Foreign Policy 1920-1945

Priorities in American Foreign Policy 1920s

• Fear of Communism (Bolshevik Revolution 1917)

• Avoiding foreign entanglements

• maintaining the Monroe Doctrine

• Retaining naval power - most powerful Navy in the world

• Protecting trade interests (particularly in the Far East, ‘open door’)

1921 Washington Conference - ISOLATIONISM

the conference focused on disarmament, called due to US fear of growing Japanese influence - to prevent the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance in 1922, detaching Japan from an ally

agreements where unenforced and toothless

1921 Washington Conference INVOLVED

USA hosts the conference involving Britain, France, Japan and Italy

signed the Four Power Treaty, agreed to respect each country’s interest in the Far East and reduce the tonneage of battleships for 10 years (Japan accepts lower tonneage than USA)

1928 Kellog Briand pact ISOLATIONISM

kept the US from making a singular pat with France

toothless - no sanctions for any country that broke the agreement

Senate foreign relations committee - insisted the pact did not commit the US to help

Kellogg Briand Pact 1928 - INVOLVED

set up by 15 countries agreeing not to attack except in self defence - globalist?

Dawes and Young plan - INVOLVED

American loans used to repay the Allies by Germany, intended to keep Germany capitalist, a loan of 800 million marks reduced reparations

Other examples of ISOLATION

• immigration acts limited access of Europeans to the USA

• Refusal to join the League of Nations post-WW1 (1918)

• Republican presidents cutting military spending

which republican president was actually an early proponent of Good Neighbour Policy?

Herbert Hoover

FDR’s foreign policy ideology/Good Neighbour Policy

Roosevelt wanted a policy of friendship towards other countries and have the USA act as a moral force towards its neighbours (like Wilsonianism) - despite facing a congress of mostly isolationist.

Roosevelt saw his policy as transforming the Monroe Doctrine into arrangements for mutual hemispheric action against aggressors - USA and Latin America more aligned against external threat

Examples of Good Neighbour Policy

• 1934 - Congress signs a treaty with Cuba that nullifies the Platt Amendment

• by 1938 - 10 treaties with Latin American countries reducing tariffs increasing trade for the US

• US troops left Haiti, Dominican republic and Nicaragua

• 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act - repealed several 1920s isolationist trade policies so USA could compete better in foreign trade - an act of good will by FDR beginnign the pattern towards greater global trade involvement

1937 Gallup Poll results indicate public want isolationism

70% believed that WW1 was a mistake

95% opposed future involvement in war

Ludlow Amendment, proposed in 1935

proposed to forbid the declaration of war without first giving the consent of the people in a national referendum

defeated in Congress but had strong public support, and people did not want to get involved in war

prominent isolationist individuals in the US

• Father Charles Coughlin - the Radio Priest, became vocally isolationist

• Senator WIlliam Boroughs - vocal in Congress

• Charles Lindbergh - national hero after his solo-flight across the Atlantic 1927, who founded the America First campaign in 1940, which had 850,000 members at its peak

US neutrality acts

• 1935 - prevented US ships carrying US weapons to belligerent countries

• 1936&37 - made ceratin concessions eg, trade of materials useful for war

• 1939 - “cash and carry” - exports to belligerent countries, so long as they carried on their own ships

• ANALYSIS - the neutral stance of the US decreased as war escalated and the chance for US to profit increased

FDR’s quarantine speech 1937

FDR calls on peace-loving nations to break off relations with aggressors, placing them in quarantine

speech clearly aimed at Japan, Germany and Italy, but FDR spoke in general terms and did not propose economic sanctions or armed intervention

international situation worsens

• US Pannay sunk by Japanese Warships in 1937 (although Japan apologised and paid compensation)

• Japan invades China in 1938

• Japan signs the Tripartite Act with Germany and Italy

Destroyers for Bases agreement 1940

• provided Britain with 50 surplus warshipsin return for leases on British bases in Canada and the Carribean

• Following Dunkirk - US recognises the need to actively support UK

Selective Service Act 1940

peacetime conscription to the army that seemed to anticipate US involvement in WW2

Roosevelt’s promise int he 1940 election

“you and your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars”

had a decisive victory of 5 million votes ahead than the Republican opponent

Lend Lease Act 1941

lending Britain and the USSR resources needed for war with the terms of repayment to be decided later

included a massive increase in executive power - FDR could sell, transfer, lend, lease, exchange any materials considered vital to the defence of the USA

Congress was asked for $7billion to fund this act

USA giving ‘all aid short of war’

Atlantic Charter, 1941

• Roosevelt met with Churchill on a British battleship, discussed the future of a post-war world and how to defeat the tyranny of Hitler

• public image of this showed US co-operation

• the development of the Special Relationship

why did Japan have imperial ambitions in the early 20thc

• wanted modernisation, to become a world power and rival the US - however they couldn’t be self-sufficient as they lacked natural resources - 80% of Japan’s oil came from the US

Causes for Pearl Harbour attack

• Invasion of China 1937: Western powers, including the U.S., which opposed Japanese aggression.

• U.S. Oil Embargo (1941): In response to Japan’s actions in China and Southeast Asia, the U.S. imposed a severe embargo on oil and other materials, severely threatening Japan’s economy and military operations.

• Japan's Expansion in Southeast Asia: Japan's occupation of French Indochina in 1941 further provoked the U.S., which feared Japan would move to control the oil-rich Dutch East Indies.

• Breaking of Diplomatic Talks (1941): Despite ongoing negotiations, Japan continued preparing for war, and the U.S. rejected Japan's demands for economic concessions, leading Japan to plan a surprise attack to cripple U.S. Pacific forces.

Pearl Harbour Date

Sunday 7th December 1941 - ‘a day of infamy’ FDR

Pearl Habrour details

USA did not respond to Japan’s offers to halt further economic expansion if Britain cut off aid to China and lifted the economic blockade on Japan

so Japan sent a surprise attack, destroying 180 US aircrafts and killing 2,400 US servicemen

the day after US declares war on Japan, Hitler and Mussolini then declare war on USA

Pearl Harbour signifcance

• it was not the only reason that America went to war - the country was already on a war footing with conscription, high military spending and lend-lease

• Japan’s attack was sudden, a symbolic ending to the era of isolationism - did not wipe out the US as a naval poweras planned, led to a long Pacific war where Japan was crushed

• it pushed the US along the road to becoming the world’s superpower

Political impacts of WW2

• federal powers strengthened, FDR gained huge prestige as a world statesman

• the idea of the ‘Good War’, and the success of official propaganda

• federal government increased in size and political power became more centralised

Economic impacts of WW2

• by 1945 the US was the dominant economy in the world (established by the Bretton Woods system of international monetary management, tied to the US dollar, 1944)

• ‘the good war’ saw the US emerge as a military-industrial superpower

• the liberation of Europe 1944-45 only possible by the vast US war economy

• private and public sectors integrated eg, the creation of the War Production board in 1942

Social impacts of WW2

• US people’s experience of war was much better than Europe - less damage and casualties

• US living standards went up not down, there was a strong sense of national unity

• Fair Employment Practices Commission - 1941, Phillip Randolph’s proposed March in Washington - better social mobility, awareness of race issues

• women taking up ‘male’ jobs

• war economy caused trade unions to strengthen - AFl gained more influence

International impacts of WW2

• WW2 can be seen as the completion of a rise to world power that started 1914-17, USA assumed the responsibility of a world power

• special relationship developed with Britain, the Alliance with Stalin would lead to breakdown over ideological difference with no war distraction

• US dominance seen in its nuclear monopoly, Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1945

• following victory in 1945, there was no question of retreating back into isolationism unlike end of WW1