AMERİKAN DIŞ POLİTİKASI

The combination of isolationism and Moralpolitik prevailing at the time is best justified by John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, in his 4th July 1821 address: “ Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America’s heart, her benediction, and her prayers. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own…She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself …in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of …envy and ambition…She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit..”

Between 1897 and 1901, President William Mc Kinley ushered in the American Century, the era in which the United States replaced Great Britain as the world’s greatest power. "By the time he was reelected in 1901, he was heading a country that was the world’s economic leader and, by a historic shift at the turn of the century, a global military and diplomatic power".

Concerned particularly with Latin America, the United States would, according to Roosevelt, “speak softly, but carry a big stick” and in the following years, would not only engineer a domestic uprising in northern Colombia, but after recognizing the Republic of Panama, sign a treaty to build and lease the Panama Canal, intervene militarily in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and other countries where internal social unrest threatened foreign investments and lives. Attaching an equal importance to the international balance of power, President Roosevelt negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese War and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905.

The last pre-World War I president was William Howard Taft (1909-1913) He followed President Rossevelt’s policy of worldwide influence, albeit through different methods.

It is an obvious fact that the United States had no direct stake in the outbreak of World War I -also known in history as the Great War. Profound social changes in Europe brought about by a population explosion which began in the late 18th century, the Industrial Revolution and its social impact, engendered, in turn, new doctrines such as socialism, communism and the ever carrier of all types of mass frustration, nationalism. These factors culminated behind a number of existing intraEuropean rivalries -i.e. French-German conflict over Alsace-Lorraine, German-Russia competition over the Middle East, traditional Ottoman-Russia antagonism, Balkan nationalism towards AustroHungarian and Ottoman Empires, German-British rivalry over naval power etc.- turning the continent into a powder keg that a small spark could ignite. Against this background, technological advances leading to military developments and the growth of an interlocking system of alliances initiated by the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck were to act as the catalysts leading to World War I (Stokesbury, 1981, 11-19). Europe’s major nations had indeed grouped themselves into two main alliances opposed to each other -Central Powers, composed of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy and the Triple Alliance of Great Britain, France, and Russia.

When on June 28, 1914, a Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip assasinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Hapsburg throne, and his wife, visiting Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, no one imagined that it would trigger a chain of events drawing Europe into a world war and the United States into a new era in its foreign relations (Bagby, 1999, 18). A former Ottoman province, Bosnia had been annexed by Austria in 1909 and this had antagonized neighboring Serbia - also former Ottoman territory- that had hoped to annex it by itself, retaliating by promoting revolution among national minorities within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Consequently, Austrians understandably suspected the Serbian government of conspiracy and decided to punish Serbia by invading it on July 28. Russian and French mobilization followed that with a view to defend Serbia, Germany’s declaration of war on them, Britain’s entry into war as part of the Allies, and finally Ottoman Turkey’s, on the side of the Central Powers. By August 1914, World War I had begun.

On August 4, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921), then much more interested in domestic than foreign affairs and largely endorsed by his people, declared that the United States would remain “impartial in thought as well as in action”.

As the war neared its end, President Wilson spelled out his vision of peace in a speech delivered on 8 January 1918 before Congress. Known as the “Fourteen Points” speech, it not only enumerated the conditions for bringing an end to hostilities, but it also included references to open diplomacy as opposed to secret treaties and alliances, as well as arms control and a new organization of nations to ensure the peace in the future, thus introducing the concept of collective security.

America’s inter-war and wartime president Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) inherited the Great Depression, who was a Harvard graduate Democrat from a patrician family linked to the former President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt and himself appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy twice by President Wilson.

As far as the US was concerned, the military & diplomatic developments in the history of World War II can be divided into three stages: from December 1941 to January 1943; from January 1943 to August 1944; and from then on to the end of the Pacific war in August 1945 (İriye, 2013, 193-217).

After weeks of consultation with military and congressional leaders, President Truman made a momentous address to Congress on 12 March 1947, underlining the danger looming over the two countries and declaring in what would be known as the Truman Doctrine, that “ it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures” (americanrhetoric.com). A $ 400 million package of military and economic aid to both countries was proposed by the President and voted by Congress that day. This is recognized as the definitive end of the politics of isolationism.

What would follow was the European Recovery Program, known as the Marshall Plan, announced by Secretary of State Marshall in a 5 June, 1947 speech at Harvard University to help ensure Europe’s survival, given its “economic, social, and political survival”. Over the four and a half years of the Marshall Plan, America gave more than 1 percent of its GDP in aid, a total of $13.5 billion by June 1952. England received $3.2 billion, France $2.7 billion, Italy $1.5 billion and Germany $1.4 billion. In the words of British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, this was “generosity beyond belief” ( Bagby, 1999, 153), but also a visionary policy, since the two defeated powers of the Axis were also included in this massive geopolitical investment of the Cold War, leaving behind the scars of World War II.

Americans had, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, remained loyal to the political testament of their first president, George Washington.

Central Powers, composed of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy and the Triple Alliance of Great Britain, France, and Russia.

Central Powers, composed of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy and the Triple Alliance of Great Britain, France, and Russia.

When on June 28, 1914, a Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip assasinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Hapsburg throne, and his wife, visiting Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia.

On August 4, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921), then much more interested in domestic than foreign affairs and largely endorsed by his people, declared that the United States would remain “impartial in thought as well as in action”. That, however, meant political neutrality, while the United States eagerly continued its commercial activities with Europe despite the war, as an ultimate illustration of isolationism à la George Washington.

On August 4, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921), then much more interested in domestic than foreign affairs and largely endorsed by his people, declared that the United States would remain “impartial in thought as well as in action”.

War was subsequently declared on Austria-Hungary but not on Bulgaria and Turkey.

Yhe concept of collective security first introduced by Wilson as a system based on disarmament, selfdetermination and free navigation;

All this would come to a halt with the Great Depression of 1929, the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting until 1939.

A rising international tension would follow all throughout the 1930s. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia; in 1936, Hitler formed an alliance with Italy. Later Japan joined it, which createdthe “Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis “ against the Comintern.