Posted on 04/02/2024 7:32:55 AM PDT by daniel1212
During the 1930s, the combination of the Great Depression and the memory of tragic losses in World War I contributed to pushing American public opinion and policy toward isolationism. Isolationists advocated non-involvement in European and Asian conflicts and non-entanglement in international politics. Although the United States took measures to avoid political and military conflicts across the oceans, it continued to expand economically and protect its interests in Latin America. The leaders of the isolationist movement drew upon history to bolster their position. In his Farewell Address, President George Washington had advocated non-involvement in European wars and politics.
For much of the nineteenth century, the expanse of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans had made it possible for the United States to enjoy a kind of “free security” and remain largely detached from Old World conflicts. During World War I, however, President Woodrow Wilson made a case for U.S. intervention in the conflict and a U.S. interest in maintaining a peaceful world order. Nevertheless, the American experience in that war served to bolster the arguments of isolationists; they argued that marginal U.S. interests in that conflict did not justify the number of U.S. casualties.
In the wake of the World War I, a report by Senator Gerald P. Nye, a Republican from North Dakota, fed this belief by claiming that American bankers and arms manufacturers had pushed for U.S. involvement for their own profit.
The 1934 publication of the book Merchants of Death by H.C. Engelbrecht and F. C. Hanighen, followed by the 1935 tract “War Is a Racket” by decorated Marine Corps General Smedley D. Butler both served to increase popular suspicions of wartime profiteering and influence public opinion in the direction of neutrality. Many Americans became determined not to be tricked by banks and industries into making such great sacrifices again.
The reality of a worldwide economic depression and the need for increased attention to domestic problems only served to bolster the idea that the United States should isolate itself from troubling events in Europe. During the interwar period, the U.S. Government repeatedly chose non-entanglement over participation or intervention as the appropriate response to international questions. Immediately following the First World War, Congress rejected U.S. membership in the League of Nations. Some members of Congress opposed membership in the League out of concern that it would draw the United States into European conflicts, although ultimately the collective security clause sank the possibility of U.S. participation.
During the 1930s, the League proved ineffectual in the face of growing militarism, partly due to the U.S. decision not to participate....
Upon taking office, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tended to see a necessity for the United States to participate more actively in international affairs, but his ability to apply his personal outlook to foreign policy was limited by the strength of isolationist sentiment in the U.S. Congress. In 1933, President Roosevelt proposed a Congressional measure that would have granted him the right to consult with other nations to place pressure on aggressors in international conflicts. The bill ran into strong opposition from the leading isolationists in Congress, including progressive politicians such as Senators Hiram Johnson of California, William Borah of Idaho, and Robert La Follette of Wisconsin. In 1935, controversy over U.S. participation in the World Court elicited similar opposition. As tensions rose in Europe over Nazi Germany’s aggressive maneuvers, Congress pushed through a series of Neutrality Acts, which served to prevent American ships and citizens from becoming entangled in outside conflicts. Roosevelt lamented the restrictive nature of the acts, but because he still required Congressional support for his domestic New Deal policies, he reluctantly acquiesced.
The isolationists were a diverse group, including progressives and conservatives, business owners and peace activists, but because they faced no consistent, organized opposition from internationalists, their ideology triumphed time and again. Roosevelt appeared to accept the strength of the isolationist elements in Congress until 1937. In that year, as the situation in Europe continued to grow worse and the Second Sino-Japanese War began in Asia, the President gave a speech in which he likened international aggression to a disease that other nations must work to “quarantine.” At that time, however, Americans were still not prepared to risk their lives and livelihoods for peace abroad. Even the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 did not suddenly diffuse popular desire to avoid international entanglements. Instead, public opinion shifted from favoring complete neutrality to supporting limited U.S. aid to the Allies short of actual intervention in the war. The surprise Japanese attack on the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 served to convince the majority of Americans that the United States should enter the war on the side of the Allies.
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The biggest isolationists were the Communists, after the Non-Aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin. They said the US should stay out of the “European Imperialists War”.
“Isolationists advocated non-involvement in European and Asian conflicts and non-entanglement in international politics”
The best thing we can do is show others the way. Be an example to learn from, a shining city on the hill.
Show what a Constitutional Republic of limited government can do for its people, living standards and technological innovation, and the entire world.
Oh, wait . . .
Yep. I was going to post that.
And when Germany invaded them, they turned on a dime so quickly that it made heads spin.
That was one of the key issues that caused Whittaker Chambers to fully break with the Communist Party, the Non-Aggression Pact.
There have been many stories in the media since the Ukraine war started , about how Putin is Hitler, and how Hitler could have been stopped if only the world had taken action against him sooner.
Is Putin like Hitler? Will he really invade country after country if he’s not stopped in Ukraine?
Do the stories of history apply to this situation?
Just like WWI, Americans had to be massaged, propagandized and manipulated into war.
My Grandmother, who had one brother killed, and another gassed in WWI such that he was an invalid, was firmly against any US involvement in WWII. When the time came, she forced Dad to join the Navy so he wouldn’t be in what she imagined would be another trench war in France.
Of course that all changed on June 22, 1941.
Well, yeah.... So is someone saying that these guys were wrong, at the same time they're advocating for "Non-Isolationism" in some situation. Gee, what could it be...
Josef Goebbels said that he learned the most about how to use propaganda from George Creel's efforts during WWI.
Funny, they say the exact same thing in Russia: "NATO is now on our border and arming Ukraine against us. If we don't stop them here...."
Isolationist or Interventionist … I pick neither.
I pick “America First”. If it’s a vital national interest to intervene, to spend our blood and treasure, then intervene. Otherwise, stay out and mind our own business.
WW1: out
WW2: in
Korea: tough call
Vietnam: out
Afghanistan: quick in, then out
Iraq: out
Ukraine: out
Your mileage may vary. Just my two cents. Which ain’t worth much given Biden’s inflation.
We had no business getting involved in WWI!
I even think the British should have stayed out of it. It should have remained to be “another damn fool thing in the Balkans “.
> Is Putin like Hitler? Will he really invade country after country if he’s not stopped in Ukraine? <
That’s a VERY important question.
If Putin is like Hitler, then he must be stopped as soon as possible. One of the great tragedies of the 20th century is that the West did not stand up to Hitler early on. And so disaster followed. Millions died.
But maybe Putin is more like Kaiser Wilhelm II, an opportunist. Another great tragedy of the 20th century is that in 1914 the West casually expanded what should have been a localized conflict. Again, disaster followed. Millions died.
Better not guess wrong. I’m guessing Putin is another Wilhelm, not another Hitler.
.
If the U.S. had declared war on Germany and Japan in 1941 while allowing 10-15 million invaders to flood across our southern border, FDR would have been chained to his wheelchair and dumped into the Potomac River.
Britain and France owed us a couple billion dollars of armaments etc. in 1917 (a lot of money back then), and as Russia turned commie and left the war, it became likely that Germany and the Austro-Hungarians would win the war, take over western Europe, leave us broke, and then establish hegemony over the Atlantic, ruining all Atlantic trading and leaving us with only the Japanese as allies. The Germans offering the Mexicans Arizona was just a happy accident, making it easier to convince Americans to enter the war.
The United States should be isolationist by nature and interventionist in rare, exceptional cases. That's the only legitimate political stature for a country that is supposed to be built on the idea of limited government. A government that pisses away thousands of lives and trillions of dollars on military campaigns in Islamic sh!t-holes halfway around the world while facilitating an invasion of Third World peasants here at home has no moral claim on any loyalty from its citizens anymore.
It was France’s alliance with Russia that caused WWI to blow up.
It should have just been between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia.
He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. (Matthew 12:30)
thus ultimately most of out neighbor are enemies of those who follow Christ (as we are if we choose to not follow Him), as are nations, with the difference only being a matter of degrees, and (in judgment) that of accountability.
But to some degree, we should be able to live in peace with those whom we have theological and ideological disagreements if basic moral rules of conduct are consented to, but no person or nation pointing arms nukes at us as peaceful moral persons is a true ally, nor those promoting wokeism. Putin does the former, as do the Chicoms and Iran, and fundy Islam, while Western Europe and Ukraine do the latter.
However, you may be able to work with a person holding to the latter, but those threatening to take over territory by force are the more immediate threat. Yet of course, on a large scale the issues are usually not clear who the fault mostly belongs to, though in chastened yet victim Israel vs. horror-able Hamas there should be no debate.
Does Putin really seek to dominate the world? I have never read anything from their side that would even suggest that.
Is Putin just a patriot - a Russian patriot wanting to protect their nation’s border and interests? That’s what his published statements sound like.
Can Putin be believed?? Who knows??
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