American Foreign Policy

various

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415398237
• eBook ISBN: 9781134705818
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Complete set

Since 1961 the Adelphi Papers have provided some of the most informed accounts of international and strategic relations. Produced by the world renowned International Institute of Strategic Studies, each paper provides a short account of a subject of topical interest by a leading military figure, policy maker or academic. The project reprints the first forty years of papers, arranged into thematic sets.

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• There are also two volumes on Africa, the site of most of the world's wars during the period.

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ADELPHI PAPER 256

The Papers contained here and in Adelphi Paper 257 were first presented at the 32nd Annual Conference of the IISS held in Hot Springs, Virginia in the United States from 6–9 September 1990. They have been amended and revised in the light of discussion and comment at the Conference and, to a limited extent, in the light of subsequent events. Authors were given the opportunity to revise their papers in October and November 1990, but despite the pace of change in world events during 1990, it is surprising just how little amendment was required. These Papers constitute an important body of comment on America’s Place in a Changing World.

First published Winter 1990/91 by Brassey’s for
The International Institute for Strategic Studies
23 Tavistock Street, London WC2E 7NQ

ISBN 0 08 041323 4

ISSN 0567-932X

©The International Institute for Strategic Studies 1990

All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo-copying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies was founded in 1958 as a centre for the provision of information on and research into the problems of international security, defence and arms control in the nuclear age. It is international in its Council and Staff, and its membership is drawn from over 80 countries. It is independent of governments and is not the advocate of any particular interest.

The Institute is concerned with strategic questions – not just with the military aspects of security but with the social and economic sources and political and moral implications of the use and existence of armed force: in other words with the basic problems of peace.

The Institute’s publications are intended for a much wider audience than its own membership and are available to the general public on subscription or singly.

MICROFORM AVAILABILITY: Adelphi Papers are available on 16mm and 35mm microfilm and 105mm microfiche from University Microfilms Inc., 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346, USA. Tel: [phone].

Printed in Great Britain by Nuffield Press Ltd, Hollow Way, Cowley, Oxford OX4 2PH

Contents

America’s Heritage

Professor Stanley Hoffmann

Douglas Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France and Chairman, Center for European Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

The Changing Currency of Power: Paper I

Professor Catherine McArdle Kelleher

School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland, College Park MD

The Changing Currency of Power: Paper II

Yukio Satoh

Director-General, Information Analysis, Research and Planning Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tokyo

The US and the Future of Arms Control

Ambassador Ronald F. Lehman II

Director, United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Washington DC

The End of Traditional Arms Control and the New American Role in International Security

Dr Andrei Kortunov

Head of Department, Institute of the. USA and Canada, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow

The US and Regional Conflicts: Paper I

Dr Susan Kaufman Purcell

Vice-President for Latin American Affairs, The Americas Society, New York

The US and Regional Conflicts: Paper II

Professor Francisco Orrego Vicuña

President of the Chilean Council on Foreign Relations; Professor of International Law, Institute of International Studies, University of Chile

America’s Role in New Security Architectures

Jean-Marie Guehenno

Head of Analysis and Forecast Centre, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris

America’s Role in New Security Architectures: A Commentary

Robert E. Hunter

Vice President for Regional Programs and Director of European Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC

Glossary

ALCM	Air-Launched Cruise Missile
ANZUS	the alliance between Australia, New Zealand and the United States
APEC	Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation
ASEAN	Association of South-East Asian Nations
ASW	Anti-Submarine Warfare
CFE	Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
CSBM	Confidence-and Security-Building Measures
CSCE	Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe
DST	Defense and Space Talks
EBRD	European Bank of Reconstruction and Development
EC	European Community
GATT	General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GNP	Gross National Product
ICBM	Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
IDB	Inter-American Development Bank
IMF	International Monetary Fund
INF	Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces
JVE	Joint Verification Experiment
MBFR	Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions
MIRV	Multiple Independently targetable Re-entry Vehicle
MTCR	Missile Technology Control Regime
NATO	North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NIC	Newly Industrialized Country
NPT	Non-Proliferation Treaty
NTM	National Technical Means
OAS	Organization of American States
OAU	Organization of African Unity
OECD	Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
SALT	Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
SDI	Strategic Defense Initiative (‘Star Wars’)
SLBM	Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile
START	Strategic Arms Reduction Talks

America’s Heritage

PROFESSOR STANLEY HOFFMANN

For several reasons, it is difficult for me to discuss what has made the United States unique or at least distinctive as a great power since World War II. I devoted a large part of a very long book to this subject more than 20 years ago, and see no reason either to repeat or to repudiate an analysis that stressed the combination of a quite separate historical experience, of a set of deeply held principles, and of a peculiar modus operandi, a kind of engineering pragmatism.¹ Moreover, it is difficult to disentangle, in America’s behaviour as a superpower, what was determined or dictated by the structure of the international system, by the imperatives of power, and what was shaped by America’s specific conceptions and habits. Finally, it is equally difficult to disconnect a discussion of American specificity from the current debate on whether or not the US is in decline – although the way in which this debate is being held tells us a few things about distinctive American features. What I will try to do in this essay is, first, to describe these features, particularly as they appeared in the period of American predominance; secondly, I will examine the extent to which they have changed, and I will end with some remarks about the present debates on the future of America’s role in the world.

* * *

What was unique in 1945 was the absolute and relative material wealth and power of the United States. In their politely passionate dialogue, both Paul Kennedy and Joseph Nye have mentioned figures that do not need to be listed here. Possessing an extraordinarily dynamic and efficient economy, two-thirds of the world’s gold reserves, a GNP that had increased by more than half since 1939, at a time when all the other industrial economies were in ruins, was an enormous asset and something unprecedented in modern history. Having forces and armaments deployed both in Europe and in Asia, and a nuclear monopoly was equally important. All this is familiar. Less often stressed, yet not without its own significance, was America’s geographic position. True, it had not changed! But in a world in which everything else had, and with the collapse of Europe and much of Asia, the location of the US between the Atlantic and the Pacific meant that what had been a kind of periphery, a huge ‘offshore’ subcontinent away from the Eurasian landmass, was now a hub, a centre, from which goods, ideas, and influence could be sent to all parts of the globe.² In Spykman’s words, the ‘rimland’ had become the new ‘world citadel or heartland’,³ and the former centres of power, in Western Europe and East Asia, were, so to speak, squeezed between the vast empire in the old heartland: the USSR, and the new superpower in North America.

Obviously, America’s material superiority, and even its new geographical ‘centrality’ resulted from what had happened to the other actors. However, their fate was even more fraught with consequences in another respect: at the level of political decisions. America was already an economic giant, a major military and naval power, and a decisive player in 1918, and yet Congress and the American people had rejected permanent ‘entanglements’, even in so flimsy an edifice as the League of Nations. What was truly unique about the period 1945–7 was America’s decision to set aside a long and hallowed tradition of separation or insulation, first defined by George Washington in his Farewell Address and eloquently restated by John Quincy Adams in 1821. As long as there had been European powers capable of trapping the US into ‘all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition’ (Adams), as long as the US risked being ‘implicated … by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of [Europe’s] politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enemies’ (Washington), the American nation has followed the Founding Fathers’ advice. The world situation of 1945 was extraordinary – and the US found itself in a situation that was just as extraordinary, as well as paradoxical: it consigned its tradition to the history books, yet faced the world in which it was now ready to take its full place with all the notions, habits and practices developed during a century and a half of separation. Most great powers in history had ‘risen through the ranks’, and moved from limited significance to preeminence through long periods of involvement and conflict. Like them, the US had, at first, to consolidate its power at home, and resorted to expansion in a limited area. Yet that westward drive across North America had involved the new nation in only one interstate conflict – with Mexico – and into wars with native Indians; with respect to the main players in world affairs, the US, except for the episode of 1917–8, had remained apart, and, as much as possible, non-aligned. Even America’s venture into colonial expansion had been only briefly (but strongly) contested at home, and had only led to a short war with one minor European country – Spain.

America thus became a superpower almost without training and preparation, unlike Britain or the Soviet Union. This had a number of very important consequences. The most obvious was inexperience. In 1945, the US had very few seasoned diplomats, and a tiny ‘foreign-policy establishment’. Ties had been close only with Britain, thanks to wartime collaboration in all fields. If one analyses Franklin Roosevelt’s policy towards France, China and the Soviet Union, one cannot fail to be struck by the errors of judgment, the illusions and the clumsiness that resulted from this lack of experience, an ignorance of history, the reliance on often dubious ‘authorities’, and a great deal of wishful thinking. There are other reasons as well for what I once called America’s difficulty in understanding the ‘foreignness’ of foreigners, but this was certainly one of the major causes. People are always best at understanding, abroad, the kinds of ordeals they have gone through themselves. Americans had an instinctive sympathy for ‘wars of national liberation’, having established their own independence in this way. Yet they had no experience of social revolutions, and so tended to miss or misjudge the social struggles and upheavals that were racking and shaping the world into which they entered. Nor did they have much experience of a diplomacy of equals; it was fortunate that they took their place on the world scene as leaders, not as ordinary players, although this did not always make for very smooth relations with those who had only recently fallen from grace, or with the USSR. The US, in the years after 1945, has tended to look at the world a bit as if it were a tabula rasa, or indeed, as if its history (or its very creation!) began with America’s new presence; whereas, in fact, the world was very old, and, in terms of experience in international relations, it was the US itself which was almost a tabula rasa.

A second consequence of America’s quasi-Immaculate Conception as a world leader has been less frequently noted. In 1945, many Americans felt badly about their country’s behaviour in the period between the two World Wars. The US had indulged in a practice which two contemporary writers have traced back to Jefferson⁴ – the refusal to prepare for war – but also to modify a course that inevitably led to war (in Jefferson’s case, with England, in Roosevelt’s with Japan). It had indulged in such ineffectual gestures as non-recognition policies, and in the futile attempt at legislating immunity and safety through the Neutrality Acts. The isolationists and ‘America firsters’ who had demanded the perpetuation of the tradition of non-entanglement and had pointed to the follies of European anarchy in order to justify insulation, had made their own powerful contribution to appeasement; when war came, they changed positions, with all the zeal of converts. Those who had been lucid felt vindicated, and were determined not to have the errors of appeasement repeated. I find it difficult to explain the zest, the fervour, the almost exhilarating sense of purpose that characterized the small, and later growing, American ‘establishment’ if one does not take into account the desire to atone for past mistakes, the determination to exorcize a kind of collective guilt (a factor which, I believe, remains important if one wishes to understand the attachment of so many non-Jewish Americans to Israel: they remember, and are being repeatedly reminded of, American indifference to the plight of European Jews in the 1930s and during the war). Thus, there was a kind of national decision not just to lead, but to do so with every instrument at America’s disposal: activism, compensating for past passivity. Having failed to understand the necessity of power for a great nation, or rather seen in its uses abroad a source both of alienating entanglements and of moral evils, the US was now going to listen to the message of the Realists, or at least to that part of their message that said: no world role without adequate power and the will to use it. Having deserted the world in 1919, having failed it in the 1930s, Americans were now going to make up for lost time. Guilt can be a heavy burden, but it can also spur one to redemptive action, and this is exactly what happened.

A third effect of America’s sudden break with separateness was that the US poured not only its energy, but its spirit into world affairs. As a superpower, the US did not merely face the world as a grand mechanic operating the balance of power. It had a mission, which went back to its national origins. For the break with the past was only partial. The US now had to deal with the world, but it would be ‘in’ it in order to reform it. This missionary impulse had been present since Jefferson, and it had briefly triumphed under Woodrow Wilson. World War II had, by necessity, been a highly ideological conflict, and it was then that what could be called an American ideology for world use developed. It had two simple and connected points, which were formulated by Henry Luce in 1942: ‘Because America alone among the nations of the earth was founded on ideas which transcend class and caste and racial and occupational differences, America alone can provide the pattern for the future’.⁵ In other words, America’s political uniqueness made it ‘the elder brother of the nations in the brotherhood of man’, and the world had to be remade in America’s image. The US was to be the role model, the teacher, the nation whose political and social ‘formula’ (Tocqueville was frequently quoted as the author who had best understood America as a liberal society of equals, untainted by feudalism and the authoritarian hierarchies of the Old World) was destined to become the ‘pattern’ for an improved planet. Many writers had interpreted American history as an oscillation between periods when the imperative was to preserve the nation from European ‘contamination’, and periods when the reformist impulse took over. After 1941, the latter prevailed, precisely because after Wilson, the former had ruled, with poor results.

What made the US so enthusiastic a player was that it had a vision for the world that derived, not from a set of intellectual dogmas, like Marxism, but from an (idealized) national experience. Both dogmas based on often arid sociological analyses, and national experiences based on flesh and blood ordeals, can inspire faith and an almost religious zeal, but the way in which, in the latter cases, such faith is transmitted and such zeal obtained is more diffuse, subtle and spontaneous than in cases of ideological indoctrination by an elite of self-appointed ‘priests’. America’s vision derived its strength from a combination of political and moral beliefs – what Ralf Dahrendorf once called the Enlightenment in action. In 1945, the world found itself confronted by, and asked to choose between, two variants of the Enlightenment creed: both ‘Americanism’ and communism stood for progress, affirmed their faith in the perfectibility of man, their belief in the capacity of science to change the world, their conviction that, under certain circumstances, world harmony (and not merely moderation, or a stable balance) could be obtained, and their contempt for old hierarchies and obsolete social orders. But only the American variant stressed political pluralism, the revolutionary potential of the free individual, and the virtues of religious humility gently reining in human hubris. What the US derived from its view of its national experience was not only the mora...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• American Foreign Policy in the Nixon Era
• America’s Role in a Changing World (Part I)
• America’s Role in a Changing World (Part II)