Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
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.