In his “Farewell Address,” George Washington famously advised America to engage in commerce with everyone, but to avoid getting involved in Europe’s politics, concluding, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”
Thomas Jefferson, in his inaugural address, echoed the sentiment: “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”
Strangely enough, this has rarely worked for us. In spite of the natural defences of two oceans, neutrality has never lasted for the U.S.A.
- Britain, not quite over losing its best colony, dragged us into the War of 1812 by kidnapping American sailors at sea, encouraging Native American tribes to attack our western frontiers, and trying to prevent the U.S. from trading with France.
- We got into the Civil War (with casualties equal to the combined casualties of every U.S. war from the Revolution through most of Vietnam) and the Mexican-American War (over Texas’ secession from Mexico and subsequent annexation by the U.S.) all by ourselves, no Europeans necessary.
- We tried to avoid WWI, but the isolationists lost the argument when the Zimmerman Telegram was revealed, where German diplomats were discussing bringing Mexico into the war to fight the U.S. if the U.S. were to join on Britain’s side. The Germans promised to argue for Mexico’s recovery of territories lost to the U.S., including Texas. We did not enter WWI on the strength of our alliances (in fact, there was a great deal of doubt as to whether the U.S. would side with Britain or Germany).
- We tried to avoid WWII. We were dragged into that one by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Although we had alliances with the countries we’d fought alongside in WWI, those alliances were not what brought us into WWII.
Although rarely truly isolationist, the U.S. has not done a bad job of avoiding “entangling alliances.” We have been rather poor at avoiding wars, but at least they were mostly not for the sake of rigid adherance to alliances.
I think we finally found one that we can’t say no to, though: money. While not technically an alliance in the way Washington and Jefferson were advising against, this one is much more dangerous.
President Obama just submitted a new budget to Congress. Something like 40% of his $3.8 Trillion budget will have to be borrowed. Much of that borrowed money will be from China, if they continue to choose to invest in us. Of course, if they don’t, we’re pretty much SOL (and I don’t mean the Virginia Standards of Learning).
In totally unrelated news, China has announced that President Obama should not meet with the Dalai Lama, who will be in Washington, DC next week. The President’s office insists the meeting is on, this time… but Obama failed to receive the Dalai Lama properly last fall, the first such presidential snub since the Dalai Lama began visiting DC in 1991, also after Chinese warnings not to meet with the Dalai Lama. Beijing also recently protested a long-standing arms sale agreement with Taiwan.
But that has nothing to do with any entangling alliances… or entangling purse strings.
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