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Chapter 10
T
he place of the United States in the world community has shifted so rapidly
over the past two generations that it is hard to comprehend. On September 11,
2001, the United States suffered attacks on its home soil, attacks that were as
shocking and devastating as the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The terrorist attack
on the United States came because this nation is the global superpower, a position
earned through its leadership in World War II and, eventually, through the fall of
the Soviet Union, the only rival for American power in the twentieth century.
America’s rise to world leadership was not, to a considerable extent, supported
by public opinion. Although the United States did enter World War I in its last
years and helped win the peace, the U.S. Senate rejected the treaty that formed
the League of Nations, even though the world organization was the creation of
President Woodrow Wilson. The United States retreated once again into its
historical pose of isolationism. During the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s,
most Americans believed that this nation should stay out of Europe’s difficulties.
President Franklin Roosevelt extended various forms of aid from the United
States to Great Britain in its fight against Hitler’s Germany and persuaded the
American people to support such forms of involvement. As documented by Page
and Shapiro (1992: 184–185), less than 10 percent of the public thought that the
U.S. should enter the war in late 1940, but by April, 1941, more than 70%
thought that the U.S. should do everything to help England and 60% thought it
important to defeat Germany. Not until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor did
Americans support the entry of the United States into the war. By the end of
World War II, the United States was the most powerful military nation in the
world, with control of nuclear weapons and a strong industrial sector and workforce.
It was the United States that reached out to rebuild allies and defeated enemies in
Europe after the war and that founded the United Nations. Those GIs who entered
the war to defend an isolated nation came home to be citizens of the nation with
more global responsibilities than any other on earth.
By 2001, the world scene had undergone drastic change again. President George
W. Bush and millions of other Americans had lived through and been shaped by
the events of the post–WorldWar II ColdWar, the national trauma of the Vietnam
conflict, and the fall of the Soviet Union and its military power. After the end of
the Cold War, the United States found itself alone as the world’s most powerful
nation.When civil unrest occurred in the Caribbean nation of Haiti, the public and
the policy makers in the United States debated whether American troops should
intervene. When ethnic conflicts raged in the former Yugoslavia, Americans wondered
if the United States should play the role of global peace officer. However,
the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon made it
agonizingly clear to all Americans that the United States is deeply involved in the world
and that our global reach made us a target for a worldwide terrorist network.
Americans suddenly reconsidered the role of the United States in the world.
The George W. Bush administration’s reaction to the attacks of September
11 was twofold: first, to severely limit the degree to which terrorists can function
in the world through cooperative relationships with other nations and heightened
security measures, and second, to pursue a policy of rooting out governments in
the Middle East that support terrorism or use terrorist tactics. The United States
attacks on the Taliban government in Afghanistan and, later, the Saddam Hussein
government in Iraq were mandated by the Bush policy. Going further than pure
defense, President George W. Bush also declared that American policy would be
to take ‘‘preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and our lives.’’1
The degree to which the United States will become involved or entangled
with the affairs of other nations is a question that has challenged the nation since
its founding. In his farewell address to the nation, President George Washington
warned that it should be wary of forming ties to the nations of Europe. As he put
it, ‘‘The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our
commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible.’’
This is probably the first articulation of the isolationist stance that the United States
took as much for self-protection as for any other reason. As James McCormick
points out, the Monroe Doctrine, issued by President James Monroe in 1823, carried
this advice further by effectively separating the affairs of the Old World from those
of the New World (1998: 14). The United States was to be interested only in
affairs within its own hemisphere and, as the doctrine warned, European nations
should stay out of that sphere.
The degree to which the United States adhered to a policy of nonattachment
to European affairs is revealed in McCormick’s analysis of international agreements
(1998: 16). Even though the United States did enter more than six hundred agreements
with other nations up to 1899, the vast majority was for commerce or the
settlement of claims. Only one treaty of alliance was signed. In contrast, the period
from 1947 to 1960 saw the United States enter almost five thousand international
agreements, with more than a thousand being military or other alliances with other
nations.
Given this strong history of isolationism, it is not surprising that the measurement
of public opinion most often taken on foreign affairs issues is whether
the United States should take an active role in the world or stay out of world
affairs. The Gallup Poll began asking a variation of this question in its surveys in
1943, and the question has been repeated by Gallup, Roper, or NORC many times
since then. As you will note from Table 10.1, more than two-thirds of those
surveyed in 1943 said that the United States should take an active part in world
affairs. Although many commentators felt that the disillusionment of the Vietnam
era would influence Americans to become more isolationist, the table shows that
the lowest proportion of respondents supporting an active role was 61%, in 1975.
The proportion stayed in the low 60s until 1985, when it rebounded to 70%.
After September 11, 2001, public sentiment for involvement in the world increased
to 81% and has remained at higher levels since that time. However, at no time in
the postwar period has the majority of Americans endorsed a more isolationist
stance.
Like some other standard questions in the development of survey research,
this one has developed a life of its own. If only one question is asked on foreign policy,
this is likely to be the one chosen by survey organizations. In part because of the
nation’s isolationist years and because this question seemed to capture the postwar
change so well, many scholars who study the American mind have suggested that
all Americans could be divided into those who are isolationists and those who are
internationalists. As we will see in this chapter, American opinions on foreign policy
and national security issues are much more complex than that typology would
suggest.