Abstract
Woodrow Wilson and his legacy epitomized the liberal tradition in American foreign relations. The principles of Wilsonianism, which he articulated, expressed the values of democracy and capitalism, including freedom and human rights, which most Americans have lauded. Although I share these values, the chapters in this book are critical of Wilsonian ideology and statecraft. Responsible exercise of power requires more than affirmation of liberal values in the abstract; it also involves their fulfillment in practice. Good intentions are not enough. As a realist, I focus on both ends and means, both power and responsibility. It is important to scrutinize the methods used to achieve liberal goals and the often unintended negative consequences of pursuing even laudatory purposes in international relations. I do not share the liberal belief in progressive history, which has traditionally undergirded American expectations that well-intended actions will result in positive outcomes at bearable costs, at least in the long run. Like other realists, I stress the centrality of power in international relations. But power, as I understand it, is not a narrow concept; it includes culture and political economy as well as military strength. More than most realists, I emphasize pluralism in the modern world. The crosscurrents between global interdependence and pluralism limited Wilson’s ability—and that of his successors—to achieve his vision of a new world order. So, too, did the inherent dilemmas and contradictions among his principles. That would not have surprised eighteenth-century founders of the American republic, who appreciated the balance of power in international relations and in a federal government with three branches.
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Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition: The Treaty Fight in Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Wilsonian Statecraft: Theory and Practice of Liberal Internationalism during World War I (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1991).
Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986);
Michael W. Doyle, Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997).
David Steigerwald, “Reclamation of Woodrow Wilson,” Diplomatic History 23 (Winter 1999): 79–99.
See also Steven J. Bucklin, Realism and American Foreign Policy: Wilsonians and the Kennan-Morgenthau Thesis (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2001).
Ronald Steel, Pax Americana (New York: Viking Press, 1967), Walter Lippmann and the American Century (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980), and Temptations of a Superpower (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
Jack Donnelly, Realism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 6–11.
Keohane, Neorealism, 7, 160; Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence, Second Edition (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1989), 23–37.
Scholars have examined the combination of ideals and self-interest—or liberalism and realism—in the ideology and practice of U.S. foreign relations. See, for example, Robert Endicott Osgood, Ideals and Self-interest in Americas Foreign Relations: The Great Transformation of the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953)
and John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2001).
John Ehrman, Neoconservatism: Intellectuals and Foreign Affairs, 1945–1994 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995).
Isaiah Bowman, The New World: Problems in Political Geography (Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: World Book Company, 1921), 1.
Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Times Books, 1995), 5.
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone Book, 1996), 125.
Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (New York: Anchor Books, 2000), 31.
For an excellent analysis of the theme of globalization and references to the extensive literature on the subject, see Thomas W. Zeiler, “Just Do It! Globalization for Diplomatic Historians,” Diplomatic History 25 (Fall 2001): 529–51.
David Reynolds, One World Divisible: A Global History Since 1945 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 2.
Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979);
Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975;
Jay Winter, Geoffrey Parker, and Mary R. Habeck, The Great War and the Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000).
Henry F. May, The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Time, 1912–1917 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959);
Meirion and Susie Harries, The Last Days of Innocence: America at War, 1917–1918 (New York: Random House, 1997).
Ellen Glasgow, A Certain Measure (New York, 1938), 118, quoted in May, End of American Innocence, 85.
Randolph S. Bourne, War and the Intellectuals: Essays by Randolph S. Bourne, 1915–1919, ed. Carl Resek (New York: Harper and Row, 1964); Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson, 6, 33, 297;
Leslie J. Vaughan, Randolph Bourne and the Politics of Cultural Radicalism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997).
Rogers M. Smith, Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 469.
Robert H. Wiebe, Self Rule: A Cultural History of American Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 180.
See also Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877–1919 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987)
and Kevin Phillips, The Cousins Wars: Religion, Politics, and the Triumph of Anglo-America (New York: Basic Books, 1999).
For a good example of deriving lessons from Wilson’s legacy for current U.S. policymaking, see John Gerard Ruggie, Winning the Peace: America and World Order in the New Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 52.
Kissinger, Diplomacy, 54. See also Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 272–8.
Tony Smith, America’s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 9.
Amos Perlmutter, Making the World Safe for Democracy: A Century of Wilsonianism and Its Totalitarian Challengers (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 134.
Frank Ninkovich, The Wilsonian Century: U.S. Foreign Policy since 1900 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 5–6.
Akira Iriye, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, vol. 3: The Globalizing of America, 1913–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 45, 71–2.
“Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis and the Federal Budget Deficit,” September 11, 1990, George Bush, Public Papers of the Presidents: 1990 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1991), 2: 1218–22.
“Address to the Nation Announcing Allied Military Action in the Persian Gulf,” January 16, 1991, George Bush, Public Papers of the Presidents: 1991 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1992), 1: 42–4.
“Address to the Nation on Airstrikes Against Serbian Targets in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro),” March 24, 1999, William J. Clinton, Public Papers of the Presidents: 1999 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2000), 1: 451–2.
David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (New York: Scribner, 2001), 484.
“Remarks to the 54th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City,” September 21, 1999, Clinton, Public Papers, 2: 1563–7. See also Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).
Hans J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), 36.
Michael Hirsh, “America Adrift: Writing History of the Post Cold Wars,” Foreign Affairs 80 (November/December 2001): 158–64.
See also Fouad Ajami, “The Sentry’s Solitude,” ibid., 2–16, and Karen Armstrong, Islam: A Short History (New York: Modern Library, 2000), 141–87.
Sir Michael Howard, “Mistake to Declare this a ‘War,’” Associated Newspapers Ltd., October 31, 2001.
See also Michael Howard, “What’s in a Name? How to Fight Terrorism,” Foreign Affairs 81 (January/February 2002): 8–13.
For an excellent analysis of this problem, see G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
For a brief sketch of the president’s life, see Lloyd E. Ambrosius, “Woodrow Wilson,” American National Biography, ed. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, 24 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 23: 604–12.
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Ambrosius, L.E. (2002). Introduction. In: Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403970046_1
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