Anti-Imperialism in U.S. Foreign Relations

Summary

What role has anti-imperialism played in U.S. foreign relations? While it is safe to say that it has been an important phenomenon, a more precise appraisal of its significance can come only from an historical understanding of its place among the nation's foreign policy traditions. At first sight, it would appear an easy matter to get a handle on this question, if only because the number of such traditions is quite small. Indeed, over the course of the past century, American foreign policy has been faced, broadly speaking, with only two abiding problems: imperialism and power politics. Because Americans have tended, with allowances for occasional lapses, to be opposed to both practices as a matter of principle, the short list of foreign policy paradigms narrows down rather quickly to two contenders: anti-imperialism and opposition to power politics.

Which to choose? Inasmuch as the two world wars and the cold war were great power conflicts, it seems clear that U.S. foreign policy in the twentieth century has been driven largely by geopolitical motives. It would seem fair to conclude, therefore, that anti-imperialism, however prominent on occasion, has on the whole played only a marginal role in the history of U.S. foreign relations. A parallel verdict would appear to be in order when evaluating the importance of anti-imperialism as a scholarly theme, for in academic writing geopolitics has clearly enjoyed privileged status among diplomatic historians and among specialists in international relations. QED: great power antagonisms have been the lead story.