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Why Wilson Matters: The Origin of American Liberal Internationalism and Its Crisis Today
How Woodrow Wilson's vision of making the world safe for democracy has been betrayed ― and how America can fulfill it again
The liberal internationalist tradition is credited with America's greatest triumphs as a world power―and also its biggest failures. Beginning in the 1940s, imbued with the spirit of Woodrow Wilson’s efforts at the League of Nations to "make the world safe for democracy," the United States steered a course in world affairs that would eventually win the Cold War. Yet in the 1990s, Wilsonianism turned imperialist, contributing directly to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the continued failures of American foreign policy.
Why Wilson Matters explains how the liberal internationalist community can regain a sense of identity and purpose following the betrayal of Wilson’s vision by the brash “neo-Wilsonianism” being pursued today. Drawing on Wilson’s original writings and speeches, Tony Smith traces how his thinking about America’s role in the world evolved in the years leading up to and during his presidency, and how the Wilsonian tradition went on to influence American foreign policy in the decades that followed―for good and for ill. He traces the tradition’s evolution from its “classic” era with Wilson, to its “hegemonic” stage during the Cold War, to its “imperialist” phase today. Smith calls for an end to reckless forms of U.S. foreign intervention, and a return to the prudence and “eternal vigilance” of Wilson’s own time.
Why Wilson Matters renews hope that the United States might again become effectively liberal by returning to the sense of realism that Wilson espoused, one where the promotion of democracy around the world is balanced by the understanding that such efforts are not likely to come quickly and without costs.
The liberal internationalist tradition is credited with America's greatest triumphs as a world power―and also its biggest failures. Beginning in the 1940s, imbued with the spirit of Woodrow Wilson’s efforts at the League of Nations to "make the world safe for democracy," the United States steered a course in world affairs that would eventually win the Cold War. Yet in the 1990s, Wilsonianism turned imperialist, contributing directly to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the continued failures of American foreign policy.
Why Wilson Matters explains how the liberal internationalist community can regain a sense of identity and purpose following the betrayal of Wilson’s vision by the brash “neo-Wilsonianism” being pursued today. Drawing on Wilson’s original writings and speeches, Tony Smith traces how his thinking about America’s role in the world evolved in the years leading up to and during his presidency, and how the Wilsonian tradition went on to influence American foreign policy in the decades that followed―for good and for ill. He traces the tradition’s evolution from its “classic” era with Wilson, to its “hegemonic” stage during the Cold War, to its “imperialist” phase today. Smith calls for an end to reckless forms of U.S. foreign intervention, and a return to the prudence and “eternal vigilance” of Wilson’s own time.
Why Wilson Matters renews hope that the United States might again become effectively liberal by returning to the sense of realism that Wilson espoused, one where the promotion of democracy around the world is balanced by the understanding that such efforts are not likely to come quickly and without costs.
- GenresInternational Relations
352 pages, Hardcover
Published January 10, 2017
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99 people want to read
About the author
Tony Smith
135 books14 followersTony Smith is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Iowa State University of Science and Technology
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 7, 2017
An outstanding study of the Wilsonian tradition and its perversions. Far from being an airy idealist, Smith shows that Wilson was actually fairly hard-nosed about the idea of spreading democracy. Wilson believed that a people could no more adopt a government than an individual can simply adopt a character. People may want the perks of democracy, but whether the preconditions exist for it to take root is another condition. Wilson identified several important precursors for successful democracies: a middle class (implying a certain level and distribution of wealth), a sense of national unity, a leadership willing to take an uncertain people toward democracy, a tradition of civil service and the rule of law, traditions of rights, a civil society. Wilson saw this as a gradual process, not something that one society could bequeath to another. For example, he didn't see it as the US job to intervene in the Mexican Civil War but rather to protest against the seizure of government by the military (Vera Cruz aside). His reward was an excellent Mexican constitution in 1918. In short, Wilson had a sophisticated, realistic idea of what societies had the institutions that would make democracy take root and which ones didn't. In this respect, his book reminded me a little of Fareed Zakaria's Future of Freedom book about the problem of illiberal democracy.
Wilson's Wilsonianism in international politics consisted of the following pillars: The US would create a collective security regime among the democracies of North America and Europe who shared similar cultures and political systems. This entity would be further united by free trade within the zone of democracies, which would have a palliative effect on conflict and encourage competition. At home, each democracy would rest on a platform of social justice and the regulation of capitalism, which Wilson believed needed to be harnessed in order for democracy to survive. The zone of democracies would follow a set of established rules and come to each other's aid against aggressors and tryannies. He never envisioned spreading democracy with force, but rather by example and the occasional, steady expansion of the zone of peace to willing, capable new democracies. Wilson's concept was primarily defensive and would only slowly rewrite the rules of global politics. He was a firm internationalist but not a crusader. Wilson never got to carry out this vision, but FDR and Truman put it in place following WWII. It created the basis for the postwar world, NATO, unprecedented transatlantic prosperity, and the successful waging of the Cold War. It is interesting to think what he might have thought about the UN, given the presence of so many non-democracies.
Wilson's vision wasn't perfect (and he was obviously deeply flawed), but it did form the basis of decades of foreign policy success and the entire liberal international order. Smith then argues that after the Cold War ended the US became a victim of its own overconfidence about the universality of democracy and America's ability to spread it elsewhere. He attributes this fault to both liberals (pointing to the R2P doctrine) and neoconservatives (pointing to the doctrines of global primacy and preventive war). These groups, culminating in the Bush administration, made the facile assumption that just because a people wanted democracy, rights, or freedom meant that they were ready for it. Democracy was seen to be the natural default condition of all societies rather than something built up slowly, haltingly, and not inevitably in Anglo-American society (and others, like the Dutch) He offers some really interesting comparisons of places that had the groundwork for liberal democracy (Tunisia, Czechoslovakia, South Korea, etc) and ones that didn't (Iraq, Afghanistan, many Sub-Saharan countries). The mix of hubris and naivete and simplistic thinking about democracy led the US into some of the greatest foreign policy disasters of its history. Democratic peace theory, democratic transition theory, R2P, and other shibboleths of humanitarian interventionism and neoconservatism suffer the wrath of Smith in this book. All proponents of these ideas should read this book.
Smith wants the US to shed the rhetoric and posture of the universality of democracy. He argues that liberal democracy after the Cold War victory turned into a Neo-wilsonian dogma, a crusading, dogmatic Leninism to the Marxism of Wilson (Note that Wilson had much less faith in the spread of democracy than Marx did in the decline of capitalism). This is a fascinating, broad view of the last 20 years of foreign policy. Smith has explained the inner logic of liberal internationalism as well as anyone here. He has the kind of liberalism I personally endorse. His book also helps explain the America first backlash of the last few years given the arrogant disasters of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the seeming rejection by these peoples of our attempts to bequeath democracies to them (if that was our intention; I'm not sure). This is a well-researched, historically accurate, mostly fair examination in a pivotal figure in American history and his legacy. It is pretty dense though, so I recommend it mainly to people with more patience or who are used to scholarly work and big ol' block quotes.
Wilson's Wilsonianism in international politics consisted of the following pillars: The US would create a collective security regime among the democracies of North America and Europe who shared similar cultures and political systems. This entity would be further united by free trade within the zone of democracies, which would have a palliative effect on conflict and encourage competition. At home, each democracy would rest on a platform of social justice and the regulation of capitalism, which Wilson believed needed to be harnessed in order for democracy to survive. The zone of democracies would follow a set of established rules and come to each other's aid against aggressors and tryannies. He never envisioned spreading democracy with force, but rather by example and the occasional, steady expansion of the zone of peace to willing, capable new democracies. Wilson's concept was primarily defensive and would only slowly rewrite the rules of global politics. He was a firm internationalist but not a crusader. Wilson never got to carry out this vision, but FDR and Truman put it in place following WWII. It created the basis for the postwar world, NATO, unprecedented transatlantic prosperity, and the successful waging of the Cold War. It is interesting to think what he might have thought about the UN, given the presence of so many non-democracies.
Wilson's vision wasn't perfect (and he was obviously deeply flawed), but it did form the basis of decades of foreign policy success and the entire liberal international order. Smith then argues that after the Cold War ended the US became a victim of its own overconfidence about the universality of democracy and America's ability to spread it elsewhere. He attributes this fault to both liberals (pointing to the R2P doctrine) and neoconservatives (pointing to the doctrines of global primacy and preventive war). These groups, culminating in the Bush administration, made the facile assumption that just because a people wanted democracy, rights, or freedom meant that they were ready for it. Democracy was seen to be the natural default condition of all societies rather than something built up slowly, haltingly, and not inevitably in Anglo-American society (and others, like the Dutch) He offers some really interesting comparisons of places that had the groundwork for liberal democracy (Tunisia, Czechoslovakia, South Korea, etc) and ones that didn't (Iraq, Afghanistan, many Sub-Saharan countries). The mix of hubris and naivete and simplistic thinking about democracy led the US into some of the greatest foreign policy disasters of its history. Democratic peace theory, democratic transition theory, R2P, and other shibboleths of humanitarian interventionism and neoconservatism suffer the wrath of Smith in this book. All proponents of these ideas should read this book.
Smith wants the US to shed the rhetoric and posture of the universality of democracy. He argues that liberal democracy after the Cold War victory turned into a Neo-wilsonian dogma, a crusading, dogmatic Leninism to the Marxism of Wilson (Note that Wilson had much less faith in the spread of democracy than Marx did in the decline of capitalism). This is a fascinating, broad view of the last 20 years of foreign policy. Smith has explained the inner logic of liberal internationalism as well as anyone here. He has the kind of liberalism I personally endorse. His book also helps explain the America first backlash of the last few years given the arrogant disasters of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the seeming rejection by these peoples of our attempts to bequeath democracies to them (if that was our intention; I'm not sure). This is a well-researched, historically accurate, mostly fair examination in a pivotal figure in American history and his legacy. It is pretty dense though, so I recommend it mainly to people with more patience or who are used to scholarly work and big ol' block quotes.
January 28, 2018
About the hubris of American Foreign Policy in thinking that we could transform Iraq and Afghanistan in the same way we did Germany and Japan after World War II. A very good case for getting out of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews