Woodrow Wilson
In honor of the 150th birthday of Woodrow Wilson, John Ikenberry offers fourteen points about the man, his foreign policy, and his legacy. Point six is probably the most important:
Wilson’s vision embodied both impulses toward “liberal imperialism” (or, more politely, “liberal interventionism”) and “liberal internationalism” – an awkward and problematic duality that continues among liberals today.The “liberal imperial” impulse was on display in Wilson’s earlier interventions in Mexico in 1914 and 1916. Wilson said that America’s deployment of force was to help Mexico “adjust her unruly household.” Regarding Latin America, Wilson said: “We are friends of constitutional government in America; we are more than its friends, we are its champions. I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men.” Indeed, Wilson used military force in an attempt to teach Southern republics, intervening in Cuba, the Dominion Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.
The “liberal internationalist” impulse was articulated later during the Great War in the Fourteen Points address and in proposals for collective security and the League of Nations. This sentiment was stated perhaps most clearly in the summer of 1918 as the war was reaching its climax. Wilson gave his July 4th address at Mount Vernon and described his vision of postwar order: “What see seek is the reign of law, based on the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind.”
I think "liberal hawks" have been having a lot of trouble recognizing that George W. Bush perfectly authentically represents the first, imperialistic version of Wilson and Wilsonianism. It's not a farce or a corruption of a perfect ideal. It just is the ideal and it happens to be a rather corrupt one. Then there's this other, rather different set of Wilsonian ideas which I think are a good deal better. John Judis wrote a great book about this.
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This, I think, is probably the most important point to be making about Iraq right now. The problem isn't Bush, it's the main (or a main) strand of American forign policy.
The dual nature of Wilsonian foreign policy-- internationalist and imperialist -- cannot be readily split into two separate traditions. As one of the TPM Cafe commenters notes, rather bluntly, "In Wilson's day the 'world' meant Europe by and large. The other areas of the world were resources to be exploited by the 'world'. That is consistent with the racism that he apparently also believed in."
Wilson believed that the world was trending toward democratic government, and that an international framework for cooperation among free nations would encourage these trends and reinforce them. But there's a serious problem written into the very core of this vision... it doesn't explain how to deal with nations that have not yet developed a democratic form of government. This is because Wilson presupposed the existence of colonialism and imperialism in less-developed parts of the world. It was simply understood in 1918 that Europe and the United States would meddle in the affairs of weaker nations within their sphere of influence. Liberal Internationalism and Imperialism were two sides of the same coin.
Ikenberry says "Wilson and the liberals were not idealists – they were actually, at least in part, liberal historical materialists or liberal modernization theorists who saw democracy, trade, and institutionalized governance as springing from deep materialist historical forces." And I believe this is true. The trouble is that "democracy" is by far the weakest of the forces. Trade between powerful nations, and weaker ones, especially trade for raw materials such as oil, tends to bring about quasi-imperialist relationships between Western business and pliable local rulers... not democracy.
It seems to me that the liberal hawks make a crucial error. They fail to understand that Wilson assumed the existence of imperialism. They assume that democracy is as natural a state of affairs as trade, and they fail to understand that there are powerful forces in developing countries that run counter to democracy. The actual materialist drive is for local power bases to fight over resources and vie for favor with Western financial interests. Genuine democracy is only a natural state of affairs in a society with a well-developed economy, state institutions, and a strong middle class. You can't choose a third world despotism, smash its infrastructure, disband its existing political structure, and then solve everything by holding an election.
I believe that Wilson himself probably understood this. The TNR crowd? Not so much.
There's a problem trying to pin the follies in American foreign policy and political life on ideas. With George Bush, articulated policies have always been obvious rationalizations rather than the engines which motivate actions. When the reasons behind his tax cuts evaporated, he just changed the reasons for the tax cuts. When WMDs disappeared, he changed his reasons for being in Iraq. Etc. It has been ever thus with that jackass, easily the most pernicious man to ever inhabit the office. I doubt that we'll recover in 20 years. The level of cynicism in Bush and the Republicans has rendered us a cruel parody of a Democracy. No wonder he saw a soul mate in Putin.
LP speaks truth, and the entire article is important.
Sometimes the 1000 wonks who want to be Talleyrand or Acheson amaze me. Bush isn't going to listen to Baker or Clemons, and he really wasn't listening to Wolfowitz or Ledeen.
All foreign policy is dependent on domestic poltics, and the question isn't what is right or wrong, smart or stupid. The question is the salesmen, the product, and the consumers. Wilson could sell wars, but not the League of Nations.
Life sucks.
Oh, come on, Wilson could have sold the League of Nations. As the article Matt linked to put it:
"9- The popular historical account that America “chose isolation over internationalism” after World War I is a myth. The Senate rejection of the Peace Treaty was not inevitable. A majority of the Senate was in fact internationalist. Wilson blew it. A majority of the Senate was willing to buy onto the treaty, although some wanted clarifying reservations. The “Irreconcilables” (such as Borah, LaFollette, and Norris) who sought to defeat the treaty were a minority. Wilson would not compromise and, as a result, he was unable or unwilling to split the mild reservationists off from the hard-line opponents."
Wilson didn't sell it because he was, frankly, an egomaniac. He was consumed with the idea that he was the transformative agent of the world order, and he wanted the Senate (controlled by the Republicans) to just shut up and do as he dictated. When they pushed back, he tried to go over their heads by not negotiating or compromising, but stumping to the masses. Implicitely, that was a threat: "Do as I say or I'll get you fired because the people love me."
It doesn't take a political genius to realize that that's a low percentage all-or-nothing play.
I think "liberal hawks" have been having a lot of trouble recognizing that George W. Bush perfectly authentically represents the first, imperialistic version of Wilson and Wilsonianism. It's not a farce or a corruption of a perfect ideal. It just is the ideal and it happens to be a rather corrupt one.
Yes and no. This particular Wilsonian idea is, as you say, inherently corrupt...but Bush's emulation of it is hardly 'perfectly authentic'. The Wilsonian rhetoric is a transparent rationalization of much darker impulses; the fact that the rationalization is itself corrupt does not mean it is the same as the corrupt things it rationalizes.
I completely disagree.
All indications were that Wilson truly believed democracy to be a requirement for a mature, strong, stable society.
Bush and his neoconservative advisors, on the other hand, appear to believe that democracy makes states weak and passive. This would explain why they are so eager to foster democracy in other countries while abrogating it here in the U.S. Their calculus seems to be democracy and "toughness" have an inverse relationship, and that forcing potential enemies to be democratic is simply one step in making our nation "tougher" than theirs.
Wilson promoted increased democracy here in the U.S., and was a strong proponent of international law. Bush, on the other hand, has made every effort to rig our own elections, bypass our courts, defy our legislature, and trample our Constitution, even while trumpeting his efforts to build these institutions in Iraq.
The contrast could not be more stark.
Wilson's proposals for the borders in a postwar Europe were in the service of democracy, and serviced by demographic data intended to provide voting blocs in ethnically-identified nations. The inclusion of large numbers of actual Germans in a postwar Austria, perhaps resembling the inclusion of Turkmen in what the Kurds regard as their potential country, is only the beginning of the resemblances between the post-WW I project in Europe and the changes coming in the mid-East.
And hardly the only similarities between Wilson, who once imprisoned a newspaper editor for reprinting a speech Wilson himself had delivered, and George Bush.
The Wilsonian comparison seems right. But the idea that Bush's Wilsonianism tripped over the nature of Iraqi society is incomplete. The interventions of Iran and Syria have been very important. Iran is an imperialist wannabe with nuclear aspirations. The war in Iraq is partly a proxy war, partly ethnic/tribal warfare.
The situation in Mideast is historically unique in that the West is funding it's own opposition by purchasing oil from countries "Created" by the West. And it was Wilson's friend, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, who did a lot of the border-drawing.
The advent of nuclear weapons into the mix changes everything. Wilson could champion any foreign democracy whatever partly because the US could not be threatened by them. That is no longer true.
The problem is that Bush epitomizes the corrupt and supercilious interventionism, while completely rejecting and dishonoring the idealistic building of international institutions.
American interventionism is bad enough married to idealism, but the idealism gave it some redeeming features. But, this administration regards law as purely advisory, the Geneva Conventions are quaint, and proliferation of nuclear weapons appears to be a desiderata.
There was probably an honest error of judgment in many cases. The rationale was corrupt, regardless.
I think there's a clear distinction between the neocons, who used lofty Wilsonian rhetoric to obscure their darker impulses, and the so-called liberal hawks who apparently believed that Wilsonian goals could be achieved in the Middle East and failed to recognize that the ideals were inseparable from the dark forces that lurk beneath the starry rhetoric.
Absolutely. I think most of the liberal hawks could be considered legitimately (and dimwittedly) Wilsonian. Bush and his people...not so much.
Wilson, Bush, Pelosi, Clinton, it makes no difference. Unfortunately it took segregationist Governor Wallace to reveal the truth that "there's not a dime's worth of difference between" Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats willingly went along with the War in Iraq, suspension of Habeas Corpus, detaining protesters, banning books like "America Deceived' from Amazon, stealing private lands (Kelo decision), warrant-less wiretapping and refusing to investigate 9/11 properly. Look at the bright side, when we have to vote the Democrats out, we'll have no choice but to vote for a Third Party.
Support indy media.
Last link (before Google Books bends to gov't Will and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
Define "corrupt".
According to Mr. Radical in "Last Thoughts on Saddam's Last" widosnewestblog.blogspot.com, American exceptionalism with respect to military intervention distorts our national life. Whatever one thinks about World War I, or Wilson's racism and philocolonialism (his indifference to the very young Ho Chi Minh's appeals), his internationalism was more than an exceptionalist "We're so great we can even put together a splendid coalition of the willing."
On the other hand, it seems Wilson does indeed a certain amount of credit for marrying American super-patriotism with newly globalized American militarism to create a vocabulary of a saving, militaristic, American exceptionalism. Teddy Roosevelt's gunboat diplomacy did not have as strong a purely ideological aspect as Wilson's moral diplomacy. Wilson was after more than stable markets and empire-building for its own sake. eg: My understanding is that Sykes-Picot with its colonialist perspective on the middle east was largely a Franco-British act, while Wilson at Versailles was very adamant in support of self-determination (at least in Europe, he didn't have much nice to say to younf Uncle Ho) etc. which leads us to, although not Jonah Goldberg let's throw some shitty country against a wall, then at liberal hawks bleeding for blood. Whether, as Mr. Radical in "Last Thoughts on Saddam's Last" widosnewestblog.blogspot.com says, this is a bad thing on its own, depends on your point-of-view.
Bush is also Wilsonian in another way-- his suppression of civil liberties, just like Wilson did. And Wilson, of course, was a notorious bigot, and in that area was even worse than Bush.
The thing you really have to wonder is why these liberal hawks think that Wilson was such a hero. He was a pretty bad President, one of the worst. If people admire him nonetheless, it seems to me that this shows how screwed up those admirers are.
This thread reminds me of an argument about soup. One person says it's carrot soup, the next person says it's rice soup. What it is, is vegetable soup, and it's what you get when you take the bruised policies that can't be sold all shiney and new, and boil them down in an effort to make swill that everyone will find attractive.
At which point, I guess, the question becomes "Well, what kind of bread are they serving with the soup?" Because, all by itself, it's a mighty thin soup.
Does that mean Bush is a soup Nazi?
Woodrow Wilson segregated the military and revitalized the Klan. Fuck him.
Politically I suppose but I also supported certain types of Cultural Imperialism. Such as imposing my culture's view of FGM (it's wrong) on all other cultures.
thx for all writes & articles ...
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