The Sailor

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Transformation of American Foreign Policy

David F. Schmitz

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780813180458
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Nordamerikanische Geschichte

In The Sailor, David F. Schmitz presents a comprehensive reassessment of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's foreign policymaking. Most historians have cast FDR as a leader who resisted an established international strategy and who was forced to react quickly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, launching the nation into World War II. Drawing on a wealth of primary documents as well as the latest secondary sources, Schmitz challenges this view, demonstrating that Roosevelt was both consistent and calculating in guiding the direction of American foreign policy throughout his presidency.

Schmitz illuminates how the policies FDR pursued in response to the crises of the 1930s transformed Americans' thinking about their place in the world. He shows how the president developed an interlocking set of ideas that prompted a debate between isolationism and preparedness, guided the United States into World War II, and mobilized support for the war while establishing a sense of responsibility for the postwar world. The critical moment came in the period between Roosevelt's reelection in 1940 and the Pearl Harbor attack, when he set out his view of the US as the arsenal of democracy, proclaimed his war goals centered on protection of the four freedoms, secured passage of the Lend-Lease Act, and announced the principles of the Atlantic Charter.

This long-overdue book presents a definitive new perspective on Roosevelt's diplomacy and the emergence of the United States as a world power. Schmitz's work offers an important correction to existing studies and establishes FDR as arguably the most significant and successful foreign policymaker in the nation's history.

1

Exceptionalism and Internationalism

In one of the first speeches he gave as a member of the New York state legislature, in March 1912, Roosevelt made clear his progressive view of history, the need for American leadership in the world, and his concern about balance at home and abroad. For the past thousand years, Roosevelt argued, the struggle to “obtain individual freedom” had been the “great and fundamental question in the economic life of people” in “almost every European and American country.” From the American Revolution forward, this had taken the form of the struggle for representative government and the guarantee of liberty for the individual that a republic brought about. What was now needed was the “liberty of the community” to correct the imbalances of power and wealth that were emerging in American society. “To state it plainly,” Roosevelt declared, “competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point, but cooperation, which is the thing that we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off. This is what the founders of the republic were groping for.” The example he used was the conservation of land, and the need to conserve resources and protect areas such as forests from being overcut. To allow a person or company to use up all of the natural resources of the land was a destruction of the liberty and rights of the community, “and by liberty, we mean happiness and prosperity.” Some, Roosevelt noted, would “hold up their hands in horror” at this idea “and say ‘Unamerican’ or ‘dangerous,’” but it was just using regulation for the common good. If “we call the same identical process co-operation these same old fogies will cry out ‘well done.’” This was an early statement of the mature economy theory, the idea that the challenges facing the nation stemmed from adjusting to the changes wrought by industrialization; here, FDR set out much of the framework by which he understood the problems of the nation and the connection between domestic and international events, as well as his vision of good government.¹

This analysis drew upon Theodore Roosevelt’s views on the need to regulate big business and to place the national need ahead of individual and parochial interests. Speaking just two years earlier, the former president had declared that “we are face to face with new conceptions of the relations of property to human welfare.” No longer could private property trump all other interests. “The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.”²

Drawing from the same perspective, FDR would place his emphasis on creating and sustaining balance in society, a position that would be crucial to how he understood international relations as well as domestic economic problems. When he was president, he noted that he saw it as his “job to make the essence of democracy” work for all citizens. The problem was how to make a government that was created for an agrarian society work in one that now had large cities, big corporations, and a large percentage of the population that worked for someone else. The role of the president was “to make what changes have to be made without sacrificing the basic freedoms of individuals, without making government itself too strong while making it strong enough to keep private concentrations of wealth and power from depriving people of their rights, or treating people as commodities in the marketplace.” Thus, the government had to act as a broker, balancing the different and competing demands. Fundamentally, government had to ensure there was “work and security” for all, what Roosevelt called the “spiritual values” of society. Only when these were secure could people really be free.³ Moreover, for this to happen, Americans had to understand that there was a direct connection between foreign policy and their domestic well-being and that peace and prosperity did not depend only on reform at home but also on the international environment in which the United States existed.

Roosevelt’s political ambitions took a big step when, at just thirty-one years old, he was named assistant secretary of the navy in 1913. The appointment was ideal for Roosevelt; it put him in Washington and gave him the opportunity to work with and impress the most powerful people in the Democratic Party while he built a national profile and reputation in a position he was well-qualified to hold. As Roosevelt reportedly said at the time of his appointment, “All my life I have loved ships and been a student of the Navy, and the Assistant Secretaryship is the one place, above all others, I would love to hold.”⁴ He gained invaluable experience and knowledge during his eight years in office, which included visits to the Panama Canal, to nations in the Caribbean, and to Europe during and immediately after the Great War, where he played a significant role in the mobilization of American forces and the successes of the navy against Germany. Moreover, Roosevelt came to understand the importance of public opinion in the making of foreign policy, and during this time he saw his various ideas about America and the world coalesce into a clear internationalist position while he maintained his understanding of the need for flexibility and patience in pursuing important goals.

In what was a minor speech in his first year as assistant secretary of the navy, about the long-forgotten Battle of Oswego during the French and Indian Wars, Roosevelt framed the event in a manner that revealed a great deal of his worldview and served as a prescient foreshadowing of the situation he would confront in the late 1930s. It was also one of his first articulations of his conception of American exceptionalism: the view that American society was distinct from and better than other nations; that freedom, liberty, and constitutional government had indeed created a New World, as compared to the corruption and persistent strife of the Old World in Europe; and that it was an obligation of the United States to use its favored position to lead. As Roosevelt recalled the battle, on the one side stood the French, rulers of a vast territory in North America, held together by an impressive organization of trading posts that gave them influence far beyond their numbers. What was hidden by their efficiency was that “they were the representatives of a tottering monarchy, a discredited form of government” that was staving off its eventual defeat from the “inevitable conflict between the past and the future.” The French would score early victories due to the British Colonies’ “lack of preparation for armed conflict,” decentralized governance, and internal divisions. “At last, of course, the awakening came,” Roosevelt surmised, “the giant child began at last to realize his strength. The Colonies exceeded New France in numbers, in wealth, in resources” and, once mobilized, prevailed. While they lacked unity, victory was possible because the British Colonies “were sound.” The internal bickering and lack of preparation for war was overcome due to the “inherent soundness of the foundation.” The people’s ideals and democratic spirit “carried them to victory.” The lesson for Roosevelt was clear. The United States had to be more aware of potential dangers and better able to respond to threats. “Conflict, like everything else in modern civilization, is so complicated that preparation is essential. That is why we have our navy, our army … and that is why some of us think ahead.” The long-ago conflict between the British and French colonies, Roosevelt concluded, “cannot fail to inspire us to better things.”⁵

Immediately upon taking his office, Roosevelt began advocating for a U.S. naval expansion to meet the nation’s security demands. He did not present this concern as just the addition of ships to protect the coast. Rather, he cast the need as part of his view that national defense involved more than just preventing foreign troops from landing on American soil. It meant controlling the seas through defense in depth by confronting any enemy as far from the nation’s shores as possible, protecting American access to markets, defending strategic points such as the Panama Canal, the Philippines, Hawaii, and other islands in the Pacific, and maintaining vital trade routes in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. National security meant security at home, defense of national interests abroad, and the development of an international environment conducive to American values and institutions.

In January 1915, Roosevelt set out a strategic vision based on his understanding of geography, the interconnectedness of the world, and the need to broaden the tenets of the Monroe Doctrine. “If we believe in the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine,” the assistant secretary of the navy declared, “America has very direct interests inside a line which I will draw very roughly.” Using a large map and pencil, Roosevelt illustrated his point. “Starting up here at the North Pole … and coming on down through the … Atlantic Ocean … and around Cape Horn, and up this way around American Samoa, and then up here and around Guam … then around the Philippines, then up here past the Aleutian Islands and back to the Pole.” As he concluded, “that is some territory” the navy had to defend. The best way to do so was for the navy “to meet the enemy with an overpowering force as far away from our coast as possible to prevent him from coming within striking distance.” It had to be able to defend interests “that lie beyond the limits of the continental United States.” Employing Mahan’s most famous phrase, Roosevelt stated that this could only be properly achieved through “the control of the seas” and preparedness.⁶

When war broke out in Europe during the summer of 1914, Roosevelt immediately saw Germany as the clear enemy and a threat to American security, material interests, and political values. He wrote Eleanor Roosevelt on August 1 that the war in Europe would be “a complete smash up,” and that “these are history-making days. It will be the greatest war in the world’s history.” It would inevitably impact the United States, and he was afraid that Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan had no conception of what was unfolding and what it would demand from the nation. Writing to his wife again the next day, FDR stated that he hoped England would quickly join with France to defeat Germany, but that he expected “a long drawn-out struggle.” He was frustrated that people like Daniels and Bryan thought the United States, as a neutral, “can go about our business as usual.” They did not understand the interconnectedness of the United States with Europe, the meaning of the disruption of trade, and the importance of a world system compatible to American interests. A German victory, although not a direct threat since it would not lead to an invasion of the east coast, would still hurt the security of the country by forcing it to operate in a world dominated by autocratic power and hostile governments. It was Roosevelt’s job to begin naval preparations for what was to come.⁷

Preparedness would quickly become Roosevelt’s central concern and a crucial part of his overall definition of national defense. While he soon concluded that the United States had to become a belligerent to ensure an Allied victory, FDR had to walk a fine line in which he publicly supported Wilson’s policy of neutrality while he made the case for a larger navy to protect American security. He was frustrated by the lack of discussion within the administration on how to respond to German provocations, and by the fact that many of Wilson’s advisors “prevent discussion of the future steps because it is a disagreeable subject.” Moreover, he feared the president was not even talking to military officers. In December 1915, writing in the Nation’s Business, Roosevelt defended increased military spending as “purely defensive” and necessary for the protection of the nation. The public needed to understand that naval defense meant being able to “control for defensive purposes those portions of the ocean in which a country is immediately interested” as well as trade routes and access to other parts of the world. The current naval expansion, he opined, was not as large as experts believed necessary, but was still a positive first step “in defining the true requirements of national safety.”⁸

From Roosevelt’s perspective, the purpose of the naval buildup was national security. “The broad idea of national defense is to protect not merely the continental interests of this nation, but all of its interests, wherever they may be, to keep our territory over the sea, to preserve our international policies and trade.” Thus, he continued to push for a larger navy, even though the nation was neutral, to defend those interests. “An adequate navy is notice served by the United States upon the nations of the world that war shall never again be fought upon American soil.” By fall 1916, Roosevelt was insisting to Secretary Daniels that “we’ve got to get into this war.”⁹

As tensions grew between the United States and Germany, Roosevelt became more frustrated with Wilson’s policy of neutrality. In the hope that he might prod the former history professor to bolder action he sent Wilson a gift on January 1, 1917: a memorandum that Secretary of State James Monroe had written to President James Madison over 100 years earlier in the midst of the War of 1812, which Roosevelt personally owned. What Monroe wrote in 1814 captured Roosevelt’s own thoughts to a great extent even while it represented the past the assistant secretary of the navy sought to avoid. Roosevelt wrote to Wilson that the note was “in many ways so interestingly parallel to the events of the day” that he thought the president would want to have it. Monroe’s central point was that “a war in Europe … has long been found to spread its calamities into the remotest regions. Even the U.S., just and pacific as their policy is, have not been able to avoid the alternative of either submitting to the most destructive and ignominious wrongs from European Belligerents, or of resisting them by an appeal to the sword.” Submission, or neutrality, “too long protracted, would have no other effect than to encourage and accumulate aggressions, until they should become altogether intolerable” and made the ultimate fighting “more slow and difficult.”¹⁰ As the message suggested, there was little doubt that Wilson’s assistant secretary of the navy sought to push him toward intervention on the side of the Allies.

After the German announcement of unrestricted submarine warfare, Roosevelt believed that war was inevitable. He asked Wilson in early March 1917 if he could bring the naval fleet home to be “fitted out for war” in preparation. The president turned down Roosevelt’s request, stating “I cannot allow it.” As the assistant secretary was leaving, Wilson called him back to explain his decision. “I don’t want to do anything,” the president said. “I do not want the United States to do anything in a military way, by way of war preparations, that would allow the definitive historian in later days … to say that the United States had committed an unfriendly act” toward Germany.¹¹

The experiences of the war would bring some modifications to Roosevelt’s views regarding the best use of the navy and military strategy. The battleship-based fleet, the centerpiece of Mahan’s thinking, and the naval buildup Roosevelt had advocated, culminated in the Wilson administration’s July 1916 Big Navy Act, which called for the rapid building of ten battleships and six battle cruisers. German submarine warfare and the devastating shipping losses in the Atlantic, however, forced a shift to the construction of more destroyers; a more flexible navy was required to meet a different threat than the one anticipated. Roosevelt was quick to see the implications of changes in technology and weapons, and what the consequences were for the navy. As he acknowledged as early as 1915 in an article, “The Future of the Submarine,” he thought he “knew much about naval strategy and warfare. But I have come very quickly to realise [sic] that I did not.”¹² He now understood the threat submarines posed to moving both supplies and troops to Europe and saw that success in combatting them would be a key to victory.

Once the United States entered the war, Roosevelt worked to ensure that the navy played a central role in the military victory. The German resumption of unlimited submarine warfare took a terrifying toll on Allied shipping and threatened to isolate American supplies and troops. Speaking in July 1917, Roosevelt told an audience in upstate New York that if the Germans kept up their current rate of sinking supply ships, the United States would be in the position of having trained an army that it could not get to France.¹³ His fear prompted him to warn Wilson that the elimination of submarines “must of necessity be a vital factor in winning the war.”¹⁴ Given this, one of FDR’s biggest achievements as assistant secretary of the navy was advocating for and implementing the North Sea Mine Barrage, a fence of over fifty-six thousand mines set across the North Sea designed to bottle up German submarines and isolate those that were already out in the ocean. It was implemented in 1918 with much greater success than thought possible by those who opposed Roosevelt’s idea. In conjunction w...