Conservative Internationalism

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Hoover InstitutionStanford University. . . ideas defining a free society

July 30, 2008

Conservative InternationalismbyHenry R. Nau

Jefferson to Polk to Truman to Reagan

SINCE WORLD WAR IIinternational relations specialists have debated two main traditions or schools of

American foreign policy, realism and liberal internationalism. Realism identifies with Richard Nixon

and looks to the balance of power to defend stability among ideologically diverse nations. Liberalinternationalism identifies with Franklin Roosevelt and looks to international institutions to reduce the

role of the balance of power and gradually spread democracy by talk and tolerance. Generally

speaking, conservatives or Republicans were considered realists Eisenhower and Ford while

liberals or Democrats were seen as liberal internationalists Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and

Carter.

This debate broke down with Ronald Reagan. He opposed both the realist containment strategy of

Richard Nixon and the liberal internationalist human rights campaign of Jimmy Carter. He adopted a

strategy that used force or the threat of force assertively, as realists recommended, but aimed at the

demise of communism and the spread of democracy, as liberal internationalists advocated. Reagan

improvised and succeeded brilliantly.1The Cold War ended, the Soviet Union disappeared, and theUnited States emerged as the first preeminent global power in the history of the world. Even former

critics now concede that Reagan was on to something.2

But what tradition did Reagan represent? The debate between realists and liberal internationalists

leaves no explanation for Ronald Reagans eclectic foreign policy choices and the extraordinary

outcomes he achieved. The conventional foreign policy traditions dont fit. Realists and liberal

internationalists try to claim Reagan but they distort and miss the novelty of his

contributions.3Others conclude he is unique and has become a transcendent historical figure, not

terribly relevant to contemporary debates.4Still others argue Reagans foreign policy had nothing to

do with ending the Cold War and subsequently wound up in the hands of Reagan impostors, theneoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration, who ran it into the ground in Iraq.5

This essay rejects all of these conclusions. It argues instead that Ronald Reagan tapped into a new

and different American foreign policy tradition that has been overlooked by scholars and pundits.

That tradition is conservative internationalism. Like realism and liberal internationalism, it has deep

historical roots. Just as realism takes inspiration from Alexander Hamilton and Teddy Roosevelt and

liberal internationalism identifies with Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, conservative
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internationalism draws historical validation from Thomas Jefferson, James K. Polk, Harry Truman,

and Ronald Reagan. These four American presidents did more to expand freedom abroad through

the assertive use of military force than any others (Lincoln doing as much or more to expand

freedom domestically by force). But they expanded freedom on behalf of self-government, local or

national, not on behalf of central or international government, as liberal internationalists advocate,

and they used force to seize related opportunities to spread freedom, not to maintain the status quo,as realists recommend. All of these presidents remain enigmas for the standard traditions. The

reason? They represent the different and overlooked tradition of conservative internationalism.6

Jefferson is claimed by isolationists and liberal internationalists, but he was neither. He doubled the

size of American territory, and although this expansion took place on the North American continent

when America was militarily weak, Jefferson s policies can hardly be called isolationist or pacifist. In

fact, he used all the military, especially naval, power that the United States had at the time and

combined threats and diplomacy deftly to seize the opportunity to grab Louisiana. The Louisiana

Purchase may have fallen into his lap, as some historians later argued, but he had to place his lap in

the right position to catch it.

The Louisiana Purchase may have fallen into Jeffersons lap, but hed placedhis lap in the position to catch it.

James Polk expanded American territory by another 60 percent. And, yes, he expanded American

freedom which, although tarnished by black slavery (which Mexico had abolished in 1829), gave

at the time the vote to more white male citizens than any other country and launched a trajectory of

future emancipation that, with all its blemishes, made America the leading light of liberty in the

twentieth century. He was one of the most ambitious and successful American presidents, and while

his star, like that of Jefferson, has been diminished by rear-view mirror charges of racism and

imperialism, he was, again like Jefferson, a pioneer of his day not only in expanding liberty and but

also understanding the close and reciprocal interaction between force and diplomacy a particular

emphasis, as I will show, of conservative internationalist thinking.

Harry Truman expanded for the first time the cause of freedom beyond the confines of the western

hemisphere and inspired the Cold War policy of militarized containment that incubated democracy in

Japan, Germany, and throughout Western Europe. Had Truman not inserted American forces on

European soil to stop a potential Soviet advance from Berlin to the English Channel, liberty might

well have been lost in the very countries where it originated.

Ronald Reagan then transformed Trumans containment policy into a competitive strategy to defeat,not just co-exist with, the Soviet Union. He saw the opportunity to end Soviet oppression in Eastern

Europe that none of his predecessors saw and ultimately opened the doors of freedom for

communist Europe and a good part of the rest of the world as well.

Before we consider the conservative internationalist foreign policies of these four presidents, let s

look in more detail at the principal tenets of the conservative internationalist tradition and explore

how this tradition differs from realism and liberal internationalism.
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MAIN TENETS

WE CAN SUMMARIZEthe conservative internationalist tradition in terms of eleven tenets. First, the goal

of conservative internationalist foreign policy is to expand freedom and ultimately increase the

number of democratic, constitutional and republican governments in the world community. In this

respect, conservative internationalism shares the same goal as liberal internationalism. Modernconservatives are liberals. They believe in liberty and do not defend the authoritarian status quo as

traditional conservatives did. But they are classical liberals like Jefferson who embrace the ideas of

John Locke and Adam Smith. They are not social liberals. Like Fredrick Hayek and William F.

Buckley, they shout stop to the ideas of economic and institutional equality when those ideas

threaten liberty.

Thus, conservative internationalists give priority to liberty over equality and work to free countries

from tyranny before they recognize these countries as equal partners in international diplomacy.

Jefferson and Polk were unequivocal about expanding liberty, even if it involved imperialism,

because they believed that liberty would eventually bring greater equality. By contrast liberalinternationalists give priority to equality over liberty and grant all nations, whether free or not, equal

status in international institutions, because they believe treating countries equally will eventually

encourage liberty. For conservative internationalists, legitimacy in foreign affairs derives from free

countries taking decisions independently or working together through decentralized institutions; for

liberal internationalists, legitimacy derives from all countries, free or not, participating equally in

universal international organizations.

Second, conservative internationalism focuses initially on material, not ideological, threats. In this

respect, it shares much with realism. Both focus on immediate dangers and do not seek military

might or imperialism for its own sake. Poverty (Darfur) or oppression (Myanmar) abroad is not

enough to trigger intervention, as it may be for some liberal internationalists. There has to be a

physical effect on the United States, as realists require, such as terrorist attacks or oil supply

disruptions. In the absence of material threat, conservative internationalists are perfectly content with

domestic life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The difficulty today is that material threats to freedom are more difficult to perceive. Terrorism is an

immanent rather than an imminent threat. It is present potentially everywhere in slee per cells and

illegal arms networks, but it is not visible actually in any specific location until it happens. Such a

threat blurs the distinctions between known threats which can be contained, emerging threats which

can be preempted, and future threats which have to be prevented. Compared to Soviet missiles, the

terrorist threat is more emerging and future than known. To cope with such a threat, conservativeinternationalists expect to have to take more preemptive or preventive actions, not as matters of

choice but of necessity. Neither containment, which realists recommend, nor treating terrorism as

crime, which liberal internationalists recommend, is likely to suffice.

Reagan made no secret of his desire to revoke the Yalta compromise and setEastern Europe free.


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Third, while conservative internationalism starts with threat and geopolitics, it does not end there, as

realism does. Conservative internationalism seeks a balance of power that not only defends the

status quo but also seizes related and incremental opportunities to expand freedom. It seeks, in

short, a balance of power tilted toward freedom. Force is useful not just to deter despots but also to

weaken them. Liberal internationalists consider such offensive use of force as provocative and

detrimental to diplomacy. Conservative internationalists see it as incentivizing negotiations.Jefferson, Polk, and Truman all positioned forces to seize opportunities to change the status quo.

Perhaps the best example is Ronald Reagans policy toward Eastern Europe. As I recount below, he

established early on that his objective was not just to stabilize Eastern Europe, as containment and

realists prescribed, but to revoke the Yalta compromise and set Eastern Europe free. This policy did

not call for direct intervention to roll back communism. Rather, it was a patient diplomacy of

outcompeting the Soviet Union across the broad front of economic, military, and ideological

contestation. Had Reagan stopped with geopolitics, Gorbachev may have never climbed to the top

of Russiasleadership scaffold. Russia needed him to meet Reagans deeper challenge of domestic

reform, not merely to stabilize Russias military position in Eastern Europe.

Fourth, although conservative internationalism is more ambitious than realism, it is prudent in picking

its targets for expansion. It espies the incremental opportunities for freedom primarily on the

periphery or borders of existing free societies. Truman succeeded ultimately because he gave

priority to freedom in Western Europe where strong democratic countries (initially Britain and later

France and Italy after they avoided communist governments) surrounded recent or still fascist ones

(pre-war Germany and after the war, Spain, Portugal, and Greece). He did not get distracted by

Eastern Europe, Latin America, or the Middle East, where democratic influences were much weaker.

Similarly, Reagan concentrated on freedom in Eastern Europe, which is why he avoided costly

military ventures elsewhere.

Both Truman and Reagan accepted the reality that the United States might have to cooperate withnondemocratic governments in lower-priority areas to secure freedom in higher-priority areas.

Conservative internationalism does not support a universal campaign to end tyranny everywhere. In

theory, it believes that democracy is universal. But, in practice it promotes democracies where they

are most easily influenced by the proximity and power of existing democracies. It encourages an

inkblot rather than leapfrog strategy to expand freedom.

Fifth, conservative internationalism expects to use more force to achieve its objectives than realism

or liberal internationalism. The reasons are simple. The objective of expanding freedom is more

ambitious than preserving stability favored by realists, and the obstacle to expanding freedom is

authoritarian and oppressive states that readily use force against their own people and thus are notlikely to compromise with other nations, as liberal internationalists expect, without a contest of

strength. As Ronald Reagan once put it pointedly: if [oppressive countries] treat their own people

this way, why would they treat us any differently?For conservative internationalists, therefore, force

is not a last resort that kicks in after diplomacy and economic sanctions fail; it is a parallel resort

that accompanies diplomacy at every turn demonstrating resolve, creating policy options, and

narrowing the maneuvering room of authoritarian opponents. Conservative internationalists remind


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us that there was no diplomatic option of UNinspectors in Iraq (whom Saddam Hussein had kicked

out in 1998) until a massive invasion force assembled in the Persian Gulf.

Force is not a last resort that kicks in after diplomacy fails; it accompaniesdiplomacy at every turn.

By contrast, liberal internationalists aspire to domesticate world affairs and therefore play down the

use of military force. They do not reject the use of force. Far from it Wilson and Roosevelt,

preeminent liberal internationalists, led America into war. But liberal internationalists believe it is

possible to reduce the salience and use of military force in international affairs. WilsonsLeague of

Nations as well as RooseveltsUNsought to pool national military forces into a single international

force which, because it was now preponderant, could be downsized through disarmament and arms

control to constitute a police force. Diplomacy and international institutions would suffice to resolve

international disputes and, if some states resisted peaceful solutions, economic sanctions would

bring them to heel. The use of traditional military force was a last resort and then only with the

consent and thus legitimacy of the international community as a whole.

Sixth, as prevalent as force is in a conservative internationalist perspective, it does not substitute for

diplomacy. The best force can do is win a war. It cannot win the peace. Defeated governments and

countries have to be reconstructed. Thatsa diplomatic task. Thus conservative internationalists give

equal weight to force and diplomacy. They time diplomatic initiatives to coincide with maximum

military strength and know when to cash in military gains to advance diplomatic ones. The best

example here, I will show, is President Polk. He was a master at marrying the use of force and

diplomacy. So was Ronald Reagan.

Seventh, diplomacy for conservative internationalists does not mean primarily international

institutions. Conservative internationalism is not enthusiastic about international institutions even if,

or one might say especially if, these institutions are effective. It advocates a small government

version of internationalism and thus does not favor, like liberal internationalism, the construction of a

world community through centralized organizations and rules. Nor is conservative internationalism

indifferent to the big government or garrison state implications of foreign policies that pursue military

adventures beyond immediate dangers.7Conservatives are naturally suspicious of governments and

favor self-reliance and civil society institutions. They take their cue from Thomas Jefferson. In his

first inaugural address, Jefferson said: Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted to govern

himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others? 8Jefferson laid down the

conservative internationalist precept that the first and best government is self-government and that

national and international governments should only do what local and national governments cannotdo.

Democracy, for conservative internationalism, is not only a local process,but also a difficult one.

Eighth, democracy for conservative internationalism is not only a local process, but also a difficult

one. Culture constrains democracy. It may not make democracy permanently impossible in some
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countries, as some realists argue, but it does make democratic development messier and more

imperfect than liberal internationalists expect. Enduring democracy has three key pillars: regular (not

one-time) elections in which competing parties rotate in power; elected authorities that control the

major bureaucracies, especially the military; and an independent civil society that protects free

speech, private property, and impartial justice. None of these pillars is easy to construct. Best then to

target democracy where it is most likely to succeed, namely on the border of existing democracies,and make compromises with authoritarian realities in other places as long as the process of freedom

inches forward.

Ninth, the best tool for inching freedom forward not only in bordering but also distant regions is

economic engagement or the free movement of goods, capital, and people. Both conservative and

liberal internationalists agree on this point. But liberal internationalists see a greater need to

moderate international markets through international regulations and foreign aid. They worry about

greed and inequality and promote legal structures to restrain business. Conservative internationalists

have more confidence in self-reliant individuals exercising private choice in a competitive

marketplace. They worry about unaccountable institutions and corruption and rely more on religiousand other moral foundations of society to restrain individual license. Conservatives see development

not as a process of helping others, full stop, but of helping others help themselves.9 Free trade

encourages self-help; aid creates dependency, not only among recipients but also among donors

who become addicted to compassion and paternalism.

Liberal internationalists worry about greed and inequality and promotelegal structures to restrain business.

Tenth, and unlike liberal internationalists, however, conservative internationalists do not expect

economic liberalization to lead automatically to political liberalization. Liberal internationalists believe

that powerful historical forces, particularly the forces of modernization, abet the march of freedom.

The world will eventually become free and force obsolete if prosperity spreads far enough and

diplomacy is patient enough. Conservative internationalists are not so sure. They support

modernization and globalization but worry that political freedom may not follow ineluctably from

economic development. Ideologies shape human behavior more deeply than material forces, and

cultures do not disappear with prosperity. Fascist regimes in Germany and Japan modernized but

did not liberalize. And China today is modernizing but not democratizing. Hence it is essential to

maintain the role of force should modernization merely produce stronger adversaries. What is more,

modernization brings new ideological challenges. It secularizes and potentially weakens the spiritual

and moral character of some societies, while it uproots traditions, especially religious traditions, and

radicalizes the politics of other societies. Conservative internationalists see a continuing role forreligion in a secular world; liberal internationalists tend to see secularism prevailing.

Eleventh, and perhaps most important, conservative internationalism accepts the premise that public

opinion in free societies is the final arbiter of American foreign policy. Unlike realism it does not

assume that foreign policy elites know best or that public opinion will always accept a policy as long

as it succeeds. But unlike liberal internationalism, it is also not willing to wait for unanimous consent

to act. No democracy requires unanimity to act domestically, and no community of democracies, let


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alone institutions that include both democracies and nondemocracies, should require unanimity to

act internationally.

However, because conservative internationalism expects to use force more aggressively than either

realists or liberal internationalists, it faces a tougher sell with public opinion. In democracies, public

support for war is limited, especially if casualties persist or the threat is less visible, as in the case ofterrorism. That reluctance, most of us would agree, is probably a good thing. Hence, when faced

with persisting public opposition either at home or among democratic countries, conservative

internationalism is more willing to scale back or terminate interventions. It seems incongruous to

conservative internationalists to persist in a policy to spread freedom to new democracies if that

policy cannot be sustained by majority support in the old democracies.

The best way to illustrate these eleven tenets of the conservative internationalist tradition is to

explore the policies of the presidents that pioneered this tradition and compare their policies along

the way with other presidents that fit standard interpretations more easily Jefferson with Hamilton

and realists, Polk with Andrew Jackson and nationalists, Truman with Franklin Roosevelt and liberalinternationalists, and Reagan with both liberal internationalists (Jimmy Carter) and realists (Richard

Nixon).

JEFFERSON EMPIRE OF LIBERTY

Jefferson is such a protean and complex figure he belongs to every school of American government

and foreign policy. Walter Russell Mead sees Jefferson as an isolationalist, a foreign policy

minimalist much like nationalists or Jacksonians.10According to Mead, Jefferson considered

America as an example but not an exporter of liberty (unlike a liberal internationalist), and he

focused American policy on economic, not security concerns (unlike a realist). Robert W. Tucker and

David Hendrickson, on the other hand, consider Jefferson a utopian liberal internationalist bent onrevolutionizing domestic and international government while avoiding the military means that would

be needed to accomplish such ambitious ends.11

Both interpretations of Jefferson, as isolationist (nationalist) and internationalist, are unconvincing.

They ignore two aspects of Jeffersonsdiplomacy that stand out in the context of his times. Jefferson

was a passionate expansionist compared to almost all of his contemporaries, especially the realist

Hamilton, and he served as president when America had no power to speak of, a miniscule navy

and an army of less than 3,000 men. Thus, to argue that Jefferson was a foreign policy minimalist

who had no international ambitions or that he was an internationalist who did not use sufficient

power (what power?) seems out of context. In fact, at the time, Jefferson was ideologically moreambitious and used U.S. military power more assertively than anyone might have expected under

the circumstances.12 Meanwhile, he accorded little influence to centralized institutions. His

abhorrence of federalist powers other than those explicitly provided by the Constitution was matched

by his ambivalence toward international institutions such as alliances (which was the principal form

of international organization at the time). In short, his foreign policy strategy emphasized a strong

role for both American ideas and American power and a minimal role for central or international

institutions. Jefferson was the first conservative internationalist president.
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Jefferson used American military power to the hilt to pursue the Barbarypirates, even when he had very little.

Three cases of Jeffersonian diplomacy bear out this interpretation the dispatch of the U.S. Navy

to the Mediterranean to pursue the Barbary pirates, Jefferson s diplomatic maneuvers to secure the

purchase of Louisiana, and his embargo against England to redress attacks on American shipping.The first case shows that Jefferson used American military power to the hilt even when he had very

little; the second case demonstrates his deft combination of force and diplomacy to put himself in a

position to purchase Louisiana; and the third case shows that Jefferson pursued an economic

embargo not as a substitute for war but as a reasonable first step toward war and as a way to buy

time if events should make war unnecessary.

Barbary pirates. Jefferson became familiar with the raids of Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean

when he was ambassador to France in the 1780s. He supported the founding of the U.S. Navy in

the 1790s precisely to deal with this threat. Four Barbary states Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and

Tripoli repeatedly raided European and American shipping and demanded payments to desistfrom doing so. No sooner had Jefferson become president in March1801 than the pasha at Tripoli

raised new demands. What conceivable material threat this distant harassment posed to the United

States is hard to imagine. Yet Jefferson in May 1801 immediately dispatched Commodore Richard

Dale and three American frigates plus an armed schooner to defend American shipping. At the time,

this contingent made up half the U.S. Navy. He did so even though he had not yet appointed a

secretary of the navy (his first four nominees refused the job, some not once but twice13)and

defense spending had been reduced by two-thirds from $6 million in 1799 to $1.9 million in 1801.

This was not the action of a pacifist or realist, since it implied a military action of choice not

necessity, and it stretched American naval resources beyond anticipated limits. What would the

United States do now if enemy raiders intercepted U.S. ships and impressed its seamen closer to

American shores? The conflict with the Barbary states dragged on for four years, absorbing most of

the U.S. Navy. As Henry Adams noted, with the exception of the frigates Chesapeake and United

States, hardly a seagoing vessel was left at home.14

The Barbary policy included expansive ideological aims and risky perhapseven reckless military actions.

Jeffersons Barbary policy strongly suggests a strategy that included both expansive ideological aims

and risky, critics might say even reckless, military actions. Jefferson assessed the Barbary threat not

in material terms but in terms of his expansive view of the rights of nations at sea. He believed all

nations should be free to develop trade unless they were direct belligerents in war, and belligerentshad no right to interfere with neutral-country trade even if a neutral country snapped up trade

conducted by peaceful countries that now found themselves at war (as the United States had

replaced French and Spanish trade in the West Indies). His view then and later in the 1800s brought

him in conflict with Great Britain, which claimed the right to intercept any commerce that involved

belligerents at war. Jefferson s lofty (realists would say utopian) view of free ships/free goods, not a

direct realist threat, caused him to see the actions of the Barbary states as sheer piracy which had to

be sternly punished.


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By pursuing goals unrelated to a direct threat, Jeffersons views were clearly liberal internationalist,

and Robert Tucker and David Hendrickson criticize them for being both utopian and pacifist. But, in

fact, Jefferson, unlike liberal internationalists, did back up his goals with almost every bit of power

America had at the time, not only most of the available U.S. Navy but also a land expedition led by

the American adventurer William Eaton against the pasha at Tripoli, which Jefferson did not

authorize but allowed to go ahead. And, unlike realists, Jefferson did all this without an alliance withEuropean powers even though they too were harassed by the Barbary pirates. He acted for the most

part unilaterally, and the policy succeeded. In 1805 the Pasha at Tripoli sued for peace and

American frigates returned home, just in time to face a threat much closer to American shores, the

blockade of New York harbor by British frigates. From a fresh perspective, Jefferson s Barbary

policy looks very much like a conservative internationalist strategy that differed significantly from

both realism and liberal internationalism.15

Louisiana Purchase. The Louisiana Purchase was without question the crowning achievement of

Jefferson s diplomacy. It did not just fall into Jeffersons lap, as Henry Adams later claimed.16Rather

it was a product of Jeffersons overall strategy that exploited ideas to change circumstances, usedthe threat of force and alliance deftly to influence perceptions of the balance of power in Europe, and

exhibited diplomatic patience and timely compromise even when compromise impinged on principle.

Jefferson was not only a committed expansionist but among the generation of Founding Fathers the

greatest expansionist. 17Already in 1786, he wrote: our confederacy must be viewed as the nest

from which all America, North and South is to be peopled. 18He did not necessarily envision a

single union of the Americas. As Dumas Malone writes, for Jefferson the Union was always the

means, not an end in itself.19A great believer in decentralization, Jefferson talked about parallel

sister republics in the Louisiana territory and appealed dispassionately to keep them in the union, if

it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better. Jefferson did envision a common civil society

similar peoples speaking the same language, governed in similar forms, and by similar law. And

he could not contemplate with satisfaction any blot or mixture on that surface, which excluded

blacks and Indians from citizenship.20 He counted on white Americans to settle Louisiana, reform

the authoritarian institutions of Spanish and French rule, and prepare the territory for statehood

(which took ten years).

For this early experiment in occupation and democracy building, Jefferson was severely criticized.

John Quincy Adams condemned Jefferson s plan as complete despotism, and Aaron Burr

subsequently plotted with authoritarian-minded residents in the western territories to separate

Louisiana from the union.21But, like a conservative internationalist, Jefferson believed that liberty

preceded equality and union derived from free peoples associating freely, not from equalparticipation among diverse peoples some of whom were not free. From today s vantage point, his

views are racist and imperialist.22And I do not make light of these charges. I simply side with

Michael Ignatieffs position that imperialism and liberty cannot be disentangled: the problem here is

that while no one wants imperialism to win, no one in his right mind can want liberty to fail

either.23At the time America imperialism spread freedom, such as it was then votes for more

white males and such as it was to become thereafter igniting the Civil War, eventually

emancipating blacks, women, and minorities, and continuing the struggle against discrimination to
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this very day. For conservative internationalists, liberty comes first, equality second. Diverse peoples

become equal by accepting the standards of freedom, not by merely exercising power or

sovereignty, as realists believe, or by participating equally in collective institutions to decide what is

legitimate, as liberal internationalists advocate.

For conservative internationalists, as for Jefferson before them, libertycomes first, equality second.

The knock against Jefferson from a realist or conservative internationalist position is that he never

intended to use force to block a French reconquest of Louisiana.24It was all bluff and then dumb luck

when Napoleon was unable to call the bluff. Intentions of course are hard to read. As we ve already

noted, the United States at the time had little force. So even if Jefferson intended to use it all, as he

pretty much did, it might seem as though he intended to use very little. The key instrument of force

was not American but British power.25And here Jefferson succeeded in connecting in Napoleons

mind the probability that if Napoleon went to war with England in Europe he would also have to fight

England in Louisiana.

On October 1,1800 Spain ceded Louisiana to France in the Treaty of San Ildefonso. Secret and

conditional (on Spain getting a French-occupied duchy in Italy), the cession revived the prospects of

French-British rivalry in North America (which had led earlier to the French-Indian Wars of 1756

63 and the original French loss of Louisiana). Jefferson cleverly exploited this rivalry. Learning of the

secret treaty in May 1801 before France and England signed a temporary peace at St. Amiens in

October, Jefferson instructed the American minister in Paris, Robert Livingston, to warn Paris that

the cession of Louisiana may turn the thoughts of our [U.S.] citizens to a closer connection with her

[France s] rival and possibly produce a crisis in which a favorable part of her dominions would be

exposed to the joint operation of a naval [England] and territorial [United States] power.26He

reinforced this threat in a letter to Livingston the following April. The letter informed the French that

should they repossess Louisiana, from that moment we [the United States] must marry ourselves to

the British fleet and nation.27Jefferson knew that this threat would mean nothing in Paris unless

France and England again went to war: I did not expect that he [Napoleon] would yield till a war

took place between France and England, and my hope was to palliate and endure . . . until that

event . . . [and] I believed that event not very distant. 28 Jefferson was right. Within a year war broke

out again between France and England, and Napoleon, both in anticipation of war in America and

because of the defeat of a French naval expedition in Santo Domingo, sold Louisiana to the United

States.

Napoleon weighed American power in the balance between France andEngland, and that is what Jefferson intended.

Was Jeffersons threat irrelevant? Adams says yes: fear of England was not . . . the cause of the

sale.29Tucker and Hendrickson say not entirely. They acknowledge that once war broke out in

Europe, Napoleon was at pains to see that the United States did not ally itself with Great

Britain.30 But Napoleon ceded Louisiana, they argue, not to deter an American alliance with Britain

but to build up a new power in America to challenge England s maritime dominance. The argument
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splits hairs. Whether to prevent an alliance with England or to promote a rival to England, Napoleon

weighed America s power in the balance between France and England, and that is what Jefferson

intended.

Tucker and Hendrickson argue that Jefferson never offered explicit alliance conditions that England

could accept and therefore never intended such an alliance at all. But Jefferson s coyness hasanother explanation. Jeffersons objective was to prevent both English and French occupation of

Louisiana. If he had to threaten alliance with Britain to prevent French occupation, he also had to

avoid Britain occupation. To that extent, indeed, he did not intend or want an alliance with Britain.

But if no occupation of Louisiana was his preferred outcome, alliance and possible occupation by

Britain was still more acceptable than French reoccupation. He asked his cabinet to consider the

British alliance, offering three inducements to attract Britain not to make a separate peace with

France, letting England take Louisiana if necessary, and granting England commercial

concessions.31 The cabinet rejected the last two inducements but authorized alliance talks as soon

as . . . no arrangements can be made with France.

So Jefferson did consider reasonable conditions to lure Britain into an alliance, and the alliance

proposal, even without the last two inducements, was carefully thought out and intentional. As Henry

Adams writes, the alliance contradicted every principle established by President Washington in

power and professed by Jefferson in opposition.32Certainly, Jefferson would not have proposed

such an alliance without considerable reflection. Thus, while visionary, he was no ideologue. He

knew when to sacrifice principle for practice and played a masterful hand at using British power

without really embracing it, unless absolutely necessary, to influence Napoleon s calculations.33

Jefferson played a masterful hand, using British power without reallyembracing it to influence Napoleon.

In the end, of course, Jeffersons diplomacy would not have succeeded without the help of unrelated

circumstances. War in Europe, as Jefferson anticipated, was a prerequisite. But war alone was not

sufficient. War raged in Europe after 1803 when Jefferson tried a similar diplomacy of threatening

alliance with England. He pressured France to persuade its ally Spain to sell the Floridas to the

United States. But after 1803 France was in a stronger position. From 1804 to 1808 Napoleons

fortunes in Europe steadily improved. France had less reason to fear British power, let alone a

British-American alliance. Indeed in this period France hatched plans to invade England. In addition,

U.S.-British relations became more troubled as Britain stepped up impressments of U.S. seamen.

Thus in the earlier period, when Frances position was more precarious and better U.S.-British

relations prevailed, it is not improbable that Jeffersons threat of alliance with Britain was asignificant, if not decisive, factor affecting Napoleons calculations.

Embargo against England. If there was any doubt about Jeffersons willingness to use force, it

should have been dispelled by his ill-fated decision in 1807 to impose an embargo against all

American trade with England. Yet Jeffersons critics interpret this decision as evidence of his

determination not to use military force and of his utopian design to replace the use of military force

with the sanctions and benefits of commerce. In their mind the embargo confirms both Jeffersons
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liberal internationalist bent to transform international politics by leveraging commerce rather than

waging war (what Jefferson called, in the case of economic sanctions, peaceful coercion) and his

isolationist bent to withdraw whenever international conflict threatens the embargo, in effect,

bringing the ships into port and removing the targets for British aggression.

The criticism is well taken. After all, this time America was attacked, and instead of going to war, asnationalists such as Andrew Jackson advocated at the time, Jefferson withdrew the target rather

than attack the aggressor.34In July1807 a British warship, the Leopard, fired upon an American

frigate, the Chesapeake, killing three and wounding 18Americans. This was the first time Britain

attacked a U.S. government vessel as opposed to privateers or private vessels harassing British

shipping. Jefferson himself called the attack this enormity which was not only without provocation

or justifiable cause; but was committed with the avowed purpose of taking by force from a ship of

war of the U.S. a part of her crew who were native citizens of the U.S.35 Yet Jefferson dithered

for six months until France and Britain announced in November even more stringent restrictions on

neutral trade. Then he imposed the embargo that quickly did more harm to American merchants

than British aggressors.

It is hard to conclude that Jefferson saw peaceful coercion as an alternativetotally distinct from war.

Isnt this proof that Jefferson was anything but a conservative internationalist who uses mili tary

power assertively to expand freedom? Under direct attack, he eschewed military retaliation and

responded with a self-defeating embargo. Well, maybe. It depends on whether Jefferson intended

the embargo as a final or interim measure, and whether he knew that war was likely to follow but

wanted to buy time both to allow Congress to take the initiative, as he believed the Constitution

required, and to see if events in Europe might lessen the prospect of war.

Considerable evidence suggests that Jefferson saw the embargo not as an alternative but as a

prelude to military force. His messages and budgets to Congress at the beginning

of 1806 and 1807 increased military spending. Referring in the 1806 message to conflicts with

Britain, he said: [S]ome of these conflicts may perhaps admit a peaceful remedy. Where that is

competent it is always the most desirable. But some of them are of a nature to be met by force only,

and all of them may lead to it. 36After the Chesapeake incident, as even his critics acknowledge,

Jefferson gave considerable thought to the prospect of war with England [and] at various moments

in the late summer and fall of 1807 . . . appeared to consider it, on balance, a path superior to a trial

at economic coercion.37

Thus it is hard to conclude that Jefferson thought of economic sanctions or peaceful coercion as an

alternative totally distinct from war. More likely, as other evidence suggests, he faced three

alternatives in response to the Chesapeake incident: no response, embargo, or war. He chose

embargo as an intermediate response that might have to be followed by war. He told his son-in-law

in the fall of 1807 that the embargo would likely end in war and in March 1808 he said the time would

come when our interests will render war preferable to a continuance of the embargo.38No doubt he

believed that the embargo would hurt England more than it actually did. But he had reason to believe
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so. The U.S. share of trade on the high seas increased enormously from 1801 to 1805.39U.S.

shippingwasvital to England. Why not give this growing form of power a chance to work before

plunging the country into war? After all, war with England was different from war with the Barbary

pirates or war with France in alliance with Britain. War with England would require a maximum

domestic effort and raise all the dangers for the U.S. constitutional system that Jefferson feared.

Why not step into such a war one toe at a time and in the meantime hope that events beyond onescontrol might obviate its necessity? Nevertheless, war was contemplated and in the end it followed,

not on Jeffersons watch but under his protg James Madison. And when it came, Jefferson

supported it unflinchingly.

The knock that Jefferson could not bring himself to use military force in foreign affairs therefore does

not hold up. By imposing the embargo, he used a new form of economic coercion, albeit initially

peaceful (non-military), to buy time and perhaps avoid the subsequent use of military force. But he

did not believe that economic coercion was somehow not coercion or that it alone might suffice to

bring about peace. He used force less than a nationalist might have someone who declares all-

out war when America is attacked but also more than an isolationist or liberal internationalistwould have, someone who considers trade a positive benefit only or as a substitute not prelude for

war. And he defied realist logic by employing means that went well beyond his aims (rather than

what realists fear, that resources will fall short of ambitious aims). The embargo, it could be argued,

cost almost as much as war, and it had much less chance of achieving what Jefferson was after,

namely stopping British impressment.

POLK MANIFEST DESTINY

JAMES POLK WASwithout question one of the most ambitious and successful American presidents in

history. In four years, he expanded American territory to incorporate Texas, the northwest territory of

Oregon, and the southwest territories of New Mexico and California. And he did all this as a lame

duck president facing a phalanx of presidential wannabes because he promised upon his

unexpected nomination in 1844 to serve only one term. But Polk did not succeed without war with

Mexico and without unleashing the passions of the slavery question that led a decade and a half

later to the Civil War. For these reasons, in particular, Polks star has been dimmed by history.40

But the verdict is too harsh. For many, to be sure, the annexation of Texas and New

Mexico/California involved the expansion of slavery not liberty. But for others it involved the prospect

of living under a freer system than existed in Mexico at the time; and the American system, it can at

least be argued, led to more freedom and opportunity thereafter than would have materialized if

Mexico had retained possession of Texas and the Southwest. One also needs to ask if there wasany way expansion could have taken place without war and if the union would have been better off

had civil war come before expansion. Almost certainly, slavery would have provoked war at some

point with or without expansion, and the nation was better protected against predatory neighbors

because expansion came before the Civil War. During the Civil War, Britain and France both plotted

interventions from Mexico, but now because of expansion they did so from less advantageous

borders.


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Polks diplomacy sharply illustrates key tenets of the conservative internationalist tradition: 1) a clear

vision to spread freedom that rises above the ebb and flow of domestic politics and foreign

events; 2) an ambitious diplomacy in which the use of force is a continuing companion of

negotiations, not a last resort after negotiations fail; and 3) a sense of timely compromise that

respects the limits of American power and domestic politics.

Polks expansionist aims were never doubted.41He seized opportunities in the 1840s to spread

American liberty and power that even his more illustrious nationalist predecessor, Andrew Jackson,

did not take. In 1836, Jackson had the opportunity of actual war between Texas and Mexico to

annex Texas and did not take it.42Jacksons commitment was to union, not the expansion of union.

His two terms were devoted largely to domestic struggles the national bank and tariff. By contrast,

in 1845 Polk deployed forces to the disputed Texas border to createthe opportunity for annexation,

albeit at the risk of war. Polk was more visionary, like Jefferson, and deftly combined ideas and

power to change, not just accommodate, circumstances. He also demonstrated, better perhaps than

Jefferson, the crucial importance of timely links between the use of force and compromise,

especially to sustain the domestic consensus behind the more assertive use of force. In this respectPolk may have been the most consistent and complete conservative internationalist.

Polk seized opportunities to spread American liberty and power that hispredecessor did not take.

Annexation of Texas. In his last days in office in March 1845, President John Tyler adopted a House

of Representative plan to annex Texas immediately while the Senate sought to renegotiate the

Texas Treaty which Tyler had negotiated. Polks role is disputed, but he at least acquiesced in and

probably accelerated Tylers plan.43In the spring and summer, he sent special agents to Texas to

persuade the Texas government to accept annexation over independence and dispatched an envoy

to Mexico City to warn Mexico against recognizing Texas independence. He also ordered U.S.

troops under Zachary Taylor to move from Louisiana to the Texas border and sent additional naval

forces to the Gulf Coast. By early summer, as Sam W. Haynes writes, Washington aimed to send a

clear and unequivocal message to Mexico and Great Britain that it would brook no interference in its

plans to annex Texas.44 This assertive deployment of U.S. claims and forces clearly reinforced

local support for annexation. In June the Texas Congress approved annexation, and in July a

convention ratified it.

Texas annexation might have happened anyway, but a better question to ask, according to the

historian David Pletcher, is why it took so long.45 Other American presidents let divisions in

Congress and Texas delay the outcome. Tyler and Polk did not. And if Polk had dithered any longer,the annexation of Texas rather than the acquisition of New Mexico and California may have become

the pretext for war with Mexico. Pre-emptive action, if it succeeds, secures a more favorable position

from which to deal with future exigencies.

Oregon Territory. In his inaugural address in March 1845, Polk declared the U.S. claim to the

Oregon Territory to be clear and unquestionable, without specifying whether that claim was the

extreme expansionist position of 54degrees 40 minutes (including contemporary British Columbia) or


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the more moderate claim of the 49th parallel (todays border with Canada). Faced with the Texas

and larger Mexican issues, Polk set priorities and offered a compromise in July 1845 accepting

the 49th parallel. The British refused, demanding arbitration of the issue. Given some confusion on

the British side, his less expansion-minded secretary of state, James Buchanan, and others urged

Polk to resubmit the proposal. But Polk now displayed patience and looked for leverage to make

sure that the next proposal came from the British.

Polk, more visionary than Jackson, deftly combined ideas and power tochange, not just accommodate, circumstances.

In December 1845 he submitted legislation to Congress giving notice that the United States would

withdraw from the two agreements with Britain (signed in 1817 and 1826) providing for joint

occupation of the Oregon territory. For four months Congress debated this legislation, finally

approving a Senate version that gave Polk authority to terminate the joint occupation at his

discretion. This was just the sort of leverage Polk wanted. Eventually, in May 1846, the British

offered a proposal that, except for limited navigation rights ceded to the British Hudsons Bay Company on the Columbia River, was the same as the proposal they had rejected one year earlier.

Now, suddenly, Buchanan objected. He demanded the more ambitious 5440 boundary in an

attempt to undercut Polks support among northern expansionists. This was just the kind of domestic

political maneuvering Polk had to contend with throughout his presidency. Under these

circumstances, Polks patient diplomacy was exactly the right domestic medicine. Offering repeated

U.S. proposals would have simply given Congress the opportunity to dilute his negotiating position.

Instead he rallied Congress to pass withdrawal legislation that leveraged the British to make the next

proposal. To neutralize Buchanan, Polk asked him to draft the message to the Senate accepting the

British proposal. In an astonishing confrontation with Polk, Buchanan refused. Polk then drafted the

message himself, called a Cabinet meeting, and when Buchanan objected put him in a room with

other colleagues to work out the differences. After minor adjustments, the message went to

Congress and after assiduous lobbying by Polk passed the Senate comfortably (3812) in June. The

Oregon issue was settled just in time to let Polk and the country concentrate on the more recalcitrant

issues of New Mexico and California.

Acquisition of New Mexico and California. Polks aim was not just to annex Texas and defend its

disputed border with Mexico on the Rio Grande but to acquire the entire southwest region. Polk was

Jeffersonian and believed that liberty would be better for indigenous peoples even if it did not involve

at the outset equal recognition of nondemocratic cultures.46Realists reject such arguments as mere

rationalizations of imperialism, while liberal internationalists descry them as Anglo-Saxon racism. Butconservative internationalists see this approach putting in place a freer system that over time does

more for individual equality across diverse cultures than might be achieved if nondemocratic cultures

remained in power.

After war broke out, Polk accelerated diplomacy each time he escalatedforce.


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The conservative internationalist approach does not imply exporting freedom with a gun. Polk hoped

to purchase New Mexico and California without war. And after war broke out, he accelerated

diplomacy each time he escalated force. First, in July 1845, after Texas ratified union, he took a

series of steps to strengthen the U.S. military position in Texas and the southwest. He ordered

Taylor to move as close to the disputed Rio Grande border as circumstances would permit, alerted

Commodore John D. Sloat, commander of the Pacific Squadron, to keep his forces ready, appointedthe American consul in California, Thomas O. Larkin, to watch for intervention of foreign powers

(read Great Britain), and invited two aggressive individuals to join the effort to increase military

pressure sending Commodore Robert F. Stockton, a loose cannon during the annexation of

Texas, from the Gulf Coast to California and communicating with John C. Fremont, an adventurer

and troublemaker in the Oregon territory, to move south to California. Shortly thereafter, in

September, however, Polk embraced diplomacy. He dispatched John Slidell, a former Louisiana

Congressman, to Mexico to purchase New Mexico and California, warning that if Mexico failed to

cooperate, he would ask Congress for appropriate remedies. The Mexican government refused to

recognize Slidell because they expected U.S. commissioners to renegotiate the Texas Treaty (based

on the Senate plan ignored by Tyler and Polk). Was Polk deterring or aggressing?

47

One answer isneither. He was bent on acquiring the southwest territories and understood that the best chance to

do so without force was to pursue an aggressive diplomacy backed by force.

The Slidell mission failed, in part because Mexico was deeply divided. The government fell in

December just as Slidell arrived. Now, Polk readied his second effort at diplomacy backed by force.

Without results in Mexico City, Polk ordered Taylor in January 1846 to move to the Rio Grande,

occupying disputed territory for the first time. Taylor arrived in late March. In late April, Mexican

forces attacked across the Rio Grande, and in early May, after Slidell arrived back in Washington,

Polk asked Congress to declare war. Polk placed Winfield Scott in overall command, but he and

Scott, a presidential aspirant for the Whigs, who were less expansionist, immediately clashed. and

Polk fired Scott. Polk then deployed forces in three directions. Taylor continued marching into

Mexico; Colonel Stephen W. Kearny led an expedition toward Santa Fe, New Mexico and

subsequently California; and Sloat proceeded to blockade the California coast and seize ports as

possible. Polk signaled that he was flexible on the eventual border with Mexico as long as New

Mexico and California became part of the United States.48

Santa Anna agreed to sell California but not New Mexico. But Polk knewwhat he wanted and waited until he could attain it.

Once again Polk escalated his peace initiatives in line with the projection of force. He looked for a

leader of Mexico that would sell the southwest territory. He consulted in February 1846 with an agentof Santa Anna, an aspiring Mexican warlord exiled in Havana. In July Polk sent Alexander Slidell

Mackenzie, the brother of John Slidell, to consult with Santa Anna, and in August he allowed Santa

Anna to transit through U.S. naval lines on his way from Cuba to Mexico City to seize power. Once

back in Mexico, however, Santa Anna turned against the United States, and Polks second

diplomatic offensive came a cropper.
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Polk turned again to the use of force to bolster his diplomacy. He opened a second front. Taylor

defeated the Mexicans at Monterrey in late September but then signed an eight week truce, contrary

to Polk s instructions. Polk ordered a second expedition to seize Vera Cruz, and overlooking earlier

differences, placed Scott in charge. Never relying on force alone, however, he also escalated

diplomacy. In January 1847 he sent a special agent, Moses Beach, to Mexico City. Beach almost got

a deal. Santa Anna agreed to sell California but not New Mexico. Polk refused. His vision providedhim with a bottom line. He knew what he wanted and waited until he could attain it.

Scott took Vera Cruz in March 1847, and Polk ordered him on to Mexico City, which the Americans

stormed in September. Again, the escalation of force was accompanied by new diplomacy. In April

Polk sent Nicholas P. Trist, a clerk to Secretary of State Buchanan, to Mexico City. Polk made clear

to Trist that the acquisition of New Mexico and California was his bottom line.49 Trist quickly

exceeded his instructions and showed a willingness to forgo parts of California. Polk recalled him in

October. But Trist stayed on, feuding not only with Polk but with General Scott as well.

Here perhaps dumb luck stepped in. Polk was out of options. The All-Mexico Movement in Congressdemanded the annexation of all of Mexico. Miraculously, or so it seemed, Trist finally reached

agreement on February 2,1948 in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which met Polks minimum

conditions. The treatys arrival in Washington two weeks later undercut theAll Mexico Movement,

and the war ended short of maximalist aims.

Polks constant attention to the link between force and diplomacy made this intermediate outcome

possible. Relying more on force might have dumped all of Mexico in Americas lap. Relying moreon

diplomacy, on the other hand for example, accepting Beachs compromise in1947 might have

compromised too much. If the United States had acquired all of Mexico, U.S. frontiers might have

been even better protected against future predators. But how much more would it have cost to

occupy and control all of Mexico? Here is where conservative internationalism respects the balancebetween goals and resources. It does not accept the realist or liberal internationalist admonition that

expansionist goals must always be pruned to match limited resources. But it also does not accept

the idea that resources can always be stretched to accommodate maximalist aims. The expansion of

freedom is an incremental process. Proximate gains outweigh maximalist ones. Conservative

internationalism presses the envelope of forceful change but knows when to take piecemeal gains

and press for further gains on later occasions.

Conservative internationalism presses the envelope of forceful change butknows when to take piecemeal gains.

Polks diplomacy is even more remarkable when one considers the domestic obstacles he faced.

The aims of both conservative and liberal internationalists are ambitious, but the more assertive

military means that conservative internationalists employ are much more controversial. The trick for

conservative internationalists is to maintain domestic consensus without compromising aims. Polk

faced Whigs who largely opposed expansion by force or other means. However, he also faced

liberal internationalists who favored expansion but opposed the use of force to achieve those ends,

believing that contiguous lands would voluntarily join the Union or ripen like fruit and fall into the lap


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of the United States.50In addition, he faced sectional divisions. Southern Democrats favored

expansion to the southwest but not northwest (Oregon see below) because slavery was an issue

in the southwest (the Wilmot Proviso forbidding slavery in the southwest being tacked onto one of

the appropriation bills to buy the southwest territories). Northern Democrats favored expansion to the

northwest but not southwest because slavery was not an issue in the northwest.

On top of these divisions, Polk confronted a welter of presidential aspirants fighting to succeed him

in 1848 Buchanan, his secretary of state, who went on to become president in 1857; Henry Clay,

the leader of the Whigs, whom Polk defeated in 1844; John C. Calhoun, leader of the southern

Democrats in Congress; General Taylor, who won the presidential election as a Whig in 1848;

General Scott, whom many Whigs wanted to be president; and Lewis Cass, the expansionist senator

from Michigan who ran as the Democratic nominee against Taylor in 1848. Polk was a consummate

politician as well as a visionary and imperialist. Critics contend that he managed all of these diverse

interests only by logrolling them to wage an unnecessary war. But then the war should have

controlled him, not the other way around. In fact, his ability to carve out a principled but proportionate

position between isolationists and opportunists on the one hand (such as Trist and Buchanan, whowere ready to accept any compromise) and expansionists and racists on the other (such as Cass,

who sought maximalist aims) enabled him to end the war in a relatively short period of time and in a

way that damaged U.S.-Mexican relations, to be sure, but did not result in the long-term occupation

or annexation of Mexico.

TRUMAN LIBERTY IN WESTERN EUROPE

IF HARRY TRUMANwas a liberal internationalist, he was a different one from Woodrow Wilson or

Franklin Roosevelt. Wilson was a liberal internationalist first class. He invented the League of

Nations and believed collective security would replace the balance of power and make the world

safe for democracy. Franklin Roosevelt was a liberal internationalist second class. He amended the

League idea by adding the realist component of a concert of great powers with veto rights in the

United Nations Security Council. But he still believed on balance that diplomacy within the United

Nations, especially personal diplomacy, could manage relations with the Soviet Union peacefully.

Truman was a liberal internationalist third class. He wanted Roosevelts scheme to work but believed

on balance that diplomacy would require a more assertive use of force to contain the Soviet Union

and an ideological campaign to promote liberty and stop the spread of communism in Western

Europe. In the end, had Roosevelt lived and faced the same exigencies, he may have made the

same calls as Truman. We will never know. But, if so, his approach too might be better called

conservative rather than liberal internationalism, because it tilted ultimately toward the free countries

that founded NATOrather than all countries that made up the United Nations, and it deployedAmerican power for the first time in peace to defend and promote liberty abroad.

Three postwar developments reveal the conservative nature of Trumans internationalism the tilt

in 194547toward a more ideological rather than geopolitical interpretation of the conflict with the

Soviet Union (the Truman Doctrine), the unprecedented decisions from 1947 to 1949 to commit

American military power to Europe in peacetime (NATO), and the shift after 1949 away from


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negotiations with the Soviet Union through the United Nations toward the containment of Soviet

power through alliances in Europe and elsewhere around the world (sidelining the United Nations).

Roosevelt wanted Polish elections to be as pure as Caesars wife. Stalinreplied that Caesars wife was known to have her sins. 51 Gaddis,

The Truman Doctrine. Roosevelt was not nave about the domestic character of the Soviet regime.

He told Joseph Davies, his close pro-Soviet adviser, I cant take communism nor can you, but to

cross this bridge I would hold hands with the Devil.51The bridge Roosevelt wanted to cross was

managing postwar peace with the Soviet Union through diplomacy. Truman wanted to cross that

bridge too.52For both, diplomacy had to trump ideology. But Truman and Roosevelt differed

precisely on the question of how diplomacy and ideology interacted. At Yalta, Roosevelt let

ideological differences pass. When Roosevelt insisted that Polish elections be as pure as Caesars

wife, Stalin responded that Caesars wife was known to have her sins. Roosevelt let the comment

pass. At Potsdam, when Truman and Churchill complained that the Soviet Union blocked access to

the Balkan countries (Churchill had used the phrase iron curtain already in a cable in May 1945),Stalin replied that it was all fairy tales. Rather than let it pass, Truman took Churchills side and

rebuked Stalin. Churchill told aides later that evening if only this had happened at Yalta.53

This was an early indication of Trumans greater awareness that ideological differences might be a

decisive impediment to diplomacy. Two events in 1946 offered further evidence. In

February 1946 Truman invited Churchill to speak at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. He not

only accompanied Churchill to Fulton and introduced him but read Churchills speech beforehand.

Churchills iron curtain speech was, as many historians see it, the open ing shot of the Cold War. Its

bellicose tone shocked the press, and Truman subsequently tried to muffle his support for the

speech by arguing feebly that he did not know what Churchill was going to say. But it is

inconceivable that he did not know and share Churchills views, unless he was behaving in a totally

incompetent manner.54In September of the same year, William Wallace, Trumans Secretary of

Commerce and the last holdover of the most liberal internationalist members of the Roosevelt

administration, gave a speech denouncing what he perceived to be a shift in U.S. policy toward a

hard line with the Soviet Union. Truman initially did nothing, but under substantial pressure, including

from his own Secretary of State, James Byrnes, fired Wallace a few days later. The two incidents

suggest that in Washington, by the end of 1946, Churchills hard line was in, and Roosevelts soft

line was out.

Eleanor Roosevelt remarked that her husband thought hed get on better with

Stalin than with Churchill when peace came.

Might Roosevelt have responded to unfolding events in 1946 in the same way? Perhaps. But

Roosevelt would never have allowed Churchill at Fulton to put him in a box vis--vis the Soviet

Union. Roosevelt often joked that the British were perfectly willing for the United States to have a

war with the Soviet Union at any time, and Eleanor Roosevelt once commented that her husband

always thought that when peace came he would be able to get along better with Stalin than with

Churchill.55And while Roosevelt dumped Wallace for Truman on the presidential ticket in 1944,


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Wallaces views about the Soviet Union were certainly closer to Roosevelts views and those of his

pro-Soviet advisers, such as Harry Hopkins and Joseph Davies, than to Trumans.

Thus, by the time the British announced in February 1947 that they were pulling forces out of Greece

and Turkey, Truman was primed to identify the ideological sources of Soviet behavior as the root

cause of the failure of postwar diplomacy. The Truman Doctrine, announced in March, appealed toevery nation to choose between two alternative ways of life, one pursuing freedom, the other

oppression. Did Truman hype the ideological threat primarily to win congressional approval? Realists

and liberal internationalists think so, but Congress and the public needed less encouragement to

resist an expansionof Soviet ideology, which was at stake for the first time in Greece and Turkey,

than a consolidationof Soviet ideology in Eastern Europe, which the Soviet Union had already

occupied by the end of World War II. Public opinion turned around quickly once the Marshall Plan

made it clear that it was freedom in Western, not Eastern, Europe that was at stake.

Would Roosevelt have responded in similar fashion to Soviet offensive intentions?56Again, perhaps.

But at the very least Roosevelt would have been slower to conclude that communist ideologymattered. As Wilson Miscamble concludes in an exhaustive study of the differences between

Roosevelt and Truman, Roosevelt either downplayed or simply failed to appreciate the ideological

chasm that divided the democracies from Stalins totalitarian regime.57Truman, by contrast, was

accused of turning the relationship with the Soviet Union into an ideological crusade. Both Truman

and Roosevelt were internationalists, but Truman was a conservative internationalist, more inclined

to see the absence of freedom (access to other societies) as a barrier to diplomacy and equal

treatment, while Roosevelt was a liberal internationalist, more inclined to see diplomacy and equal

treatment as the only effective way to encourage freedom and eventual access in Eastern Europe.

Truman was accused of turning the relationship with the Soviet Union into

an ideological crusade.

NATO. From 1943 to 1947, neither Roosevelt nor Truman displayed the conservative

internationalists instinct to back diplomacy with the threat of force. Instead, true to liberal

internationalist dictates, they both backed Roosevelts concept of collective security carried out by

the UNSecurity Council under Chapter VII of the Charter. National military force would defer to

international military force. Roosevelt pledged to Stalin at Teheran in November 1943that the United

States would remove all forces from Europe within two years after the end of the war. He repeated

that pledge at Yalta, even as Soviet forces were rumbling toward Berlin. After Soviet moves in late

February/March1945 to install a communist government in Poland, Roosevelt hinted in his last cable

to Churchill that they would have to consi

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