The Lineaments of Foreign Policy: The United States and a “New World Order,” 1919–39

Abstract

The idea of a “new world order,” of an opportunity to remake a broken world into a more liberal and democratic place, was very much in the air in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some historians were encouraged to look at earlier periods with this concept in mind, and this essay is the result of one such attempt. The whole idea of an attempt to build a new world order has a very positive ring about it. At the least it seems to assume a plan, and an active personality or two behind the plan; it also assumes a global reach. If these are in any sense requirements, the United States during the interwar period fulfilled them only partially and erratically. Certainly, if one looks for the strong, general pattern in American foreign policy during this period, the culmination of many smaller plans and patterns, one can be found: the drive to convince the world to adopt policies leading to an international economy characterised by free trade, convertible currencies and open markets, and along with that, the drive to convince countries to disarm. All American administrations from 1919 to 1939 would have agreed with these policy imperatives. But what is undeniable is that they varied in their emphases, in the efforts which US governments themselves made to get these policies accepted. Only Woodrow Wilson had a plan, and only he sought to involve the US Government permanently in this process, to the extent of tying it down to future responsibilities: all others preferred, when feasible, merely to give indicative guidance.