Getting Restraint Right: Liberal Internationalism and American Foreign Policy

This concluding chapter argues that from early 2002 until today, American foreign policy has been premised on convictions that are both utopian and imperialist in a fashion quite foreign to the liberal internationalist tradition as it existed prior to 1990s. With its confidence in the ease of a transition from authoritarian to democratic order, its insistence on a “just war” doctrine that overthrew the Westphalian system of states by legitimizing the armed intervention of democracies against autocratic states, and its redefinition of American exceptionalism from a defense of the democratic world to a world-order project that knew no limits, neo-Wilsonianism sabotaged the very tradition from which it had emerged. The question, then, is whether the liberal internationalist tradition can be resuscitated in such a way that it contributes positively to world affairs.

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Know Thyself: What Is “Wilsonianism”?

Why Wilson Matters ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691183480.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 1-28

Author(s):

Tony Smith

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

American Foreign Policy ◽

The United States ◽

Policy Decisions ◽

Woodrow Wilson ◽

Liberal Internationalism ◽

History Of

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Wilsonianism, which comprises a set of ideas called American liberal internationalism. More than a century after Woodrow Wilson became president of the United States, his country is still not certain how to understand the important legacy for the country's foreign policy of the tradition that bears his name. Wilsonianism remains a living ideology whose interpretation continues either to motivate, or to serve as a cover for, a broad range of American foreign policy decisions. However, if there is no consensus on what the tradition stands for, or, worse, if there is a consensus but its claims to be part of the tradition are not borne out by the history of Wilsonianism from Wilson's day until the late 1980s, then clearly a debate is in order to provide clarity and purpose to American thinking about world affairs today.

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America's Mission

10.23943/princeton/9780691154923.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Tony Smith

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

American Foreign Policy ◽

Historical Review ◽

World Order ◽

International Affairs ◽

Liberal Internationalism ◽

Liberal Democratic ◽

History Of ◽

Global Strength ◽

The Arab Spring

This book provides a comprehensive historical review of American liberal democratic internationalism. It argues that the global strength and prestige of democracy today are due in large part to America's impact on international affairs. The book documents the extraordinary history of how American foreign policy has been used to try to promote democracy worldwide, an effort that enjoyed its greatest triumphs in the occupations of Japan and Germany but suffered huge setbacks in Latin America, Vietnam, and elsewhere. With new chapters and a new introduction and epilogue, this expanded edition also traces U.S. attempts to spread democracy more recently, under presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, and assesses America's role in the Arab Spring. The book argues that liberal internationalism is built on powerful global historical trends, and the liberal internationalist streak in American foreign policy has been responsible for shaping a liberal world order conducive to American security and economic interests.

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Imperialist Canada, Todd Gordon, Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2011

Historical Materialism ◽

10.1163/1569206x-12341239 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 222-231

Author(s):

Henry Heller

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

Indigenous Peoples ◽

American Foreign Policy ◽

The United States ◽

Aggressive Approach ◽

New School ◽

Liberal Internationalism ◽

Canadian Foreign Policy ◽

National Bourgeoisie

Abstract In the immediate postwar period, liberal internationalism was the hallmark of Canadian foreign policy. In part this position was intended to protect Canadian sovereignty from the too-close embrace of US Cold-War imperialism. But this multilateral and peacekeeping approach was partly a veneer meant to disguise the fact that Canada was of necessity a close American ally in the fight against communism. This strategy was abandoned by the Canadian state in the late 1990s in favour of a more militaristic and aggressive approach. The dependency-school of Canadian Marxist political economy that flourished from the 1970s argued that Canadian conformity with American foreign policy resulted from the fact that American economic dominance over Canada and lack of a strong national bourgeoisie made it a willing instrument of American foreign policy. Reflecting a challenge by a new school of Marxist political economy, Todd Gordon argues convincingly that Canada is an imperialist entity with its historic roots lying in the dispossession of the indigenous peoples. It is based on its strong national bourgeoisie which is flourishing under neoliberalism. But whether imperialist Canada is independent of the United States is more contestable.

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Nationalism, Internationalism, and American Conservatives

Age of Iron ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190079369.003.0002 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 8-37

Author(s):

Colin Dueck

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

American Foreign Policy ◽

American Founding ◽

Woodrow Wilson ◽

Liberal Internationalism ◽

American Nationalism

This chapter provides the framework for understanding American nationalism, liberal internationalism, and conservative foreign policy approaches in their various forms. The history, premises, and practices of American nationalism are recounted, from the American founding to the beginning of the twentieth century. Then the key elements of liberal internationalism are discussed, including their incorporation into American foreign policy beginning with Woodrow Wilson. Conservative American reactions to liberal internationalist policies are described and delineated into their own distinct categories as well. The context is thus set for a discussion of conservative American nationalism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

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