The Bush Administration’s War for Freedom

George W. Bush obtained the presidency with the expectation that he would have the opportunity to reform education and strengthen the economy. Instead, the events on September 11^th thrust him into a presidency primarily dealing with foreign affairs.  Unlike his father, who was director of the CIA prior to being president, Bush 43 had no experience dealing with American diplomacy. The spike of nationalism that transpired in American culture following the attacks created a nearly universal sense that something must be done about Islamic radicalism. The nationalism that propelled the United States into a global war on terror was a side effect of the concept of American exceptionalism that many citizens hold to be true. This is evident in the rhetoric that Bush and other leaders, as well as the media, used in the post 9/11 era. Though many of the decisions Bush made in office are now seen as tragic, the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum erases the farces of his presidency, while focusing on the idea of American exceptionalism to justify those decisions.

 

When observing the financial situation that is necessary to create a presidential museum, it is not difficult to understand why George Bush is painted in such a flattering way. A small portion of the funds come from taxes, but the majority of the money is given by people who believe Bush was a great president. These are people who, like Bush, have a strong belief in the notion of American exceptionalism. Rather than the subjective picture of his presidency being intentionally disingenuous, it is likely that it is the way Bush and his supporters actually see his presidency and the global war on terror.  To any person willing to be critical of the decisions that propelled the United States into a single-handed decades-long war against an ideology, the museum comes off as misleading and a denial of the true nature of the United States’ global war on terror, especially the Iraq War.

 

Before presenting visitors with the United States’ war on terror, the museum cleverly evokes empathy for Bush as a person and leader. The hallway that introduces the exhibit portrays Bush’s upcoming as both modest and inspirational to his character as leader. It describes the love he has for his family and the conservative values of hard work, patriotism, and neighborly love attributed to any white suburban family in the 40s and 50s. Next is Bush’s No Child Left Behind legislation. Though controversial, it is portrayed as one of Bush’s most prominent successes. It also effectively places visitors in a position of compassion for children and their importance in the future of the United States.

 

When one turns around after viewing this shrine to America’s children, complete with a cute miniature school bus for kids to sit in, they are confronted with an ominous circular room with low lighting. In the center are two beams, twisted and mangled, pulled directly from ground zero. They serve as a morbid center piece, with most of the lighting focusing on them. Along the walls of the room are four televisions embedded in the wall, covering each tower, the pentagon, and United Airlines flight 93. They depict the impact of each plane, the urgency and anxiety that filled every news organization’s coverage, and the tearful reactions of New Yorkers watching it unfold. Even as a person critical of the justifications 9/11 gave to irrational and impulsive diplomatic decisions, this section of the exhibit effectively recreates the mood felt during 9/11 and the days that followed. I was filled with combined feelings of anxiousness, sadness, resentment, and even a desire for retribution. Of course these feelings are justified for any American experiencing a recreation of that day’s events. However, the sensational depiction of them serves the same purpose in the museum as it did in the post 9/11 Bush presidency.

 

Following this section is a timeline of Bush’s actions in the following days, ending with a quote by Bush in 2006 invoking Alexis de Tocqueville “[who] saw that the secret to America’s success was… our willingness to serve a cause greater than self.”[1] This idea is much more apparent today than in the 1830s. When applying it to the United States’ actions in the war on terror, it becomes almost comical considering much of the results achieved have been self-serving. Next is an enormous global map labeled “Fighting the Global War.” The map illustrates Afghanistan and Iraq in red, “state sponsors of terrorism” in orange, labels nuclear threats, terrorist attacks, and prevented terrorist attacks. The problem is that it depicts terrorism as a unified movement rather than a complex, disorganized, and scattered culmination of extreme ideologies. Littering an entire section of the globe with red and orange caution signs places blame on millions of people who instead of participating in the violent response to westernism and globalization, live normal lives. Most are not wearing masks and carrying AK-47s. They are going to work every day to support their families, participating in their communities, and cooking supper while their children play with their friends. All of this while dealing with the minority of extremists that plague their states with disorder and violence.

 

Once reaching the map, the left side of the hallway opens up into the rest of the exhibit. In this section, one is allowed to move freely and observe the individual displays in whichever order they please. At this point the museum has effectively built the visitors empathy, disheartened them, pin-pointed the enemy, and created the justification for a global war on terror. This section, which outlines the war during Bush’s presidency, attributes his administration with spreading democracy, and especially “the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq.” One wall in particular portrays an assortment of justifications, as well as exaltations of freedom, peace, free trade, and democracy. Several quotes from Bush appear on the wall including “the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world,” and “America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.” These summarize Bush’s attitude throughout the war; a common belief most clearly traced back to Wilson’s “make the world safe for democracy” speech. [2] They believed that the spread of democracy and free trade equates to prosperity and liberty in America.

 

In a statement of denial or pure naivety, a panel expresses one part of Bush’s freedom agenda as the attempt to “Expand Free Trade to bring people out of poverty and to undercut the despair that fuels extremism.” However, the United States’ attempt at globalizing a free trade market is precisely what led to extremist backlash, and continues to do so, not “poverty and despair.” This is apparent in Bin Laden’s 1996 fatwā entitled “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.” [3] His initial reason to declare Jihad was the United States’ occupation in the Islamic world —which existed for the purposes of protecting free trade­. Post 9/11 extremists are motivated by what, to them, is a forceful and violent attempt at spreading Western values that are at odds with their ideological conservatism. For years the United States has fought to keep the world open for free trade. The result is often the exploitation of citizens and resources, all for the economic interests of United States’ businesses. But when it comes to American interests in the Middle East, the resistance is religious and ideological. This creates opposition far more meaningful to those fighting to resist. The Bush administration’s belief that introducing more of what caused the problem in the first place is the solution serves as a testament to why Iraq was such a farce.

 

An interactive globe presented in the exhibit highlights the democratic states of the world over a period of fifty-eight years. For 2008 it lists 121 democratic nations (including Iraq and Afghanistan). Defining democratic states however, is more complicated than drawing a line. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of  Democracy 2008 illustrates this by ordering democratic nations in a particular order based on categories that that characterize democracies. [4] Additionally, it places proposed democratic nations into four types of regimes: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes. In this more realistic definition Afghanistan ranks at 138, and Iraq at 116. This positions Iraq in the last state considered a hybrid regime, and Afghanistan as an authoritarian regime. Furthermore, though the Bush Museum categorizes Iraq at the end of Bush’s presidency as “able to govern, defend, and to sustain itself,” the EIU’s index gives Iraq a .07 out of 10 on “Functioning of government,” far behind every other nation listed. The effort to illustrate the Bush administration as effectively spreading democratic values to the nations where it concentrated all of its efforts is a reflection of its notion of American exceptionalism. If America is exceptional because it is willing to spread democracy, liberty, and prosperity, as well as challenge anything that opposes those standards, than the global war on terror ­­— which was justified on this effort and the United States’ obligation to fulfill it — must have resulted in the triumph of the United States’ determination.

 

Observing the Bush Museum from a more critical perspective exposes the denial of the United States’ true characteristics in the global war on terror. Considering the same disingenuous justifications present during the Bush administration are also present throughout the exhibit, perhaps the museum is a more accurate depiction of Bush’s term than regularly considered. Bush used the United States’ notion of American exceptionalism — which was stronger than ever post 9/11 — to propel the country into two wars. Involving the United States in decades of combat, the disruption of an already tumultuous region of the world, wasting trillions of dollars, and causing the deaths of nearly 7,000 American soldiers, somehow only strengthens the cause for some. For them, it is the United States’ obligation to spread its ideals that make it exceptional. Though it undermines true American values, (actually established in the Bill of Rights) the Bush administration detaining and torturing prisoners without trial was even justified by the same people that cry for preserving the constitution. For others, like me, justifying the means of war on the United States so-called obligation to spread its values, when the attempted spread of those values is the primary reason conflict exists in the first place, comes off as absurd. If anything is exceptional about the United States it is its ability to sometimes perceive its actions exactly opposite of what they truly are. When the liberation of other states fails, but the economic interests succeeds, the action is not seen as a farce, but an ongoing struggle to free the world of structures that oppose everything that makes the United States exceptional.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. From the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, Texas. All quotations were observed on November 1, 2014.
2. From speech given by Woodrow Wilson on April 2, 1917. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4943/
3. Bin Laden, Osama, “Declaration of War against American Occupying the Two Holy Places,” August 1996, PBS News Hour, retrieved 10 November 2014. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/military-july-dec96-fatwa_1996/

The Denial of an Empire

William Appleman Williams’s book, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, serves as an indictment of the United States’ guilt of being an informal empire. His revisionist perspective of American diplomacy became a standard for understanding United States’ foreign policy. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman argues the contrary. In her book, American Umpire, Hoffman argues that the United States has played the role of an “umpire,” rather than an empire, and that its “willingness to enforce new global norms” is what makes it exceptional.[1] However, Hoffman makes a poor argument and struggles to characterize the United States’ use of power.

The origins of the United States’ “informal empire” can be traced to frontier expansion, or “manifest destiny.”[2] Early American’s saw milk and honey in the West, and pushed — fighting wars and killing Native Americans to get there.  Hoffman argues that forcing “Indian nations at gunpoint to relinquish their lands” was an act of nationalism rather than imperialism.[3] Her distinction between these two forces is that an imperialist nation would treat indigenous peoples as subjects, where a nationalist nation would incorporate them as citizens, with an eventual relief in resistance. Her presumption of how American Indians were treated resembles a 16^th century colonist more than a contemporary scholar. Alan Gallay, in his book The Indian Slave Trade estimates that 30,000 to 50,000 American Indians were sold as slaves to the British out of Carolina between 1670 and 1715.[4] Furthermore, citizenship was not granted to all Native Americans until 1924. If the United States’ relations with Native Americans was characterized by Hoffman’s definition of nationalism, it takes a nationalist nation 400 years to incorporate indigenous populations. The exploitation and subjugation of Native Americans during this time are clear features of imperialism.

Hoffman asserts that the thriving economy of the United States prior to 1898 (before its “supposed worldwide reign”) somehow disputes the claim that it is an empire, arguing that, if a state is an empire, imperialism “is required to produce wealth.”[5] This misunderstanding can be resolved in Williams’s explanation of Frederick Turner’s Frontier Thesis. One must understand that frontier expansion and slave labor — both characteristics of an empire — were necessary in the United States’ success as a world economic power. Hoffman’s mistake is misrepresenting frontier expansionism as anything but an act of imperialism.

Both Williams and Hoffman argue that early American attitudes served as foundations for the policies they each assert. Williams’s expansionism argument asserts that Americans felt they needed to continue expanding to spread democracy and prosperity. Hoffman argues that the founding of a federal government set the tone for the United States umpire. She draws comparisons between the federal government acting as moderator for the state governments, and the United States’ role as moderator on a global scale. She asserts that “avoiding physical violence between nation-states created the need for an umpire precisely because there was no empire,” a statement she makes which seems to never be fully developed into an argument.

Although Hoffman directly challenges Williams’s revisionist interpretation of history, claiming he “viewed history through the wrong end of the telescope,” her thesis falls short of the consistency his holds. Williams would argue that frontier expansionism set the tone for Open Door Policy, characterizing the United States’ diplomatic history as procedure dictated by economic opportunities. The trouble Williams finds is that foreign states do not always want what America has to offer. Hoffman’s argument acknowledges the former to some degree, but rejects the latter, assuming that everyone wishes to be westernized.

Her notion is based off the assertion that the Western values Williams has accused the United States of imposing on typically averse states are in fact ideas evolving from the drifts of global responsiveness. This assumes that westernization —what she calls “the constant striving… of billions of people to improve life” — is fundamentally better than other systems, though she disclaims that as her understanding. It also assumes that it was an organic movement conceived globally, rather than a system originally developed by white entrepreneurial businessmen.  The United States, she believes, was the “pivot of this worldwide transformation.”[6] The successes of these “global trends,” according to Hoffman, are the practices of “access to opportunity, arbitration of disputes, and transparency in government and business.”[7]

Hoffman’s idea of access is political, economic, and social equality. Williams demonstrates in Tragedy that the United States fights for access to the markets of foreign nations, but simultaneously restricts their access to control their own markets, and therefore their own governmental policies. This is evident in the numerous rebellions against governments where the United States’ intervenes economically. On the subject of arbitration, Hoffman argues that it has replaced a need for war, though she admits “force remains a potent tool to which nations still resort.”[8] Somehow “sanctioned framework and collective security” give some justification to forceful world policing.[9] The reality is that the United States has been in perpetual conflict protecting economic interests in the name of spreading “access.”  The third practice of democratic capitalism that Hoffman argues is no stronger an argument for the benefits of American diplomacy. Despite transparency becoming increasingly scarcer every year in American politics, she asserts that it is somehow a result of democracy, but fails to argue precisely how American democratic capitalism is responsible for transparency in other nations.

As for the domestic implications of these three practices, Williams’s theory of economic interests as a motivator demonstrates the failure of attributing them to the United States.  The truth is that corporate and elite interests, as the result of capitalism, have muddled all of these ideas. With the money that goes into modern politics, access to political power for the individual is limited. Arbitration of dispute is irrelevant whenever keeping the world’s market open is at risk. And finally, where is the transparency when the most powerful players in American politics are not required to disclose political spending? If these are the virtues of democratic capitalism, what does the United States’ inability to maintain them say about its global influence?

Contrary to the idea of American exceptionalism, Hoffman argues that comparing American diplomacy with other nations is essential for context. She uses this in an attempt to disprove the United States’ classification as an empire, first, by comparing per capita income and life expectancy. How is it possible for the United States to not rank number one in these, she asks, “if it ruled the world and set the terms of transaction?”[10] Hoffman is incorrect in assuming the classification of an empire requires ruling the world, and only weakens her position. Because foreign policy is often motivated by economic prosperity, it is the elite that dictate the policy, as well as make the profits. The majority of Americans not ranking top in income or health does not dismiss the point that certain industries profit from empire-like behavior, under the protection of the United States’ government. She again oversimplifies her definition of an empire when she asserts that foreign countries (allies) welcome the United States’ military. Her assumption seems to be that those who consider the United States an empire imagine the country itself ruling the world with an iron fist. Having a military presence does not make the United States an empire, using that presence — sometimes with force — to protect the market for American businesses does.

United States’ diplomacy has imposed western ideas of globalization on both willing and unwilling states. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman argues that these ideals are naturally appealing to societies on a global scale, especially because of the success of American democratic capitalism. Hoffman’s notions however, remain too optimistic, require dismissing important details, and fall short of arguing Williams’s influential theory.   The argument against her umpire thesis is best summed up in her own statement: “What made the American role controversial was that it was also a player, and therefore never completely above the game.”[11] The United States’ ability to dictate the rules for smaller players while dominating the game is precisely what makes it a form of empire.

1. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, American Umpire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 18.
2. William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1959, 1962, 1972), 47.
3. Hoffman, American Umpire,
4. Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 299.
5. Hoffman, American Umpire, 14
6. Ibid, 3
7. Ibid, 6
8. Ibid, 8
9. Ibid, 8
10. Ibid, 14
11. Ibid, 17

The Limits of Capitalism

In 1959, William Appleman Williams published The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, revising what were then the contemporary notions of American foreign policy. Williams argued that American diplomacy has been largely influenced by economic interests, resulting in the United States’ classification as an informal empire. Andrew Bacevich, in The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, attributes American foreign policy to the self-interests of the elite, but also examines the influence of the characteristics he attributes to United States’ citizens. Bacevich argues that these characteristics, being encouraged by governmental policy, have had an outstanding impact on the Unites States’ lavish spending, political bureaucracy, and militarism. In his judgment, the negative implications of the Unites States’ incessant need for “more” is the manifestation of American exceptionalism. [1]

In American Umpire, Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman details American foreign policy as an expression of the unique ideals American citizens have formed in creating their own “united states” governed by a central power. Williams attributes it to the American idea that liberty and prosperity are directly connected to expansionism. Bacevich’s argument follows closely behind Williams’s in some respects. In every case, American diplomacy is argued as being closely related to the things that make the United States exceptional. For Bacevich, America’s consumer culture, dependency on foreign goods and oil, and its inability to be financially responsible are the features that make it exceptional.

According to Bacevich, the collapse of the Soviet Union offered an opportunity for globalization (which he describes as “a euphemism for… informal empire”), and the creation of “something akin to a Pax America.” [2] He argues that the United States’ intervention in the “Greater Middle East” was the culmination of the domestic culture of self-indulgence. [3] American’s gave him a basis for this argument in their response to Jimmy Carter’s “crisis of confidence” speech. Bacevich writes, “In American political discourse, fundamental threats are by definition external… that the actions of everyday Americans might pose a comparable threat amounted to rank heresy.” [4] Carter requested that citizens live responsibly within their means and to conserve fuel in an effort to get rid of foreign dependency on oil. The United States’ response was to elect Ronald Reagan, who, as Bacevich writes, “gave moral sanction to the empire of consumption.” [5] Though Carter feared the effect self-indulgence had on American values in an almost spiritual sense, the practical implications on bureaucracy and militarism were negative as well.

In the case of politics, the United States’ consumer culture has concentrated power in national security, and thus the executive branch. Furthermore, if what America wants is to have the freedom to self-indulge, officials running for anything other than the support of that freedom stand no chance obtaining office. This has led politicians to base foreign policy on sustaining the availability cheap goods. The argument that Bacevich puts forward here has a familiar ring to Williams’s arguments in Tragedy. Diplomacy is influenced by keeping world markets open not only to ensure that the financial elite have places to make money, but to ensure the majority of citizens are able to feel free in their ability to consume. Because, for Americans, freedom is essentially synonymous with self-indulgence, the effects on politics have also made easy the designating of enemies as “other.” As Bacevich writes, “treating Nazism, communism, and Islamism as essentially interchangeable, while ignoring their fundamental and irreconcilable differences” is used “when selling policy.” [6] This is especially apparent in the Bush Doctrine following 9/11. Although the United States’ conflict with Islamist had decades of somewhat complex history, the consensus of many citizens was the extremist hated American liberty, capitalism, and democracy. This places them in the position of “other” that must be eliminated in order to further Bush’s “freedom agenda.” [7] Bacevich argues that the underlying plan in Iraq, after an easy win, was to make way for opportunities to gain power and shape American interests. [8] The Bush Doctrine, he argues, “provided a self-validating authorization for the administration to pursue whatever next steps it chose to take.” [9]

Bacevich goes on to examine the effects his idea of American exceptionalism has had on the United States’ military. He argues that the Cold War and 9/11 have given Americans a false sense of what their military is capable of; assuming not only that its power is unparalleled, but that it is capable of making any changes to any nation entirely on its own.  One could guess, with a basic understanding of economics, that enacting tax cuts while entering two wars is not financially ideal. Bush entered two wars in the name of protecting freedom and democracy while encouraging citizens to continue in self-indulgence rather than conserve.  Bacevich argues that although George Bush failed extensively, he only “unmask[ed] as never before [the] defects and utter perversity” of the ideology of national security. [10]

The notion of American exceptionalism that Bacevich holds is perhaps even more negative that William Appleman Williams’s. Bacevich essentially summarizes all of the United States’ troubles as the result of Americans’ “pursuit of freedom, as defined in an age of consumerism.” The result of this is dependence on imported goods, oil, and on credit. Because “nothing should disrupt their access to those goods” Americans are fierce towards anything that poses a threat.  Bacevich acknowledges the source of what he finds exceptional as “the accumulated detritus of freedom, the by-products of our frantic pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.” [11] I would argue that, while that is true, it can be understood as just the nature of capitalism. Williams argued that foreign policy was influenced by the economic interests of the producers. However, capitalism’s ability to mass produce goods cheaply is what created a consumer capitalism United States. It is the combination of producers and consumers’ need for more that Bacevich argues is detrimental to the United States. Because it can never be satiated, the incessant need for consumption and production will not reach a compromise from the parties that suffer. Instead they will be forced some other way to reconsider their routines more modestly.

1. Andrew Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2008), 16.
2. Ibid, 2.
3. Ibid, 60.
4. Ibid, 32.
5. Ibid, 36.
6. Ibid, 77.
7. Ibid, 60.
8. Ibid, 120.
9. Ibid, 120.
10. Ibid, 74.
11. Ibid, 5.

American Exceptionalism Threatens Civil Liberties

As I’ve clearly argued before, American exceptionalism has been a major justification in nearly every conflict the United States has entered. Many United States’ representatives and political voices would argue that the United States’ selfless obligation to protect freedom around the world is what makes it exceptional. For them, American interference has been a burden that it has taken on for the sake of preserving all that is good. If I was to attribute anything positive that has made the United States exceptional, it would be the individual rights guaranteed in the constitution. The contemporary notion some American’s have of American exceptionalism have slowly been used to whittle away these individual rights.

A characteristic often attributed to the United States as being unique is the belief that it was formed on the principals of Christianity. Sure, many of the founding fathers identified as Christians, (though most of the popular ones were deist) but what would you expect from 18^th century, upper-class, white males? Yes, many of the indignities defined in the Bible are illegal in the United States, but they are also illegal in every other civilized country. The founding fathers were explicit in their determination to separate church from state. They were all learned men that understood the endorsement of a state religion meant the suppression of individual liberty. The belief that the United States’ Christian foundation is under attack has caused a huge amount of pressure to insert Christianity into every form of society. Things like teaching Creationism in schools, state organizations participating in group prayer, “In God We Trust” stamped on currency, and “Under God” crammed into the Pledge of Allegiance are all efforts to define religion as part of the American way. If they were so apparent in the country’s foundation, efforts to fulfill them would not have all surfaced in the last hundred years. The determination to jostle Christianity into American life only opposes American’s individual liberties.

Many of the same people would also argue that the United States has always fought for democracy and freedom and all of the clichés that are most noble in the world. The first settlers’ illegitimate claim to the continent, the cruel treatment of Native Americans, slavery, Jim Crow, opposition to Women’s suffrage, and (currently) opposition to the equality of all sexual and gender identities are each characteristics of the leader of the free world. The United States’ ability to overcome each of these things is great, but it is not the result of American exceptionalism. It would be remarkable to attribute the United States as the leader of progressing individual liberties. Instead, it has taken the lead of other nations, accepting progress to preserve its legitimacy as a free nation.

The type of liberty the United States has fought for is characterized by American businesses having the largest global market possible. Liberating other countries and introducing democracy is a selfless deed, never mind the benefits to American economic interests. Many Americans like to believe that all of the United States’ wars are indications of American exceptionalism. I would argue that many of the conflicts the United States has entered since WWI have directly transgressed against American individual liberties. In the name of national security, American citizens have been treated as criminals for expressing their right to freedom of speech. Eugene V. Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison for criticizing the Wilson administration and the war. In 2013, Chelsea Manning was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for exposing atrocities carried out by United States’ soldiers. The United States’ global war on terror has brought the Patriot Act and the NDAA, both threats to American civil liberties.

Some American political voices spend time worrying whether there is a war on Christmas, or if certain groups of people will have the same rights as them, but also argue that United States’ military intervention is necessary and noble. These people confuse the liberties they should be fighting for. They believe that treating everyone equal somehow destroys the constitution, but support the conflicts and the movements that have directly contributed to the corrosion of American liberties. Rather than American exceptionalism being defined by American military might and economic superiority, it should be defined by the Americans that have fought to create a more equal society. What is a more impressive result of the “Great American Experiment”: a final realization of “all men are created equal? Or the world’s strongest military being used to protect the investments of the world’s most successful businesses?

No Means No!

In terms of literature, a tragedy is typically defined as a drama that depicts hardship often as the result of the protagonist’s fatal flaw. In tragedies, the audience is often aware of the misfortune that awaits the characters, creating a sense of irony. Fortunately, for William Appleman Williams, the retrospective act of studying history allows a sort of omniscient perspective. His use of “tragedy” in The Tragedy of American Diplomacy perfectly establishes his argument against The United States’ idea of frontier-expansionism and the Open Door Policy he felt resulted in the deterioration of American domestic and foreign prosperity.

Williams’s most apparent example of the tragedy of American diplomacy, as he points out, is in the United States’ relations with Cuba from 1898 through 1961. [1] In freeing Cuba from Spanish tyranny, America’s supposed intentions were to give Cuba independence, encourage economic success and reassure its development into a democracy. One can easily understand through Williams’s argument that the defining incentive for American influence was instead always motivated by domestic capital gain. The United States dominated the island’s economy resulting in control over the sugar industry and prevention of any deviations from its one-crop economy. [2] Furthering that argument is America’s acceptance of corrupt Cuban leaders, but immediate response to civilian transgression to the “economic and political restrictions established by American leaders.” [3] The tragedy that Williams finds is America’s gracious idealistic intentions juxtaposed with its actions’ devastating consequences. The irony in place comes from the obvious expectation — especially apparent when reexamining history — and repetition of these failures.

Though Williams never uses the phrase, a feature of American social and political thought that only enhances the tragedy of American diplomacy is the concept of American exceptionalism. This notion is a self-righteous assertion of American superiority to other less developed, or economically different, states. While the motivation for expansion was always economical, the philosophical justification, recognized by American citizens, business leaders, and policy makers, was the idea of spreading democracy, self-determination, and American ideals. This idea can be seen first in the concept frontier expansion. In his Frontier Thesis, Frederick Jackson Turner argued that “prosperity and representative government were tied casually to expansion.” [4] Thus, part of the American character relied on the nation’s ability to grow.

The irony of America’s idealistic self-conception and its need to spread this idea is in the reality of its effects.  Americans promoted self-determination and laissez-fair capitalism —which implies personal responsibility — in rhetoric, but in practice denied these freedoms to other societies. Williams provides the reforms made in Morocco, China, and Nicaragua as examples to this argument. The process of making fundamental changes in these societies created unrest. Rather than allowing these places to determine their own path and participate in a type of free market they chose, the United States wanted to “stop or stabilize such changes at a point favorable to American interests.” [5] As Williams goes on to criticize: “That attempt can only be describes as a selfish violation of the idea and ideal of self-determination, and even an evasion of the moral obligation to accept the consequences of one’s own actions.” [6]

American exceptionalism begins to play an even larger role beginning in Woodrow Wilson’s presidency. Despite a history of ineffectiveness in United States’ foreign policy, Wilson did not consider a different system. [7] He continued in America’s tradition of the Open Door Policy, which as Williams points out, was “America’s version of the liberal policy of informal empire or free trade imperialism.” [8] Rather than reassessing the best approach to participating in the economic development of the global market, Wilson’s attempt was to adhere to traditional American economics and apply those to the global market, which he believed would lead to prosperity. [9] This strategy, which combined “American supremacy with the political theory of classic liberalism,” was manifested in Wilson’s idea of the League of Nations. [10]

The Bolshevik Revolution on 1917 is important in understanding American diplomacy in the 20^th century, though Williams suggests it is for reasons not traditionally considered. [11] Williams’s observations focus more on American rhetorical and political reactions to the revolution. He argues that because of Wilson’s fear of “the general feelings of revolt,” “The Bolshevik Revolution became… the symbol of all the revolutions that grew out of that discontent.”[12] The tragedy of this, according to Williams is the revolutions Wilson speaks of were reactions to the policies the West had been imposing.

With F.D.R came the conception of the New Deal. Williams argues that the New Deal only strengthened the traditional system of diplomacy by operating within the outdated order of business and politics, emphasizing trade expansion and the Open Door Policy, and worsening the arrangement of free trade imperialism. [13] According to Williams the New Deal’s policies contributed to the tragedy in that defining “overseas economic activity as essential to the welfare of the United States, American policymakers were exceedingly prone to view social revolution in those countries as a threat to the vital national interests of their own nation.” [14]

Where American exceptionalism acts as the enabler to America’s tragic foreign policy, the need for constant growth in a capitalist market serves not only as the purpose for continuous interference in foreign affairs, but as the catalyst to those states’ reactions. Many small conflicts the United States has participated in throughout its history has been in response to radical revolutions. Williams suggests that perhaps America carries more responsibility in this than previous thought. This is apparent in his description of the relationship between informal empires and their weaker counterparts. While nations were allowed local rule, it was within the limits set by imperial power. [15] This meant, in practice, that one part of society ruled, leading the proletariat more inclined to join a cause that promised them a greater influence in their economic welfare. [16]

Williams argues that United States’ diplomacy is tragic in that its complacency and determination to maintain traditional economic policies have been the detriment to its foreign and domestic welfare. Beginning with frontier-expansionism and manifesting itself in Open Door Policy, America’s relentless hunger for wealth — behind the guise of its supposed exceptionalism — has attempted to spread American economics, democracy, and ideals across the globe. It does this while, at the same time, inhibiting foreign economics, governmental policy, and self-determination — all in the expectation of maximum financial gain for the United States. Williams suggests many foreign political movements have been reactionary to American diplomacy. Thus, through the distribution of “freedom,” America has unintentionally manufactured its own enemies, which it must then destroy to protect the “freedom” it produces. The tragedy of American diplomacy is in the ironic, and America’s inability to perceive it.

1. William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy ( New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1959, 1962, 1972), 1.
2. Ibid, 2.
3. Ibid, 2
4. Williams quoting Turner, 32
5. Williams, Tragedy, 67
6. Ibid, 67
7. Ibid, 96
8. Ibid, 97
9. Ibid, 97
10. Ibid, 101
11. Ibid, 104
12. Ibid, 106
13. Ibid, 173
14. Ibid, 174
15. Ibid, 96
16. Ibid, 96