The US and the world since Wilson’s fourteen points.
I- Wilson’s fourteen points :
Context :
In the awakening of the First World War, Woodrow Wilson, President of the USA, tries to create a new world order in which the United States would be the referee of international peace and free trade.
It must be remembered that the US are a young country and develop at a very high rate from the late 19th century till the early 20th century. They also have political goals which have been set during the 19th century. One of them, known as the Manifest Destiny, is an ideal based on the fact that the USA have been chosen by God to lead the World. The US see themselves as a new ‘Promised Land’, welcoming immigrants and giving them a chance to become a new concept : the American citizen. Of course, the Manifest Destiny is believed to give the right to the US to force nations to accept their point of view on peace, democracy and free trade. One must remember that free trade is a ‘built-in’ concept in the interpretation of democracy by American minds : the War of Independence, fought against UK, was related to the prohibition of free-trade by the British Crown.
The US have been relatively spared by the 1st World War, which was essentially fought on the European soil. The USA took part in the war quite late because of a tradition of isolationism. They did not suffer any damage on their territory and thus became one of the most if not the most powerful country by the end of the war.
The speech :
President Wilson adressed the Congress on January,8 1918 : 10 months before Germany surrendered. He was already preparing post-war World order.
Three topics can be seen in the text :
-The first one is the need for frank diplomacy : no secret meetings or arrangements of any sort, open democracy.
-The second one is the territorial question : Wilson adresses many border problems in Europe : Belgium, Russia, Germany and even the Ottoman Empire. Within this territorial question, the main principle is the ‘Self Determination of people’ which stipulates that even colonized populations should be given the right to choose their rulers.
-The third one is the free trade agreement : Wilson defends the American view of free trade against European protectionism.
Interpretation :
Frank diplomacy is necessary in a World which has largely be the victim of secret agreements. The global aspect of the Great War was a consequence of alliances and treaties being signed without any understanding and choice from the part of concerned populations. Secret agreements between Russians and nationalists within the Austrian Empire spurred war.
The territorial question is the main topic as the Great War was first and foremost the result of territorial rivalries. The question of nationalities appears with great accuracy because democracies (the US being part of them) fought against multi-national empires in which minorities had no rights. Moreover, the Armenian genocide by the Turks in 1915 made this issue even more pressing.
But this territorial issue with the right for self determination has something of an innuendo : France and UK are both very powerful colonial empires and that prevents the US to make free trade with these colonies. The US, as an emerging power, would like to open these markets and this can only be accomplished through freedom for the colonies. What is more, the rivalry between the US and France or the UK is biased by these colonies and Wilson knows that the next step to the American World domination is the disappearance of colonial powers.
The third topic is closely related to the first two : free trade is seen as the basis of American democracy as they were themselves built on free-trade issues, but Americans also believe that free-trade leads to development and wealth and that wealth provides a democratic system based on capitalism…
The so-called ‘Wilsonian idealism’ led to the creation of the short-lived League of Nations : mainly supported by the US government, this international organization set the idea of an international World order for the first time in contemporary history. But the Great Depression and the isolationism of the US would eventually lead to the failure of the League.
Note :
The Briand-Kellogg pact was signed in 1928 between French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand and US Secretary of State Frank Kellogg. Even if this pact was signed outside the League of Nations, it is directly related to it as the main purpose was to make war illegal (after the trauma of the Great War). The treaty was important for two reasons :
-It showed the attachment of the US to peace as a guarantee of the establishment of a World order under their rule. Peace is also a necessary condition for free-trade.
-It also created the notion of Crime against peace thus establishing the first ever international law.
II- The Great Depression :
Causes :
One have to keep in mind that deregulation is the main goal of every major private banking firm. Deregulation means loosening the State control on financial operations, especially in stock exhanges such as the NYSE.
At the very same time as the US were steadily becoming a powerful nation with economic ties to countries all over the World, US bankers drew a blueprint of how to take advantage of the globalization. After the 1907 financial panic, JP Morgan pretended that the US needed a central banking system. One that would regulate interest rates and money issuance. Of course, JP Morgan, being a private banker, wanted this central bank to be owned and ruled by private bankers such as himself. In 1917, under the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, the Federal Reserve Act was created on Jekyll Island (the private property of JP Morgan) by a group of international bankers. It was passed before the congress, many representatives were not even aware of what was at stake and followed the advice of experts such as Morgan and Co. The law created the FED or Federal Reserve, an organization destined to rule currency issues in the US and controlled by private banks.
Speculation raised to a climax during the 1920s : the FED flooded the market with currency, everyone made money, but banks needed to borrow money from the most powerful banks to follow the trend of economic growth.
The crisis :
In 1929, a very popular type of credit known as the ‘margin loan’ allowed people to speculate, lending them money against basically no guarantee. But these loans were tricky as they could be reclaimed by the bank within 48 hours, thus forcing people to sell the shares they had bought with these loans.
After big bankers who had promoted these margin loans discretly escaped the market, rumours of insolvability reached the NYSE and a panic burst. People began to sell their shares and the stock exchange crashed. Banks called in the loans, making the situation even worse. Little banks went down to bankrupcy, as did some big banks. Those who had discretly escaped the market, such as JP Morgan, came back to buy the small banks for basically nothing, thus increasing the monopoly they had on the US economy.
Without credits from banks, firms went bankrupt as well and the whole economy of the US entered the period known as the ‘Great Depression‘.
Consequences :
Not only did the crisis increase the monopoly of big banks ruled by the exact same small group of private bankers already controlling the FED, but it created a massive economic and social crisis characterized by unemployment, personal bankrupcies, suicides and so on.
This depression eventually reached other countries as economy was already globalized and US firms had tight links to European companies. Europe was just trying to overcome the consequences of the Great War, rebuilding itself slowly. The crisis was especially harsh on Germany. It was very dependent on American loans that helped them pay compensations of war after the Versailles Treaty. The Dawes Plan was necessary to the German economy but it had to be suppressed because of the crisis. Inflation and unemployment raised to a never seen level in Germany, propelling the Nazis at the head of the country.
The crisis eventually led to a second World War indirectly.
Solutions within the US :
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected democrat president of the US in 1932, on a program of help from the Federal State to private economy. The plan was called ‘the New Deal‘ in reference to the poker game, when you distribute a new set of cards to the players. The idea was to create a special budget apart from the Federal budget, and especially designed to help fund public works or help firms and citizens.
At the very same time, all the gold owned by American citizens had to be given to the FED which paid it 85% of its market value of the time. It was supposed to serve as a guarantee for the face value of dollar.
The big works and some national programs such as the NRA (National Recovery Administration) to which companies willing to employ more and to raise salaries were adhering.
The New Deal managed to decrease unemployment by 50% (from 25% at its highest to 12% in 1935) but long term effects are difficult to measure with certainty. In 1937, a new crisis occured, even if it was lighter than the Great Depression. But nothing is known of long temr effects because of the Second World War bursting in Europe, partly due to the Great Depression.
III- The US during the 1930s : from isolationism to interventionism :
The Nye Committee :
Created in april 1934 and led by Senator Gerald Nye, this investigation committee was supposed to seek for evidence of conspiracy from the part of arms making companies during the Great War. It was believed, thanks to the declarations of US Army officers such as Smedley Butler (who wrote a book entitled : War is a Racket), that the arms manufacturers had a huge role in the involvement of the USA in the Great War (an involvement which cost the lives of 53,000 American soldiers). Butler, a Marine officer, questioned the intentions of lobbyists belonging to the arms industry and supported by the very same private bankers as the ones involved in the FED…
The Nye Committee conducted hearings for two years, but could not come up to a solid piece of evidence. Still, the opinion of the American people was on Nye’s side. The Committee was eventually discarded after Nye criticized former President Wilson for being part of the conspiracy.
The Neutrality Acts :
Nevertheless, the isolationist opinion led to the passing of the ’1930s Neutrality Acts’ : a series of laws forbidding American citizens and companies to get involved in arms trade with belligerents of a conflict. These laws were supposed to prevent the US from being at risk of getting involved in spite of themselves in a new World War, as Europe was steadily becoming a theater of international tensions (with the rise of totalitarism).
Interventionism :
Under the pressure of lobbyists such as banking chairman Bernard Baruch, who had commercial interests overseas, Roosevelt allowed an exception to the Neutrality Acts under the name of ‘Cash & Carry‘ (1939) : this specific rule was designed to allow some American firms with international markets to continue to sell goods to allied countries but the goods had to be paid in full and the shipping was taken in charge by receiving countries. This rule gave a big advantage to American companies as countries were in desperate need for such goods as war was on the brink of being waged.
After the defeat of France in 1940, Roosevelt told the Congress that they had to intervene against agressors. The Neutrality Acts thus became ineffective. In march 1941, the Lend-Lease Act, permitted the US to lend money on long term conditions to selected countries.
With tension increasing after the sinking of many American ships by German submarines, the President allowed ships to be armed and to retaliate.
The Atlantic Charter signed by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Roosevelt, provided help from the US and a special agreement on peace to follow the war. They also decided to end the Nazi domination over Europe. FDR insisted that if nothing happened, he would not be able to convince the American opinion of the necessity to intervene against Hitler’s Germany. Once again, a dichotomy appeared between the will of the US government to intervene in international affairs and the public opinion clearly in favor of isolationism.
IV- Pearl Harbor and the US in the Second World War :
Pearl Harbor :
On december 7, 1941, the Japanese aviation attacked the naval base of Pearl Harbor, killing 2,300 and destroying a war fleet and aircrafts. They did it without prior declaration of war, thus marking this day by the seal of ‘infamy’ (as FDR said in his speech the day after).
It created a shock in the American opinion as war had come inside the American borders. The opinion swiftly became pro-war and the USA declared war to Japan on december 8.
This attack was not as much a surprise as it is sometimes believed : Americans had put Japan under an oil blockade since the invasion of China in 1937. The US government saw Japanese imperialism as a threat in the Pacific area, a region where American companies wanted to gain influence.
Moreover, Australian secret services warned the Americans against Japanese movement in the region of Hawaii. An American warship even spotted a Japanese submarine, but astonishingly enough, the American government did not warn the Pearl Harbor base, allowing the soldiers to run a medal ceremony without any level of alert and thus making them an easy target for a Japanese attack.
Battle in the Pacific :
The US began their campaigns against the Japanese imperialists in the Pacific area. After the Midway battle between the Japanese fleet and planes and America’s ones, the battle of Guadalcanal occured between mid-1942 and 1943. These battles are largely seen as a turning point in the Pacific War in favor of the US Army.
Battle on the Western Front :
At the same time, the US were helping Uk against Germany in North Africa. The Battle of El-Alamein marked Germany’s first important setback in 1942.
In 1943, the US government, helped by some members of the Sicilian Mafia settled on the US territory (like Lucky Luciano), puts up an operation to land in Sicily. The campaign of Italy, whose climax is the battle of Monte Cassino allows the US to seize most of Italy and capture Benito Mussolini. But the ‘Duce’ is freed by a German commando and rules the small fascist republic of Salo in Northern Italy.
In 1944, the landing in Normandy is the signal to the beginning of the conquest of France and Western Europe. Bombings occur on German cities, putting Germany on its knees.
In 1945, US forces join Soviet forces on the Oder river and the nazi regime is put to an end.
Atomic bombings :
In August 1945, Japan is the first ever country to suffer atomic fire : the industrial cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are bombed by the new weapon to put a term to the Second World War and prevent the Soviet Union to invade Japan to whom it had declared war a few days before. Truman claims the bombings saved 1 million lives.
The Tokyo trials are organized to judge Japanese war criminals but no legal action is intended against the US.
V- The US and Latin America :
- -The Monroe doctrine :
- Thus named before the president Monroe who enounced it, the Monroe doctrine was first issued in 1823, just after most Latin American countries had become independant. Here are some meaningful excerpts :
- ‘The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.’
- ‘We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.’
Conceived at the beginning as a message of independance, it came with an innuendo : the USA were the only power destined to influence the continent, thus separating Old World and New World spheres of influence.
-Banana republics :
In the context of Cold War, the US President Harry Truman issued his famous Doctrine stipulating that communism had to be contained (containment strategy). Latin America was a continent of poverty and social tensions, as a poor majority faced an extremely rich minority owning the land. Socialists, communists and each left-wing party wanted to nationalize part or whole of the land to solve the problems of the populations.
The US saw every try for social reform as a threat of communism, thus requiring an intervention.
The typical case was Guatemala, which produced bananas indeed. The majority of the land was owneed by the United Fruit Company (USA) and when democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman decided to nationalize the land, the UFC refused the money and overrevaluated the price of its land. As the Dulles brothers (Allan, CIA’s Head, and John Foster, Secretary of State) were shareholders of the UFC, they had financial interest in the support of the UFC against Guzman’s policy. They organized a coup against the democratically elected president to set a new regime : a military dictatorship ruled by their puppet, Carlos Castillo.
What happened in Guatemala happened in many countries, as the USA not only tried to take advantage of natural resources in Latin America but also controlling the Panama canal, considered as a major way for the globalization to come.
In Cuba (strategically located neighbour of the US), the communist revolution led by Fidel Castro and Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara seized the power from America’s friend, dictator Batista, in 1959. The CIA organized an anti-castrist landing in the Bay of Pigs in Cuba (1961). The invasion attempt failed because the Cuban population was loyal to Castro who had restored their rights against American companies. After many assassination attempts against Castro, the Cuban ruler called the USSR for help. In the Cold War context, Khrushchev seized the opportunity to install missiles on Cuba, aiming at big East Coast cities of the US. The missiles were detected by a U2 spy plane in 1962, leading to a firm response by US President John F. Kennedy who launched an ultimatum and set a blockade on Cuba. The world came real close to a nuclear war but Khrushchev ultimately withdrew the missiles in exchange for the promise from the US not to intervene in Cuban affairs. Cuba remained under blockade for decades as this blockade still exists on some goods today.
The most infamous coup certainly came in 1973, when Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile. Just like Arbenz Guzman, he wanted to solve his people’s problems through nationalization of the land. His presidential palace was put under aerial attack by the US and General Pinochet was set as the bloody master of the country for 20 years. Allende committed suicide during the coup but many people, including his daughter Isabel – a famous poetess – thought that he had been killed by CIA agents.
After the Cold War, tensions still exist between the US and Latin American countries, especially with Venezuela. Fifth oil producer in the world and owner of the first reserves, Venezuela became ruled by popular leader Hugo Chavez in 1998. This leftist politician nationalized oil and a coup supported by tge CIA occured in 2002. The population entered a general and massive strike and Chavez was freed from jail and became president again. He is one of the leaders of anti-imperialism but is also a demagogue. Having been reelected at the end of 2012, his health status could prevent him to effectively rule the country during his new term (he is extremely sick).
V- The US during the Cold War :
- The American Model :
The US pretend to be THE democratic model from the very beginning of the Cold War. Having freed the world from the nazis, they believe that the time has come for them to fulfill the destiny they were created for (Manifest Destiny).
The American model is first perceived in western countries through the GIs who become the incarnation of the typical heroes. They bring chewing-gums, cigarettes, nylon stockings and chocolate with them, among a population which has been deprived from the necessary during the six most awful years of history. Of course, many a Western young woman fell in love with GIs. But one has to remember that rapes occurred. This is a symbol of the American model : glittering at first sight but full of shadows when lokked upon more closely.
The Marshall plan, decided according to the Truman Doctrine, came to help rebuild Europe (Western Europe in fact, because only Yugoslavia accepted it among Communist countries), thus reinforcing the image of savior surrounding the US.
Being the #1 economic power, the USA presented themselves as an awaken dream of what capitalism could bring. The Soft Power emerged as a mean of propaganda during the Cold War : the goal was to show the world how good the American way of life could be. The 50s and 60s were a Golden Age for Hollywood cinema with the first star system ever created around the likes of Marylin Monroe or Cary Grant. Music was another way to hypnotize the youth all over the Western world : Elvis Presley became « the King » while dancing and singing on rhythms stolen from black people.
The Black problem in the US was still something to be sorted out at the beginning of the Cold War as the fight for Civil Rights shadowed the beautiful image given to the American Model. Riots by poor black people, segregated through the Jim Crow Laws, spread unrest in US big cities and even in the countryside of the south of the country.
People like Martin Luther King (non-violent) or Malcolm X (more violent) fought for Civil Rights but both were assassinated and legal equality would only be recognized in 1964.
Speaking of a shadow casted over the American Dream, the so called « Witch-Hunt » led by Senator Joseph McCarthy during the early 50s was another problem : obsessed with what he believed to be the omnipresence of communist in the media and in Washington, MacCarthy gave birth to « MacCarthyism ». This movement chased opponents and destroyed some fundamental liberties : suing and jailing hundreds by the way of denunciation. The tension was very high and an atmosphere of suspicion pervaded the whole American society. The climax was eventually reached when Mr and Mrs Rosenberg (Julius and Ethel), a couple of jewish communists suspected of spying on the atomic industry, were sentenced to death and executed in june 1953. The case led to discredit on the account of paranoia for Senator McCarthy but it was made public after the fall of USSR that the case was true and that the Rosenbergs were truly spies.
The hippie movement then arose as a counterculture movement in the mid-sixties. Shouldered by the American youth, it was primarily non-violent and denounced the materialism of capitalism, its lack of humanity and pleaded for a fairer society. Some communities were created were people lived their utopia (in San Francisco for example). The hippie movement was also a reaction against the puritan way of thinking of the American society : they defended the use of drugs such as LSD, sexual liberation, new kinds of spirituality (rediscovery of Indian religions…). The movement also had its own artistic personality through psychedelism (like in psychedelic rock by the Grateful Dead) or even more mainstream artists such as Bob Dylan. In 1967, the « Summer of Love » led to manifestation all around the country, especially on the West Coast, in California. As the context was dominated by the Vietnam war, sit-ins and demonstrations multiplicated, drawing hundreds of thousands in the streets of the country. It is believed the revolutions of 1968 were partly influenced by the hippie movement. One has to remember they were close, politically speaking, to the left wing, even the communists. The movement climaxed during the 1969 Woodstock festival where superstars such as Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and Joe Cocker organized a superconcert in front of a 500,000 attendance. But the 70s saw a decline of the « peace and love » movement : Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix both died from their drug and alcohol abuses, the Manson family (a family of serial killers in California) adopted the hippie style, and the economic crisis after the oil shock of 73 led to a renewal with materialistic values.