THE LOSING OF WWI::

Strange, But Bush Really Does Sound a Lot Like Woodrow Wilson (Ron Briley, 1/25/05, History News Network)

In his second inaugural address President Bush emphasized the themes of freedom and liberty. Although he failed to mention Iraq by name, its presence was looming throughout the address. For the Iraqi elections seem to have replaced any considerations regarding weapons of mass destruction in the administration’s case for war. In emphasizing freedom and liberty, Bush selected the themes used by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson from 1912-1920.

Wilson, like Bush, advocated a moralistic foreign policy. Reacting to the jingoism and materialism of his predecessors Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, Wilson insisted that the goal of American foreign policy was to spread the benefits of democracy throughout the world. A master of slogans, Wilson justified American entrance into the First World War by stating that our goal was to “make the world safe for democracy.” When he grew frustrated with the course of the Mexican Revolution, Wilson suggested that American intervention was necessary in order to teach the Mexican people to “elect good men.”

The end result of Wilson’s moralistic foreign policy was that the United States engaged in more military interventions abroad than under the militaristic Theodore Roosevelt, who referred to the Spanish-American War as “that splendid little war.” In addition to Mexico and World War I, making the world “safe for democracy” meant military action in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Russia.

Seemingly advocating the Wilsonian vision of America as the arbitrator of international morality, President Bush asserts that in order to guarantee freedom in the United States we must assure that liberty abounds throughout the world.

Even more important than the similarities are the differences. Wilson could have done much good had he chosen to use his post-War influence to push for decolonialization and the extension of sovereignty. Instead, he was willing to discard all his, and our, democratic ideals in pursuit of a transnational institution (the League of Nations) that, because it represented a threat to our sovereignty, was doomed from the git-go. We're still paying the price for this failure in the Middle East today, but George W. Bush has sensibly discarded the League's successor and focussed on self-determination.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 26, 2005 8:15 AM