Pearl Harbor: Isolationism
Essay title: Pearl Harbor: Isolationism
Pearl Harbor: Isolationism
It is a common held belief that America has historically been a nation driven by the ideology of isolationism. The best cases for these arguments are through our unwillingness to participate in either world war. The lynch pin being the events that happened in Pearl Harbor. I will try to dispel this theory in my essay.
On December 7th, 1941 war was forced upon America by the Japanese assault on Peal Harbor, and declarations of war by Germany and Italy four days later. It is a myth that Franklin D. Roosevelt was anxious to bring America into the war, and was prevented from doing so by the overwhelming isolationist spirit of the American people. The evidence shows that FDR was primarily concerned with his domestic policies and had no wish “to join in a crusade against Nazism or totalitarianism or indeed against international aggression.” He took no positive steps to involve the United States in the conflict. The war came as much a surprise-and an unwelcome surprise-to him as anyone else. There is a persistent myth that he was forewarned about the Japanese aggression at Pearl Harbor, and did nothing to stop it, being anxious that American participation in the global conflict should be precipitated by the unprovoked act of aggression. That all kinds of warnings were in the air at the time is clear. But an objective survey of all the evidence indicates that Pearl Harbor came as a real and horrifying shock to all the members of the Roosevelt administration, beginning with the President himself.
It is also a myth, however, that Americas unwillingness to engage in World War Two-the polls show that around 80 percent of the adult population wanted America to stay neutral until the Pearl Harbor assault-sprang from a
deep sense of isolationism, which was Americas “pristine and natural posture in world affairs.” This myth is so persistent that it has led in the 1990s to a demand to ‘return to isolationism, as though it were Americas destiny and natural preference. So it is worth examining in a longer historical context. There is nothing unique, as many Americans suppose, in the desire of a society with a strong cultural identity to minimize its foreign contacts. On the contrary, isolationism in this sense has been the norm wherever geography has made it feasible. A characteristic example of a hermit state is Japan, which tried to use its surrounding seas to pursue a policy of total isolation. China, too, was isolationist for thousands of years, albeit an empire at the same time. The British were habitually isolationist even during the centuries when they were acquiring an empire embracing a quarter of the worlds surface. The British always regarded the English Channel as a cordon sanitaire to protect them from what they saw as the Continental disease of war. The Spanish too were misled by the Pyrenees, and the Russians by the Great Plains, into believing that isolationism was feasible as well as desirable.
The United States, however, has always been an internationalist country. Given the sheer size of the Atlantic (and the Pacific), with its temptation to hermitry, the early colonists and rulers of the United States were remarkably international minded. The Pilgrim Fathers did not cut themselves off from Europe, but sought to erect a ‘City on a Hill precisely to serve as an example to the Old World. The original Thirteen Colonies had, as a rule, closer links with Europe than with each other, focusing on London and Paris, rather than on Boston or Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin had perhaps a better claim to be called a cosmopolitan than any other figure on either side of the Atlantic. He believed strongly in negotiations and in mutually advantageous treaties
between nations. Americas ruling elite was always far more open towards, interested in, and knowledgeable about the world (especially Europe) than the French-Canadians to the north and the Spanish- and Portuguese-Americans to the south. Despite the oceans on both sides, the United States was from the start involved with Russia (because of Oregon and Alaska), China (because of trade), Spain, Britain, and other European powers. Isolation in a strict sense was never an option, and there is no evidence that the American masses, let alone the elites, favored it, especially once immigration widened and deepened the ties with Europe.
It is true that the United States, through most of the 19th century, was concerned with expanding its presence in the Americas rather than with global policies. But exponents of ‘America First, like John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and the ‘Manifest Destiny chorus, were imperialists rather than isolationists.
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