be of an essentially peaceful nature, tending only to preserve existing conditions by removing all motive for their disturbance. In contracting it, we should be entering into a mutual insurance limited by the terms of the agreement, which would conceivably restrict its provisions to the guarantee of actual conditions within the lines of longitude embracing the American continent and the Pacific. Providing, therefore, the nation or nations with which such understanding had been entered into were sufficiently powerful, we need feel no concern for the future of the Philippines, the safety of the Panama Canal, or the continuance of the Monroe Doctrine. And while respect for the latter may be obtained by different means, the security of our Asiatic possessions can hardly be assured by any other feasible method.

As an American power and as an Asiatic power, we have to deal with other American and Asiatic powers, considering these in the light of possible friends or adversaries with the consequences attached to each contingency. It is the province of statesmanship to sort the threads of our interests and to see wherein these lie parallel with theirs, and, where they may be dissimilar, to endeavor in times of national calm to adjust causes of friction. The practical advantages of such a process of diplomatic housecleaning have been witnessed in the recent agreements effected by Great Britain with France and Russia. Their differences have now been reconciled. Their diplomatic work has been a labor of peace, and the danger of war, which for so long appeared imminent, has been removed. Diplomacy has given the lie to the ** inevitable conflict" so long foreshadowed between these states, and spared each nation concerned its treasure and its blood, making of former enemies present friends.

We have a far easier task. Yet although no such differences or ambitions divide us from other powers, causes of friction lie not far away. But partly out of respect for a tradition that has survived its utility, partly because of still other reasons, we have not availed ourselves of the diplomatic advantages at hand in fortifying our position. We have not utilized the power of diplomacy and made of it a veritable instrument to strengthen national policies. It still lies before us as a peaceful means to forestall the danger of war and remove the causes of national concern.

Chapter II

We had so long been regarded as a peaceful republic, occupied solely by trade, that Europe was startled by our victory over Spain to realize that we possessed ambitions similar to those which for centuries had spurred on her peoples to assert their influence beyond the seas. It is only half correct, however, to say that the war caused our advent as a world power. It inaugurated a new period less than it hastened the development of a growing movement in American national evolution which by its means attained to earlier maturity, but which must in any event have sooner or later made itself felt.