Scott Parkin

HIST 6393: Empire, War and Revolution

February 21, 2000

Dr Buzzanco

Warren Cohen. Empire Without Tears: America's Foreign Relations, 1921-1933. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987. 138 pp. plus biography, notes and index.

Warren Cohen's Empire Without Tears: America’s Foreign Relations, 1921-1933 discusses and analyzes American foreign policy and financial expansion during the "New Era" of the 1920's. Defined by historians as the "Age of Normalcy", post-Great War America maintained and extended overseas obligations through diplomatic, military and, most importantly, financial means. Cohen's thesis states the 1920's presidential administrations practiced an ad hoc foreign policy as the business community aggressively pushed overseas economic growth. Cohen also points out the influential role of the peace movement in American foreign policy formation in the 1920's. Countering the argument of an isolationist America intent only on domestic prosperity, the author argues that the 1920's were a profound period in American international relations and saw America's informal empire grow in wealth and influence.

During this period, America emerged as the largest creditor nation. American bankers essentially financed the paying of German reparations to European nations and the structural development of informal imperial holdings such as China, the Caribbean and Central America. A financial boom engulfed the United States as increased manufacturing and exports created new prosperity. But, according to Cohen, the new debtor-creditor relationship also destabilized the world economy. The international economic system's new dependency on American long-term loans weakened the economic structure, as European nations needed US loans to buy American goods. Another destabilizing force emerged in the development of American owned factories in nations abroad. American multi-nationals invaded foreign economies and threatened their stability as they flowed profits back into American banks.

Also, Cohen throughout the book describes the lack of definition in the distinguishment of official and private American power. He describes the close relationship as private citizens between such as Thomas Lamount and Charles Dawes who worked together with public servants Secretary of Commerce, and later President, Herbert Hoover and Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes to devise and implement plans to fund the repayment of European war debt. The United States government rarely intervened as American financial interests expanded into foreign markets. As Cohen states

"At no time in the 1920's did the government exercise effective control over American economic structure abroad. Economic policy was rarely an effective instrument of foreign policy. That is not the same, however, as saying that overseas economic activity had no impact on foreign relations. Regardless of the level of governmental involvement, American overseas economic activity had enormous influence on the world economy and the affairs of individual nations." (p. 44).

Cohen's statement about the interrelationship between the public and private sectors embodied 20's era foreign policy.

Cohen argues the post-WWI peace movement significantly influenced 1920's foreign policy as well. Horrified by the ghastly nature of modern warfare during the Great War, a peace movement mobilized to prevent future conflicts. Denying the statement’s motivations for disarmament and peace as realpolitik, Cohen states the peace movement pushed American policy-makers to participate in various initiatives, agreements and conferences. Mostly unsuccessful or short-lived, these included the Borah resolution on arms reduction, the Four-Power Treaty, the Five-Power treaty, the Nine-Power treaty, the Washington Conference of 1921-22, the League of Nations, the Kellog-Briand Peace Pact and the World Court. The book argues that the American peaceniks steered foreign intervention during the 1920's in a less violent direction.

Cohen's final segment deals with US government policy during the 1920's. As the United States became involved with revolution and instability in Mexico, the Caribbean, China, Russia and Germany, the ad hoc policy of 1920's Republican administrations often used force and diplomacy to secure American capital's interests. But at times the public and private interests did not always coincide as the State Department feared American investors supporting an adversarial regime and often took steps to prevent it. He also states that Republican policy-makers reluctantly used armed intervention and force to quell instability and revolution. Factors contributing to this reluctance included the political power of the peace movement, economic alternatives to violence and military quagmire unsettling the American public. Cohen uses American involvement in Nicaraguan civil strife to exemplify US policy-makers fear of a military quagmire. Cohen states

"Stimson, to be sure, learned a valuable lesson, which he took with him to Washington when he became secretary of state in the Hoover administration. It was relatively easy to involve American forces in the civil strife of another country--and virtually impossible to create in that country conditions under which the troops could be withdrawn with a sense of mission accomplished. American ideas about the value of free elections for Nicaragua or any other country were doubtless salutary, but if important sectors in the other country chose other means, the price of imposing the American solution was much too high. Never again – at least not for anyone aware of the American experience in Nicaragua in the 1920's." (74).

As Cohen states in his title, America wanted peace and prosperity through a foreign affairs process without American casualties, in effect an empire without tears.

Cohen's book describes the further development of the American corporate liberal state. Looking largely at international business and domestic political developments that affected foreign policy decision-making during the 1920's, Empire Without Tears further describes the informal American empire discussed in Tom McCormick's China Market and Drew McCoy's The Elusive Republic. Thus far, the books I have reviewed have a certain continuity. They all deal with America at certain points in its development-- from a decentralized agricultural society looking to maintain its values to an industrial power seeking to stabilize it's domestic situation by opening overseas markets and, finally, to a strong industrial, military and financial power affecting the global economy. Thus far, I see Williams' tragic diplomacy as a continual transition from one socio-economic setting to another with the preservation of the conservative elite at the core of each book. Cohen’s Empire Without Tears portrays the counter-revolutionary state during the "Age of Normalcy" as scarred by the horrors of World War One, but driven by an overwhelming capitalist urge to grow and develop new markets. I found it very informative and another good read about a period I knew little about.