Betsy Morin
Hist 6393
14 January 2000
Tony Smith, America?s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994. Pp. XI - 345 + appendix, notes, bibliography, and index.
Professor Tony Smith?s America?s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century presents a post-revisionist view of United States foreign policy. This Tufts University professor rejects what he views as narrow realism, non-Marxist comparative developments, and Marxism paradigms of United States historiography and offers a broader global interpretation of American politics beginning with the Spanish-American War. Professor Smith illustrates the efforts and contributions by Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, and others along with their ambitious efforts in establishing a form of liberal democratic internationalism. Tony Smith defines liberal democratic internationalism as states and organizations ?dedicated to the peaceful handling of conflicts, free trade, and mutual defense? (7). This Wilsonian principle of foreign policy supports the global expansion of democracy, and Smith contends in America?s Mission that United States national security rests on the development of worldwide democratic systems.
Smith?s analysis of United States? foreign policy incorporates democratization in areas such as the Philippines, Latin America, Japan, and Germany. Smith attributes the Philippines as the United States? first serious attempt to establish democracy abroad. Interestingly enough, the author calls the acquisition of the Philippines an accident or by-product of the Spanish-American War (39). Nonetheless, the United States devoted forty-eight years to assure that democracy would flourish abroad. Even after independence in 1946 the United States still played a role in stabilizing democratic parties in the Philippines as Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino?s 1986 election process demonstrated.
Washington sincerely attempted to democratize the Philippines, but the forces which led the nation to the islands were economic and strategic. The never-ending lure of access to Chinese trade and the expansionist tendencies of the United States with the end of the frontier (1890?s) cannot be as easily discounted as Professor Smith does in America?s Mission. The ?accidental? Philippines intervention catapulted from a message by Assistant Secretary of War Teddy Roosevelt to Commodore Dewey, and after the war the United States felt it would rather assume responsibility for the area than let another country gain an additional colonial interest. Undeniably though democracy exists in the Philippines as a result of United States? efforts from 1901 to today. President Wilson supported the Philippines? independence and placed in motion events which spearheaded eventual Filipino internal control of the government. As Tony Smith points out, the government is weak, but democracy survived even the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos (40).
President Wilson?s encouragement for democratic independence extended to Latin America but with less favorable results. Smith claims that internal regional disturbances threatened the national security of the United States because other nations (especially Germany) might decide to interfere. President Wilson worked toward eliminating this threat. Turmoil within Mexico and the Dominican Republic soon challenged the new president. Eventually Wilson adopted a strong rhetoric for international law, and his nonrecognition policy was an extension of this belief.
Overall, Wilson?s record of establishing democratic regimes in Latin America is poor. Economic measures failed to create an atmosphere suitable for democracy to flourish. In fact it had the opposite effect: the underprivileged class? struggles increased and so did dissent against the government. The United States learned a hard lesson from this early Latin American tinkering: intervention was limited and domestic reforms marginal.
Smith purports that Wilsonian principles dominated over any economic, strategic, or military mission in Latin America. The author contends that Wilson?s ?make the world safe for democracy? theory and his support of only constitutional governments ensured a stable environment and guaranteed United States? security. Throughout Smith?s analysis on Wilsonian democratization in Latin America he carefully relates the economic benefits accorded to American business interest in areas such as oil, banking, or agriculture. He also carefully documents the events surrounding the strategic benefits of the Panama Canal. But the author reasons the main purpose for any United States? intervention remained related to national security interests and the formation of democratic forms of government. This data supports Smith?s post-revisionist style.
The end of World War II and the advent of the Cold War led Washington to increase its efforts globally. The United States needed political assurances that no other major world power could establish a sphere of control over the newly created nations. Professor Smith views the demise of the totalitarian governments of Japan and Germany as necessary to the rise of democracy in these nations. Both countries? previous democratic history (Japan in the 1880?s and Germany in the 1920?s) provided a fertile soil for new efforts to resurrect a democratic government. This places both countries in a very different situation from Latin America?s feudal agrarian background. The presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman established the spread of democracy to Japan and Germany and supported Greek and Turkish governments against the spread of communism or fascism. The cold war contest between the United States and the Soviet Union boiled down to this: Marxism-Leninism versus liberal democratic internationalism.
Smith continues his review of United States? foreign policy with examples from the Kennedy, Carter, and Reagan administrations. Kennedy?s Alliance for Progress ultimately fails, and Smith attributes this to the underlying perceived threat of communism. President Carter?s domestic view of civil rights when extended to foreign nations simply lacked enough substance to keep the Shah of Iran in power or to appropriately handle events in Nicaragua. As with previous examples of the United States? failure to promote democracy abroad Smith ascertains that Wilsonianism should be selectively applied to countries whose internal makeup appear favorable for democratization. Reagan?s program for liberal democracy internationalism extended to Latin America, the Far East, and Africa. Washington?s form of constructive engagement in Haiti, South Korea, and South Africa instigated some form of democracy, but local political players handled the delicate transitional part. Again Smith points out the partial role the United States played in these areas and attributes any democratization success or failure to indigenous forces.
Tony Smith accomplishes in America?s Mission an initial attempt to combine the diversified areas of historiography. His basic history lessons in America?s Mission coalesce roughly one hundred years of United States? foreign policy and are based on the presumption that strategic, military, or economic motives for intervention ultimately facilitate United States? national security. Opponents to Tony Smith?s post-revisionist views denounce Smith?s national security approach. However, Smith never denies any underlying economic, strategic, or military strategy as a method for intervention. To the contrary, Smith points out exactly those ulterior motives in each instance, but he also makes his own case for democracy as a means for United States security. Unlike previous revisionist historians who focus only on a social, cultural, political, military, economic, or strategic theme Tony Smith manages to combine parts of all those aspects of United States historiography, and then he concludes with his own version of United States foreign policy. Like it or not, this approach neither denies or omits past historical research. In this aspect, America?s Mission can be viewed as a beginning to the defragmentation of past interpretations into a more cohesive form of historiography.