"A lucid, provocative, deeply learned account of contemporary Republican foreign policy from one of America's best young diplomatic historians. If today's conservatives want to move beyond the foreign-policy failures of the Bush era, they should start by reading Dueck's book."--Peter Beinart, author of The Good Fight: Why Liberals--and Only Liberals--Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again

"Colin Dueck notes that foreign policy is made by presidents, not intellectuals, and he is right. But his smart, lively new book shows what intellectuals can add to the discussion: sharp, honest analysis that uncovers the reality behind the rhetoric. Hard Line is more than a masterful guide to Republican thinking and practice over the last century--it is a major contribution to the literature on American foreign policy in general."--Gideon Rose, managing editor of Foreign Affairs

"Dueck has written a clear, persuasive, and important study of Republican foreign policy. Neither an apologist nor a reflexive critic, he examines the various strands that exist within what he describes as a 'hawkish nationalist' bent. He knows that ideas are one thing, implementation and the cut and thrust of policy quite another. A major contribution to our understanding of the last six decades of American foreign policy--and, one suspects, several more to come."--Eliot A. Cohen, Johns Hopkins University

"This book provides an excellent overview of the changes in conservative thinking on foreign policy by looking at the leading figures in each successive era, from Robert Taft to George W. Bush. The prose flows beautifully, and Dueck is admirably objective in his assessments of these individuals. An extremely valuable study."--James M. Goldgeier, George Washington University

"An engaging, important, and timely study, Hard Line offers the best coverage of this period of Republican foreign policy I have seen. Through meticulous research, Dueck demonstrates the coherence and diversity of a uniquely conservative view of international affairs just at the moment when the Republican Party is reexamining and debating its foreign policy agenda for the future."--Henry R. Nau, George Washington University

HARD LINE

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Chapter One

Republicans entered the twentieth century, somewhat to their own surprise, as the party of American expansionism overseas. For most of the late nineteenth century, there had been no fundamental differences between Democrats and Republicans on issues of international expansion or military intervention. On the contrary, both parties embraced the Monroe Doctrine, strategic nonentanglement, economic opportunities abroad, and consensual ideas of American exceptionalism while arguing over trade and protection. Indeed, the presidential election of 1896 was fought primarily not over foreign policy but over issues of silver and gold currency, and over domestic economic affairs more generally. Ohio governor and Republican presidential nominee William McKinley campaigned on a platform of high tariff s and sound money, with a promise to restore prosperity in the midst of economic depression. The Democratic nominee, prairie populist William Jennings Bryan, called for a sweeping struggle against moneyed interests and an end to the gold standard, while combining this fi re- breathing stance with a culturally traditional Protestant evangelicalism. In this way, Bryan won over western populists and agrarian radicals to the Democrats but lost support among northern urbanites, immigrants, Catholics, and organized labor. The result was a consolidation of Republican dominance in the Northeast and Midwest, and McKinley won the White House. In terms of foreign policy, both parties at the time stood for measured support for Cuban independence from Spain, leaving little difference between them on an issue of secondary interest to most voters. As reports leaked out to the American press of Spanish atrocities against Cuban civilians, and particularly after the February 1898 explosion in Havana Harbor on board the U.S.S. Maine, prominent Democrats, populists, and silver Republicans demanded military action. Conservative Republicans in Congress, alarmed by the possibility of being outmaneuvered and defeated on this issue, responded by calling on the president to declare war. McKinley handled the entire crisis with considerable care and political skill, ensuring that the exact timing and nature of hostilities corresponded with his own goals, but in the final analysis he launched the United States on a war he had hardly sought when running for president two years earlier.

Once Spain was defeated militarily, both Democrats and Republicans called for U.S. gains in the Caribbean, specifically in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Only when the question of the Philippines was raised did the war's outcome become a truly controversial and partisan issue. The acquisition of Spain's colony in the Philippines was almost an afterthought for McKinley; he had no initial intention of annexing it. But with the Spanish role in the Philippines destroyed, the president decided it would be unwise to give that colony its independence. The Filipinos, he believed, were unready for independence and subject to intervention on the part of the other great powers. If the United States took control of the Philippines, it could forestall such intervention, while securing a valuable base on the way to China and its vast potential markets. McKinley did not expect the annexation of the Philippines to be especially popular with the American public, and for this reason he went on the campaign trail in the fall of 1889 to make his case. A nasty guerrilla war between insurgent Filipinos and U.S. troops erupted a few months later. The question of the Philippines' fate triggered a significant anti-imperialist political and intellectual movement in the United States, allowing Democrats an opportunity to criticize the president on foreign policy. In the end, the treaty annexing the Philippines to American control was passed by the U.S. Senate in 1898 by just one vote over the necessary two-thirds. Believing anti-imperialism to be a winning political stance, the Democrats, with William Jennings Bryan again as their presidential nominee, decided to make it a leading issue in the election of 1900.

The annexation of the Philippines was indeed unpopular in parts of the country, especially the Northeast, and triggered intense opposition from aging GOP mugwumps along with some important economic conservatives in both parties. On balance, however, McKinley was able to make foreign policy a winning issue for himself and the Republicans in 1900. For one thing, Pacific expansionism appealed to westerners, including many populist Democrats. U.S. military victories against Spain still carried a certain luster in 1900. McKinley's Open Door policy, declaring support for the independence and integrity of China amid conditions of equal commercial opportunity for outside powers, was also quite popular at home. Moreover, the GOP was able to persuasively make the case that with the acquisition of the Philippines a fait accompli, the issue was not so much the expansion as the contraction or surrender of American power-a contraction or surrender that Republicans opposed. McKinley promised to give the Philippines independence eventually, but not prematurely. Indeed, for all the passion surrounding questions of a new American empire abroad, the practical foreign policy differences between the two presidential candidates in 1900 were quite narrow, centering on the exact timeline for Filipino self-government. Bryan, for example, had no special objection to U.S. acquisitions or dominance in the Caribbean. Voters were therefore not really presented with an unmistakable choice between one party for "empire" and another against it. Nor did Bryan stick to a consistent theme throughout the campaign. Above all, with the return of domestic economic prosperity, voters were inclined to reward the incumbent while avoiding proposals for radical change. McKinley therefore sailed to reelection, giving the appearance of a popular mandate for empire and war in the Philippines, when in fact that particular outcome was quite controversial even among many staunch conservatives inside the United States.

McKinley's successor in the White House, Theodore Roosevelt, pursued a skillful, realistic, and adept foreign policy that belied his image as a bombastic cowboy. As a younger man, Roosevelt had oft en called for American military action, but as president he showed no interest in launching the United States on any costly wars. Roosevelt believed that the United States, along with other major powers, had a moral obligation to extend orderly and humane government abroad. He also believed that in an age of intense great power competition, the United States would be outmaneuvered internationally unless it acquired a stronger navy, control over maritime trade routes, and new naval bases overseas. Roosevelt's most famous saying with regard to foreign affairs, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," was not an admonition to strut and swagger but rather the opposite. The phrase captured many of his central ideas and practices regarding effective statecraft, namely, avoiding commitments that could not be kept, being firm, tactful, and patient in negotiations, and not expecting diplomacy to be effective unless backed by sufficient military power. Roosevelt operated under conditions of general popular indifference to international affairs and intense skepticism from Congress regarding new foreign commitments. Any enthusiasm for empire had long since dissipated. Specific business interests associated with the Republican Party sometimes had clear preferences on certain foreign policy issues, such as the construction of a trans-isthmian canal in Central America, but generally had little interest in costly or risky imperial adventures. In any case, Roosevelt was contemptuous of the notion that American diplomacy should be dictated by narrow or private economic concerns, and there is no evidence that he made important foreign policy decisions primarily to satisfy the pecuniary interests of particular banks or corporations. Roosevelt's time in office saw the expansion of a significant progressive faction within the Republican Party that was suspicious of moneyed interests. The president tried to straddle the conservative- progressive divide, gradually moving toward a more interventionist stance on issues of domestic political economy-a move that brought him into increasing conflict with his own party's dominant congressional and conservative wing. These intraparty tensions had little impact on American diplomacy at the time, however. GOP conservatives appreciated Roosevelt's foreign policies; GOP progressives such as Senator Robert LaFollette (R- WI) liked Roosevelt's domestic policies, deferred to him on foreign affairs, and had not yet embraced anti-imperialist ideas. Indeed, some GOP progressives, such as Senator Albert Beveridge (R- IN), were avid American expansionists. Consequently, Republicans were generally united behind Roosevelt on foreign policy matters, and party loyalty remained effective.

The United States in Roosevelt's time was an immensely wealthy country that had not yet converted its potential into a major diplomatic role or usable military power with regard to the European and Asian mainland. Even in much of Latin America, the economic and political influence of European powers was oft en still greater than that of the United States. Roosevelt's special concern-and it was not an unrealistic one-was that major outside powers, such as Germany, would take advantage of political and financial disorder in states in and around the Caribbean to intervene and establish new military bases there. This overarching geopolitical concern motivated him to engage in some reluctant and small- scale but generally effective military and diplomatic interventions in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Venezuela. It was also the strategic context for his autumn 1903 support of Panama's rebellion against Colombian rule, a rebellion that allowed the United States to secure a permanent lease as well as titular sovereignty over a canal zone ten miles wide. In East Asia, Roosevelt supported a regional balance of power by first welcoming Japanese resistance to Russian expansion, then mediating a peace agreement between Russia and Japan in 1905. He refused to issue toothless declarations against Japan's subsequent expansion into Manchuria because he knew the United States had little military ability to back up such declarations or defend the Philippines from Japanese attack. Instead, he signed a sphere-of-influence agreement with Tokyo that recognized American influence over the Philippines and Japanese influence over Manchuria. In Europe, Roosevelt's ability to check German power was very limited, but he interceded at the Algeciras Conference in 1906 to side with Britain and France against Germany on the issue of Morocco, while somehow maintaining cordial relations with Berlin. Even this very limited and successful diplomatic intercession was viewed by the U.S. Senate as implying dangerous foreign entanglements. Between 1904 and 1907, Roosevelt helped organize a second Hague Conference on international peace and disarmament, and he was open to arbitration efforts on matters of secondary importance. Fundamentally, however, he believed that the best guarantee of peace was military strength, and he had modest expectations for what disarmament talks could accomplish. Indeed, when it came to America's own navy, Roosevelt's focus was not on disarmament but on building up U.S. naval power to support a more active role from the Pacific to the Caribbean-a buildup that finally ran into congressional resistance from fiscal conservatives during his last years in office. Overall, the Republican Party benefited politically from Roosevelt's image as a strong, successful leader in foreign affairs, a benefit of which he was well aware. Yet for the most part, domestic political pressures at the time ran against rather than toward the kind of foreign policy he would have liked: global, active, and engaged. Roosevelt understood these constraints and managed them quite skillfully, but ultimately he hit the limits of public and congressional tolerance on the question of America's international commitments. His response to these limits as president was to work as effectively as he could to promote U.S. national interests under the conditions of existing public opinion. In this sense, domestic political and partisan incentives acted for Roosevelt not as a stimulus to an ambitious foreign policy but as a constraint.

The next Republican president of the era was William Howard Taft, a leader with a very different foreign policy approach from Theodore Roosevelt's. If Roosevelt was attuned to traditional patterns of great power politics, Taft believed in the creation of a more peaceful and prosperous world order through the promotion of international law, trade, and investment. The spread of economic interdependence, Taft suggested, would encourage stable governments in the developing world and give the various major powers a strong material incentive to keep the peace. International arbitration treaties could also be relied on to adjudicate differences between countries. Above all, finance and commerce, rather than armed force, would be the preferred instruments of international order and U.S. foreign policy, both for moral and for practical reasons. Taft 's resultant "dollar diplomacy"-a term coined by the American press-was easily misinterpreted as nothing more than a crude attempt at profits for U.S. banks and corporations overseas. But while such profits were certainly sought with great vigor, the basic goals in Taft's mind were also much broader, transformational, and idealistic. Dollars were not so much the primary end as the primary means of a foreign policy based on the classical liberal assumption that the international system could be modernized and pacified through the benign effects of commerce and investment. Taft's dollar diplomacy played itself out in two main geographic venues, Latin America and East Asia. In Latin America, Taft tried to encourage U.S. investment, along with governments open to such investment, but the tactlessness of the effort alienated its supposed beneficiaries. In the end, like Roosevelt, Taft felt bound to intervene militarily in the region several times-notably, in Nicaragua-in order to promote financial and political stability. In East Asia, Taft rejected any notion of a sphere-of-influence arrangement with Japan and instead focused on trying to win international support for a new U.S.-led financial consortium with the aim of developing new railways in the Chinese province of Manchuria. Since Manchuria was already the subject of intense great power rivalry, however, with Japan and Russia in the lead, those powers naturally viewed Taft's proposal as an attempt to muscle them out while muscling the United States in. Indeed, the proposal was so alarming to both Russia and Japan that it led them to reconcile many of their differences and draw together diplomatically. The Chinese, for their part, resented the American proposal as another foreign infringement on their national sovereignty and dignity. Nor were American bankers entirely convinced that the proposed railway project was creditworthy. The Taft administration's well-intentioned proposal therefore came to nothing, and succeeded only in alienating every other major power, as well as the Chinese themselves, who soon collapsed into violent nationalist revolution. Meanwhile, Taft deemphasized any U.S. naval buildup, one of the few practical mechanisms of American influence across the Pacific, since military power did not form an especially important part of his foreign policy philosophy.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from HARD LINEby COLIN DUECK Copyright © 2010 by Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission.
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