Brian Behnken

The vision of President Woodrow Wilson represents a fundamental change in the objectives of American foreign policy. Historians like Thomas Hietala, Walter LaFeber, William Appleman William, and others agreed that United States’ foreign relations in the late 1800s and early 1900s, while maintaining an economic motive, found a basis in concepts like religion, "the white man’s burden," race, and class. This basis had striking similarities to the thoughts and ideas of "manifest destiny." Wilson added his own such ideology to the ones mentioned above. N. Gordon Levin in Woodrow Wilson and World Politics succinctly breaks down Wilson’s thoughts and actions from 1917-1918. This impressive book centers around the idea that Wilson became the first president to eschew foreign policy aims with the intention of subverting communist/socialist forces and, at the same time, promoting American economic capitalism. This president’s actions had a lasting affect on the twentieth century.

In 1917 an amazing thing happened in Russia. Women in a bread line, fed up with poverty, hunger, and the policies of the czar, rioted. These riots led to the czar’s overthrow and eventually to the installment of a socialist government in Russia. Indeed, Levin sights the March Revolution as one of the leading factors, along with unrestricted submarine warfare, that lead the US into World War I. Wilson, however, was unsure how to deal with the Bolshevik element in Russia. When the Russians left the war Europe suddenly found itself without an important ally. Gabriel Kolko in Century of War asserts that Russia simply could not remain in the war. The supreme loss of life and economic and nutritional scarcities made this an impossibility, and socialist thought pointed the government away from war. Levin notes that Wilson remained equally concerned with the war and with the Bolshevik situation in Russia. Wilson searched for a balanced world order free of socialism, and in particular, free of revolutionary socialism. The president desired relations with countries that would accept the "international liberal-capitalist order" that the US promoted and believed in.(p.16) This new order would fuse the concepts of anti-imperialism and economic expansion. How would this fusion occur? Levin argues that Wilson theoretically combined "liberalism, capitalism, and missionary-nationalism" in such a way as to demonstrate to the European countries the wrongs of imperialism and the correctness of US non-imperialistic foreign policy. Wilson, Levin asserts, blamed the war on the shoddy treaty organization and international relations of the eastern European countries and desired to use liberal-capitalist internationalism to prevent future wars from occurring.

As one can see, Wilson’s policies not only centered on Russia, but all of Europe and the world. Wilson’s goals were broad. Terms like internationalism somehow change the scope of the United States’ supposed sphere of influence. What the author asserts is essentially a very early twentieth century version of what we currently call "globalization." Levin makes clear that due to Wilson’s combination of religious and capitalist ideology the president further entangled the country in the affairs of the world at large. Now, not only was Bolshevism a threat, but also autocracy(one of Wilson’s biggest problems with Germany) and the growing nationalism of many countries around the world. Levin argues that Europe, however, laughed at the US. The author does not use the idea of the "paper tiger" but one can clearly see that this image found merit among the European nations. The US, full of bluster and hot air, came into the war attempting to dictate political policy to the Allied Powers. Europe regarded this as complete silliness, but Wilson remained convinced and dictated his own terms and beliefs to the Allies. Levin calls this belief "American exceptionalism."(p.13)

Levin argues that Wilson’s own policies led him to approach Vladimir Lenin in order to convince Lenin of the values of liberalism and induce Russia to reenter the war. Lenin refused. Marxist ideology had convinced Lenin that World War I "was (not) a conflict between autocracy and democracy," as Wilson asserted, but rather "a struggle for the division of the world among two capitalist coalitions."(p.48) This represented a complete challenge to Wilson’s views, for in a single stroke Lenin had equated the Central Powers and the Allied Powers as one in the same. Levin states that this refutation of Wilsonian ideals led the US to seek avenues that would lead to the replacement of the Bolshevik government in Russia. Kolko agrees and acknowledges that the world could not see things as inherently as the Russians could. Of course, countries like Germany and Hungary would feel socialist revolution like Russia because, as Kolko makes clear, revolution is inherent to war and strife. Wilson explored avenues that would devalue Bolshevik rule. Levin explains that one such avenue revolved around the fact that the US refused to recognize the Bolsheviks. This did not hurt the Bolshevik cause. However, when Bolshevik forces attacked a contingent of Czechoslovakian forces in Siberia in 1918, Wilson supposedly found a new course of action to take against the Bolsheviks. The Czechs had repelled the Bolshevik troops with the help of anti-Bolshevik elements. Here lay an opportunity for the US to directly involve itself in the affairs of Russia, but Wilson vacillated over whether or not to send in US troops and whether or not the US should jointly assist the Czechs with the Japanese. By the time the president ordered troops to Siberia the initiative had lost momentum and US troops made little difference.

Wilson tried to again hold the Bolsheviks at bay during the Paris Peace talks. Levin maintains that at this juncture Wilson displayed both foresight and contradiction. The president wanted to strike a balance between Europe’s punitive beliefs in regards to Germany and Wilson’s own reintegrationist tendencies. France and Britain desired to punish Germany for the war. Germany had already been through a revolution in 1918 and Wilson feared severe punishment would lead Germany down the path to Bolshevism. Wilson saw that extreme punishment would only lead to Germany’s stagnation. The president’s goal revolved around reintegrating the country after Germany had proved that it could remain loyal to Wilsonian liberal-capitalist ideals. Levin states that with the US as a guiding figure, Europe, including Germany, could once again become a productive world power. William Appleman Williams in The Tragedy of American Diplomacy states that Wilson structured the United States’ peace plan "so that America could provide the intellectual, moral, economic, and military power and leadership to reinvigorate…the world." Part of this plan centered on Wilson’s hope that a unified Germany in the near future would act as a bulwark against Bolshevism. However, the president also agreed with Europe that Germany should be punished in some way. Levin points out the contradictory nature of these goals regarding Germany, but also shows how they related to Russia. After the war the peace plans of the US, including the Fourteen Points, revolved around holding Bolshevism at bay. Wilson hoped to not only hem in the Bolsheviks in Russia but also to keep their ideas from spreading to other countries. At the same time Wilson attempted to take land away from the Bolsheviks by fomenting a revolution among anti-Bolshevik elements in Siberia with the help of American and Czechoslovakian troops.

Levin makes it clear that none of the president’s goals worked out. The Bolsheviks maintained control in Russia, the anti-Bolshevik forces in Siberia suffered a crushing defeat when US troops were removed, and the punitive nature of the peace accords eventually led to another war. Britain and France essentially disregarded the president’s ideas. Wilson’s concept of a League of Nations found acceptance among the European nations, albeit on a limited basis. Wilson had desired for the US to head this League, but Europe had other ideas, as did the US Congress. To the world Wilson almost took on the persona of a comedic figure. Arthur S. Link in "Wilson’s Higher Realism" argues, like Levin, that Europe viewed Wilson as unrealistic and "devoid of practical knowledge." The president desired to put the US in a position to lead the planet into a new world order based upon capitalism and free of imperialism, and Europe soundly rebuked him. However, Wilsonian ideals held sway over the United States and would dominate US foreign relations for the next eighty years. Wilson represents a juncture in US foreign policy. The US, at this time, left the ideological ground of foreign intervention based upon religious or cultural grounds and instead moved towards foreign policy based upon the control and defeat of socialist and communist forces. In the end Wilson’s goals would become a reality that would plague the remainder of twentieth century US foreign policy.