America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy - Expanded Edition

by Tony Smith

Book Overview

America's Mission argues that the global strength and prestige of democracy today are due in large part to America's impact on international affairs. Tony Smith documents the extraordinary history of how American foreign policy has been used to try to promote democracy worldwide, an effort that enjoyed its greatest triumphs in the occupations of Japan and Germany but suffered huge setbacks in Latin America, Vietnam, and elsewhere. With new...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691154929
• ISBN13: 9780691154923
• Release Date: March 2012
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 1.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Bush Should Have Read This

Thomas Jefferson was the first president to insist that a world composed of democratic states would best enhance America's goals. Woodrow Wilson first fully described this as a philosophy for guiding foreign affairs. Wilsonianism and liberal democratic internationalism have come to be synonomous terms. Since then, the most consistent belief of US presidents about foreign policy has been that US security is best served by the expansion of democracy worldwide. Most administrations even before Wilson believed that the democratic form of government created nations less prone to war and more co-operative in trade than any other form. By the beginning of the 1900's, we were already making efforts to create governments in our image. The difference between this and Imperialism? - after applying the miracle cure, that country would be left autonomous, without having to answer to the US or any other country except by agreements beneficial to both. Wilsonian philosophy has been best represented by the administrations of Wilson, FDR, Truman, and Reagan; almost absent during the administrations of Johnson, Nixon, and Ford (the ultimate Realists); and present to intermediate degrees in all the others. Meanwhile, the philosophy of Realism - that the threat of war by any given nation is the ultimate currency in world affairs - has predominated in the academic US. The mixture of degrees of Realism with degrees of Wilsonianism in any given administration has frequently resulted in the US backing of authoritarian regimes - to thwart the spread of Communism. Countries represented include Japan, Germany, Russia, Philipines, multiple Latin American and Caribbean countries, Iran, Viet Nam, and a few in Africa. Interventions have included a combination of economic, political and military activities, depending on the judgement of the sitting president. "American Mission" endorses Wilsonianism over Realism, but the authors also endorse Realism (to an extent) by offering repeated examples of unwise efforts by US presidents to force a democratic government onto people unwilling or unready to accept it. On the other hand, the restructuring of Germany and Japan after WWII are examples of the tremendous benefits that accrue when democratization is successful. Among the unanswered questions is "what would have happened if we had done nothing." The authors think the world of today would be much less democratized. There's no way to know that, but along with the successes, our efforts are littered with failures, complicated by the complex politics and maneuverings of the cold war. The way each president handled foreign affairs, from Wilson to Clinton, is discussed in detail. All of them had opportunities to democratize. Whatever the degree of an administration's action or inaction, the authors' retrospectoscopes showed that all presidents could have done better - some of them much better. This scenario suggests how complex the situations were. The US was neve