Daniel W. Drezner :
For the past five years, centennials marking the First World War have haunted international relations pundits. A few years ago, to mark the start of the Great War, essay after essay warned of the historical parallels between 1914 and 2014. I, for one, am grateful none of those dire predictions of great power war came true.
Sunday was the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. Perhaps because 2014 predictions did not come true, there are fewer essays asking what lessons can be drawn from the war’s end. This is disturbing because the United States needs a refresher course on how the messy aftermath of World War I led to World War II.
A welcome exception to this dearth of commentary was Jacob Heilbrunn’s National Interest column. The whole thing is worth reading, but this part is particularly hard to ignore:
President Woodrow Wilson’s promised war to end all wars-his crusade for democracy abroad-had boomeranged. In 1919, Wilson pleaded for American entry into League of Nations. His intransigent refusal to compromise on the terms meant that he was ultimately outmaneuvered by the crafty Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who headed a faction called the irreconcilables. This faction focused on Article 10 of the treaty, which contained a sweeping provision-the defense of a member that had experienced external aggression. Lodge said that Article 10 was intolerable because it would subordinate the American military to an international organization, a nonstarter for him and other mossback Republicans. He was also opposed to further immigration:
“I can never be anything else but an American, and I must think of the United States first, and when I think of the United States first in an arrangement like this, I am thinking of what is best for the world.”
Most Americans who took U.S. history in high school know about the American public’s rejection of Woodrow Wilson’s ham-handed efforts at idealism. They also know the subsequent turn toward isolationism in the 1920s did not help stabilize the post-Great War era. The more I read and teach about this period, however, the more I think this undersells America’s culpability in the instability of the interwar period and the ineluctable march toward the Second World War.
As John Maynard Keynes wrote in his underrated “Economic Consequences of the Peace,” the Great War ripped asunder the benefits 19th century globalization conferred upon much of the world:
What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August, 1914! The greater part of the population, it is true, worked hard and lived at a low standard of comfort, yet were, to all appearances, reasonably contented with this lot. But escape was possible, for any man of capacity or character at all exceeding the average, into the middle and upper classes, for whom life offered, at a low cost and with the least trouble, conveniences, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages. The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world, and share, without exertion or even trouble, in their prospective fruits and advantages; or he could decide to couple the security of his fortunes with the good faith of the townspeople of any substantial municipality in any continent that fancy or information might recommend. He could secure forthwith, if he wished it, cheap and comfortable means of transit to any country or climate without passport or other formality, could dispatch his servant to the neighboring office of a bank for such supply of the precious metals as might seem convenient, and could then proceed abroad to foreign quarters, without knowledge of their religion, language, or customs, bearing coined wealth upon his person, and would consider himself greatly aggrieved and much surprised at the least interference. But, most important of all, he regarded this state of affairs as normal, certain, and permanent, except in the direction of further improvement, and any deviation from it as aberrant, scandalous, and avoidable. The projects and politics of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions, and exclusion, which were to play the serpent to this paradise, were little more than the amusements of his daily newspaper, and appeared to exercise almost no influence at all on the ordinary course of social and economic life, the internationalization of which was nearly complete in practice.
The war shattered this state of affairs and, as Keynes noted, the politics of retribution at Versailles further shattered it. Still, the United States, through a series of unilateral policies, guaranteed that this world would be impossible to restore.
A Democratic Congress lowered tariffs in 1913. During the war, the high-tariff-loving Republican Party took over Congress. Then, in 1920, it took the presidency when Warren G. Harding won the election. Harding was a womanizer and a fool who appointed unqualified friends and cronies to his Cabinet, enabling a massive wave of corruption.
More significant for the rest of the world, Harding and the Republicans sabotaged any chance for the pre-1914 liberal international order to reassert itself. I’ll just outsource this point to the Office of the Historian for the U.S. State Department:
To provide protection for American farmers, whose wartime markets in Europe were disappearing with the recovery of European agricultural production, as well as U.S. industries that had been stimulated by the war, Congress passed the temporary Emergency Tariff Act in 1921, followed a year later by the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act of 1922. The Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act raised tariffs above the level set in 1913; it also authorized the president to raise or lower a given tariff rate by 50% in order to even out foreign and domestic production costs. One unintended consequence of the Fordney-McCumber tariff was that it made it more difficult for European nations to export to the United States and so earn dollars to service their war debts.
(Side note: It’s just so fitting that the State Department’s “Milestones” series was suspended under – wait for it – the Trump administration.)
Not only did the GOP raise barriers to trade, the party also raised barriers to immigration, first through the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921 and then the Immigration Act of 1924. The quotas placed on “undesirable” Europeans immigrating to the United States removed another means through which unstable European governments could ease their burdens.
So, by the late 1920s, the United States possessed most of the gold reserves necessary to run the gold exchange standard, and it had tariffs high enough so that European countries could not run the necessary trade surpluses to earn back some of that gold or repay the United States for loans financing World War I.
All of this occurred before the even higher Smoot-Hawley tariffs and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unilateral decision to take the United States off the gold standard while the 1933 London Economic Conference was taking place, scratching any possibility of international economic cooperation during the Great Depression.
A hundred years later, the degree to which Trump embraces the ethos and ideas of 1920s Republicanism (except for fiscal probity) is striking. His pathetic performance in his trip to Paris over the weekend merely symbolizes the degree to which he has abdicated U.S. leadership. On Saturday, Trump bailed on a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery. This was ostensibly because bad weather grounded Marine One, but a competent White House staff would have had a contingency plan in place for him to get there. Then he arrived two hours late to the ceremonial dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Things didn’t improve Sunday either. CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Kaitlan Collins reported: “As world leaders gathered under misting rain at the Elysee Palace, Trump opted to head directly to the Arc de Triomphe, where the ceremony was being held. … The dozens of other leaders who met at the French president’s residence beforehand arrived in coach buses moments later, leaving Trump out of a striking scene as they marched down the street together with black umbrellas held over their heads, led by Macron.”
It also led to a rebuke from Macron, as my Post colleague David Nakamura noted:
Speaking in French, Macron emphasized that a global order based on liberal values is worth defending against those who have sought to disrupt that system. The millions of soldiers who died in the Great War fought to defend the “universal values” of France, he said, and to reject the “selfishness of nations only looking after their own interests. Because patriotism is exactly the opposite of nationalism.” …
Amid growing divisions in Europe that have strained the European Union, Macron defended that institution and the United Nations, declaring that the “spirit of cooperation” has “defended the common good of the world.”
“By putting our own interests first, with no regard for others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds dearest, and the thing that keeps it alive: its moral values,” Macron said.
I doubt Trump will listen to or cogitate on those words. I hope the architects of U.S. foreign policy, on both sides of the aisle, heed Macron’s cautions. Because otherwise, we are running a natural experiment to see just how unstable the world can get under a witless, corrupt, philandering know-nothing of a president.
For the past five years, centennials marking the First World War have haunted international relations pundits. A few years ago, to mark the start of the Great War, essay after essay warned of the historical parallels between 1914 and 2014. I, for one, am grateful none of those dire predictions of great power war came true.
Sunday was the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. Perhaps because 2014 predictions did not come true, there are fewer essays asking what lessons can be drawn from the war’s end. This is disturbing because the United States needs a refresher course on how the messy aftermath of World War I led to World War II.
A welcome exception to this dearth of commentary was Jacob Heilbrunn’s National Interest column. The whole thing is worth reading, but this part is particularly hard to ignore:
President Woodrow Wilson’s promised war to end all wars-his crusade for democracy abroad-had boomeranged. In 1919, Wilson pleaded for American entry into League of Nations. His intransigent refusal to compromise on the terms meant that he was ultimately outmaneuvered by the crafty Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who headed a faction called the irreconcilables. This faction focused on Article 10 of the treaty, which contained a sweeping provision-the defense of a member that had experienced external aggression. Lodge said that Article 10 was intolerable because it would subordinate the American military to an international organization, a nonstarter for him and other mossback Republicans. He was also opposed to further immigration:
“I can never be anything else but an American, and I must think of the United States first, and when I think of the United States first in an arrangement like this, I am thinking of what is best for the world.”
Most Americans who took U.S. history in high school know about the American public’s rejection of Woodrow Wilson’s ham-handed efforts at idealism. They also know the subsequent turn toward isolationism in the 1920s did not help stabilize the post-Great War era. The more I read and teach about this period, however, the more I think this undersells America’s culpability in the instability of the interwar period and the ineluctable march toward the Second World War.
As John Maynard Keynes wrote in his underrated “Economic Consequences of the Peace,” the Great War ripped asunder the benefits 19th century globalization conferred upon much of the world:
What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August, 1914! The greater part of the population, it is true, worked hard and lived at a low standard of comfort, yet were, to all appearances, reasonably contented with this lot. But escape was possible, for any man of capacity or character at all exceeding the average, into the middle and upper classes, for whom life offered, at a low cost and with the least trouble, conveniences, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages. The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world, and share, without exertion or even trouble, in their prospective fruits and advantages; or he could decide to couple the security of his fortunes with the good faith of the townspeople of any substantial municipality in any continent that fancy or information might recommend. He could secure forthwith, if he wished it, cheap and comfortable means of transit to any country or climate without passport or other formality, could dispatch his servant to the neighboring office of a bank for such supply of the precious metals as might seem convenient, and could then proceed abroad to foreign quarters, without knowledge of their religion, language, or customs, bearing coined wealth upon his person, and would consider himself greatly aggrieved and much surprised at the least interference. But, most important of all, he regarded this state of affairs as normal, certain, and permanent, except in the direction of further improvement, and any deviation from it as aberrant, scandalous, and avoidable. The projects and politics of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions, and exclusion, which were to play the serpent to this paradise, were little more than the amusements of his daily newspaper, and appeared to exercise almost no influence at all on the ordinary course of social and economic life, the internationalization of which was nearly complete in practice.
The war shattered this state of affairs and, as Keynes noted, the politics of retribution at Versailles further shattered it. Still, the United States, through a series of unilateral policies, guaranteed that this world would be impossible to restore.
A Democratic Congress lowered tariffs in 1913. During the war, the high-tariff-loving Republican Party took over Congress. Then, in 1920, it took the presidency when Warren G. Harding won the election. Harding was a womanizer and a fool who appointed unqualified friends and cronies to his Cabinet, enabling a massive wave of corruption.
More significant for the rest of the world, Harding and the Republicans sabotaged any chance for the pre-1914 liberal international order to reassert itself. I’ll just outsource this point to the Office of the Historian for the U.S. State Department:
To provide protection for American farmers, whose wartime markets in Europe were disappearing with the recovery of European agricultural production, as well as U.S. industries that had been stimulated by the war, Congress passed the temporary Emergency Tariff Act in 1921, followed a year later by the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act of 1922. The Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act raised tariffs above the level set in 1913; it also authorized the president to raise or lower a given tariff rate by 50% in order to even out foreign and domestic production costs. One unintended consequence of the Fordney-McCumber tariff was that it made it more difficult for European nations to export to the United States and so earn dollars to service their war debts.
(Side note: It’s just so fitting that the State Department’s “Milestones” series was suspended under – wait for it – the Trump administration.)
Not only did the GOP raise barriers to trade, the party also raised barriers to immigration, first through the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921 and then the Immigration Act of 1924. The quotas placed on “undesirable” Europeans immigrating to the United States removed another means through which unstable European governments could ease their burdens.
So, by the late 1920s, the United States possessed most of the gold reserves necessary to run the gold exchange standard, and it had tariffs high enough so that European countries could not run the necessary trade surpluses to earn back some of that gold or repay the United States for loans financing World War I.
All of this occurred before the even higher Smoot-Hawley tariffs and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unilateral decision to take the United States off the gold standard while the 1933 London Economic Conference was taking place, scratching any possibility of international economic cooperation during the Great Depression.
A hundred years later, the degree to which Trump embraces the ethos and ideas of 1920s Republicanism (except for fiscal probity) is striking. His pathetic performance in his trip to Paris over the weekend merely symbolizes the degree to which he has abdicated U.S. leadership. On Saturday, Trump bailed on a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery. This was ostensibly because bad weather grounded Marine One, but a competent White House staff would have had a contingency plan in place for him to get there. Then he arrived two hours late to the ceremonial dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Things didn’t improve Sunday either. CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Kaitlan Collins reported: “As world leaders gathered under misting rain at the Elysee Palace, Trump opted to head directly to the Arc de Triomphe, where the ceremony was being held. … The dozens of other leaders who met at the French president’s residence beforehand arrived in coach buses moments later, leaving Trump out of a striking scene as they marched down the street together with black umbrellas held over their heads, led by Macron.”
It also led to a rebuke from Macron, as my Post colleague David Nakamura noted:
Speaking in French, Macron emphasized that a global order based on liberal values is worth defending against those who have sought to disrupt that system. The millions of soldiers who died in the Great War fought to defend the “universal values” of France, he said, and to reject the “selfishness of nations only looking after their own interests. Because patriotism is exactly the opposite of nationalism.” …
Amid growing divisions in Europe that have strained the European Union, Macron defended that institution and the United Nations, declaring that the “spirit of cooperation” has “defended the common good of the world.”
“By putting our own interests first, with no regard for others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds dearest, and the thing that keeps it alive: its moral values,” Macron said.
I doubt Trump will listen to or cogitate on those words. I hope the architects of U.S. foreign policy, on both sides of the aisle, heed Macron’s cautions. Because otherwise, we are running a natural experiment to see just how unstable the world can get under a witless, corrupt, philandering know-nothing of a president.
(Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a regular contributor to PostEverything).
