Unilateralism

THE HISTORY OF UNILATERALISM in the United States is often traced to a speech given by future president John Quincy Adams on July 4, 1821, in which he announced that “America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Adams was echoing the policy established by first president George Washington who insisted that the United States remain neutral in the face of European wars. Even Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic party, advocated avoiding excessive entanglements with other nations.

American unilateralism remained entrenched, and formed the basis for American neutrality in World War I. However, after the United States entered the war as an “associated power” with the Allies, Woodrow Wilson became an advocate of an international League of Nations to enforce peace. The League and the Treaty of Versailles were defeated in the U.S. Senate, and the official doctrine of the United States remained unilateralist over the period 1920 to 1941. During this period, the doctrine became known as isolationism, and neutrality legislation passed during the 1930s was designed to prohibit the United States from becoming engaged in another European war.

The “Cash and Carry” Neutrality Act of 1939, passed within a few weeks after the outbreak of World War II, was intended to prevent the United States from becoming either a creditor to the Allies or to become engaged through its shipping as a target for German submarines. The law, based on the experience of World War I, was calculated to prevent the recurrence of the issues that had drawn the United States into that earlier conflict. However, unilateralism came to an end with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the entry of the United States into the war as an ally of Britain and the Soviet Union. Roosevelt developed a vision of a war-free world where all nations could live in peace, and the concept of the League of Nations was revived with the creation of the United Nations.

[Page 920]In contemporary times, particularly since the resurgence of conservatism in the 1980s, American unilateralism has come to signify action taken in international affairs without benefit of consultation with significant allies or with international bodies.

Scholars contend that this contemporary view of unilateralism evolved from the influence of the Christian Right on Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Because Reagan was determined to prove the military might of the United States, he never hesitated to initiate unilateral military action around the globe. Reagan justified attacks, such as those in Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua, as necessary to American interests. Reagan maintained that his unilateral decision to build up nuclear weapons was a necessary result of the liberal call for “unilateral disarmament” in the 1970s.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Republican George W. Bush established American unilateralism with policies that included refusing to ratify treaties prohibiting the use of land mines and nuclear testing, withdrawing from compliance with the Kyoto Protocol designed to prevent global warming, initiating the war in Iraq, decreasing support for the United Nations, and America's pro-Israel stance despite increasing support for Palestinian rights around the world.

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