1. The Bases of American

Foreign Policy

Insofar as a nation may be deemed to adhere to a fixed course in its dealings with other nations over a long period of years, continuing trends in foreign policy are identifiable. Sometimes these trends persist for so long that they become known as basic principles. However, it would be misleading to label these trends or these principles as immutable. For a long time isolationism was believed to be a basic principle of our foreign policy, although actually, as will be seen later in this study, the major trends have been toward internationalism for many years. So, also, at many periods in our national history we have followed a particular policy line, justifying our actions by harking back to historic examples as basic principles. In fact, as will be demonstrated, new situations and altered circumstances have had more to do with the decisions reached than have unchanging principles. This fact emphasizes the dynamic quality of foreign policy in a changing world.

Principles, therefore, may be too limiting a term with which to characterize national policies. In its stead, perhaps, the more elastic word purposes should be used. It is possible to set forth some basic purposes of American foreign policy which underlie

Purposes of foreign policy

our actions today and which may be expected to prevail in the future, although trends and circumstances may cause modification, temporary abandonment, or permanent re-evaluation of the purpose expressed. Likewise, those purposes which have prevailed for a long period of our national history cannot be regarded as representing for the United States of today with its world-wide responsibilities, exactly the same things

as they did in 1776. Nations, just as individuals, mature, and in so doing, accept new concepts and discard old ones. The measure of maturity is not so much in the recognition of this natural process as in the wisdom with which these changes are made. Part of the value of a study such as this is the demonstration of the progress of the United States toward maturity in the international field. The wisdom of particular moves may be debatable, and in the light of the documentary evidence it may appear that some of our national actions have been faulty, by deeds either of omission or of commission. It is for you to reason, within your own experience and the facts at hand, whether the sum total thus far indicates the attainment of an enlightened maturity on the part of the United States in respect to foreign affairs.

To assist you in achieving this objective it may be well to outline some of the underlying purposes of foreign policy which have characterized the development of the United States as a world power. Each of these bases is illustrated in the text by documentary references or comment, and sometimes by both. No complete guide to the courses of American foreign policy can be prepared without exhaustive analysis of the day-byday steps, almost with a mile-by-mile description of the many main roads and the tortuous side paths along which we as a nation have moved in our long history. To do this would unnecessarily complicate the scope of this study. However, insofar as it appears practical, appropriate guideposts will be included and attention called to their presence, so that you may follow the shortest effective routes to an understanding of the factors and events which have contributed to the development of the United States as a nation charged

with the responsibilities as well as the opportunities of leadership in the world today.

These, then, are the main ele

Main elements ments upon which the development of American of American foreign policy may be foreign policy based. (1) They are stated in general terms and are elaborated upon in the sections which follow.

1. The maintenance of the national security and the territorial integrity of the United States through every means within our power. (2)

2. The furtherance of every sincere effort designed to establish lasting peace in the community of nations.

3. The protection of weaker nations from aggression or exploitation by others, and the renunciation of any intent on the part of the United States to commit aggression or exercise exploitation.

4. The insistence that all nations, great or small, be accorded the same freedom to trade, communicate, and consult with one another.

5. The determination that by example, rather than by dictation, the United States shall convince the nations of the world of its intention and capacity to influence world action toward peace and freedom.

6. The extension of every assistance within our national capacity to oppressed peoples and underprivileged areas.

7. The encouragement of local, regional, or other groupings of nations which have as their design the furtherance of international peace, security, and understanding.

8. The support of new governments which give promise of contributing to the eventual establishment of stability in the world community of nations.

9. The avoidance of interference in the internal affairs of nations where such affairs are not likely to endanger the peace and security of international arrangements to which the United States is a party.

10. The enlistment of allies and supporters among nations and peoples whose purposes are compatible with our own.

11. The resort to war only in those cases where the national security is threatened or the maintenance of world peace is jeopardized, and then

only after all honorable means for the avoidance of war have been exhausted.

12. The insistence that the promotion of the dignity and worth of the individual shall be the aim of the state and that all our national energy shall be employed to discourage the proposition that the individual exists only for the good of the

state.

These dozen purposes underlying American foreign policy have many facets. Each requires interpretation when specific instances are cited. No one of the purposes exists in a vacuum. Each is related to one, or more, or all of the others. Some of them have been neglected at certain periods in our history. Some have been incompletely employed because current circumstances limited their use. But, through all our national history, elements of these purposes have exerted a strong and lasting influence on the conduct of our foreign affairs. It is with these elements that the following sections deal.

2. Independence and the Early Federal Period

America in the Colonial period was an extension on the soil of the Western hemisphere of the European powers and problems of those days. In the years of colonialism, from 1607 onward in the English-speaking settlements, earlier in the Spanish-controlled regions, and simultaneously in the Dutch, French and Swedish colonies, the inhabitants of the new world were involved, often unwillingly, in the affairs of Europe. For the thirteen Atlantic seaboard colonies which became the United States of America the policies of isolation, hemispheric separateness, neutrality, freedom of the seas, unfettered trade, and the pacific settlement of international disputes all had meaning even before 1776. In this section several of these links with the Colonial period are explained to show the importance of the early pronouncements of the new nation.

In the very act of declaring its independence the United States was engaging in the exercise of foreign policy. From circumstances surrounding the Colonial period, the Americans had, by 1776, already established some of the bases of foreign policy which were to determine the new nation's attitude toward the world into

A new nation makes foreign policy

which the action of the delegates at Philadelphia launched the thirteen colonies. This is especially evident when one reads, in the light of the purposes outlined in items 8 and 12 in the foregoing section, the following excerpt from the Declaration of Independence.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1776: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institue new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The Constitution and foreign policy

With the formation of the Federal Union in 1787, the concern of the various organs of the national government with the determination and execution of foreign policy was laid down in the Constitution. In a number of its provisions we find the various authorizations and directions which set forth the powers of the national government in dealing with foreign affairs. It is under these clauses that the President is empowered to conduct relations with other nations, that ambassadors are sent abroad, that the Department of State is organized, that Congress may declare war, that armies and navies are raised, that treaties are made and ratified, that appropriations for foreign aid are voted, and that all the ramifications of today's vast involvement in world affairs are carried on by the government. Under the authority of the Constitution, treaties such as the United Nations Treaty, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Japanese Peace Treaty of 1951, the Manila Pact (SEATO) of 1954, and other treaty agreements to which the United

States is a party become the supreme law of the land the same as the Constitution itself and the Congressional acts made into law under its provisions.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER 17, 1787: ... The Congress shall have power to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations; . . . To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization; To define and punish... Offences against the Law of Nations; To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years; To provide and maintain

a Navy. .. No title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit delay. . . . The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. . . . He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.

The judicial Power of the United States, shall extend to all Cases . . . arising under . . . Treaties .; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, and other public Ministers and Consuls;-to all cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction . . . to Controversies... between a State, or the Citizens thereof and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls . . . the Supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.

...

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering