The reluctant superpower

America's status on the world stage a relatively new phenomenon

By Andy Walton
CNN.com

(CNN) -- Since World War II, the United States has been one of the world's leading military powers, with troops stationed around the world. But for most of the nation's history, that was not only untrue, but virtually unthinkable to most Americans.

In 1796, in a farewell address effectively declaring himself a non-candidate in that year's presidential election, George Washington wrote, "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." He warned against the "insidious wiles of foreign influence" and "the mischiefs of foreign intrigue."

Washington's words remained the guiding light of American international policy in the earliest years of the republic. The United States avoided taking sides in the Napoleonic Wars, instead trading with both sides; that brand of neutrality was one of the causes of the War of 1812, in which the Americans fought the British to a draw.

In 1823, President James Monroe threw down the gauntlet to the powers of Europe in what came to be called the Monroe Doctrine; in essence, he told Europe to keep its hands off the Americas. That remained the main thrust of American policy, as the young nation was soon too busy with its own crises to pay much attention to Europe.

In the 1840s and 1850s, the U.S. was almost -- but never quite -- torn apart over a slate of economic disputes, particularly the issue of slavery. In 1861, the last stitches ripped, and the United States of America and the Confederate States of America engaged in four years of bloody warfare. As Americans had stayed out of European wars, Europe stayed out of the American war, trading with both sides when it could.

America emerged from the Civil War bloodied, but soon launched into a period of massive growth and industrialization that brought it into the top rank of world economic powers. Near the end of the nineteenth century, a century marked by imperialism, the U.S. was ready to get into the empire game.

'Carry a big stick'

In 1898, the U.S. went to war with Spain. The war lasted only a few months, but it was a momentous event: the end of the Spanish empire and the beginning of the American one. The U.S. won Puerto Rico and Guam, bought the Philippines and gained control over a nominally independent Cuba.

In that brief war, the most celebrated unit was the first volunteer cavalry, or "Rough Riders," and their most famous officer was Theodore Roosevelt, who resigned his post as assistant secretary of the navy to join the volunteers. A few years later, much to the astonishment of his own party, Roosevelt was elected president.

Roosevelt argued that the U.S. should "walk softly, and carry a big stick." To back up the credibility of the American "stick," he sent a flotilla of America's state-of-the-art battleships, painted white and later dubbed the "Great White Fleet," on a world tour in 1907-09. While the official mission was one of good will, the message was clear -- it was a coming-out party for the U.S. on the world stage. Roosevelt also led the completion of the Panama Canal, the most ambitious public works project to date and a permanent commitment in Central America. In 1905, Roosevelt dove into the international scene, mediating a settlement in the Russo-Japanese war. For his efforts, Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.

But even while the U.S. became more prominent as a world power, it seemed safely isolated between two oceans. When Europe erupted into war in 1914, the U.S. remained neutral, and Woodrow Wilson won re-election on the slogan, "He kept us out of war." When the U.S. did enter the war, in 1917, American industry and financial credit -- along with some two million troops sent to France -- helped turn the tide.

'Return to normalcy"

At the war's end, Wilson pressed for the founding of a League of Nations to mediate disputes. Wilson's ideas caught on in Europe, but were unpopular at home; the U.S. rejected membership in the League of Nations and voted against the Treaty of Versailles that ended the war, instead reaching a separate peace treaty with Germany.

In 1920, Warren Harding won the presidency, running under the slogan, "A return to normalcy." That "normalcy," in part, meant turning away from Wilson's brand of internationalism. After the shocks of the war, the "Red Scare" of 1919 and a postwar recession, Americans were eager to return to business as usual, and isolated themselves behind high tariffs and an international policy that kept the U.S. out of European squabbles.

The Great Depression reinforced isolationist impulses. In the mid-1930s, a Senate committee chaired by North Dakota Republican Gerald Nye concluded that American involvement in World War I had been a mistake. The committee found that the U.S. had been drawn into the hostilities through the machinations of "merchants of death," bankers and munitions companies out for personal gain. That conclusion resonated with many Americans when Franco, Hitler and Mussolini came to power in Europe. The U.S. maintained at least nominal neutrality, though its lend-lease program provided Britain, France and later the Soviet Union with war materiel and credit.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, marked the end of American isolationism in practical terms. During the war, the U.S. sent troops to Asia, Africa and Europe. After the war's end, the remnants of the League of Nations re-formed as the United Nations, and this time the United States was front and center. Under the Truman Doctrine, American economic and military aid went to nations threatened by communism. The Marshall Plan helped rebuild Europe and the Cold War made an American military presence abroad a foregone conclusion for the next 50 years.

During the Cold War, some Americans argued that the country should withdraw from the United Nations; but the Cold War, as a patriotic and ideological crusade, kept those voices from receiving widespread support.

Since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the traditional American isolationism has had something of a resurgence. The "America First" message has found an audience in voters who don't see the reasoning behind U.S. international policy and critics who claim there is no reasoning behind it.

"We do not want to isolate America from the world," presidential candidate Pat Buchanan said in accepting the 2000 Reform Party nomination. "But we will no longer squander the blood of our soldiers fighting other countries' wars or the wealth of our people paying other countries' bills."

Whatever the future of American commitments overseas, the argument that the U.S. should butt out is as old as the republic, and is not likely to disappear.

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