17.02.11
U.S. foreign policy traditions
Multilateralism vs. unilateralism since 1776
Oslo, Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies | 128 pages
The author offers an argument where she discards the term “isolationism” altogether and frame the discussion as whether the United States has mainly exhibited a unilateral or multilateral internationalist foreign policy. She takes the position that the United States has mainly pursued unilateral internationalism
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Defence and Security Studies is a peer-reviewed monograph series published by the Norwegian Institute of Defence Studies in Oslo. Restad Eliassen's contribution makes up no. 3 of the series for 2010.
>> Summary
In this study I take issue with several conventional assumptions employed by scholars of U.S. foreign policy. First and foremost, I argue that the “turn-around” thesis – which states that the United States turned away from isolationism and toward multilateralism during the Second World War – is overstated. In contrast, I offer an argument where I discard the term “isolationism” altogether and frame the discussion as whether the United States has mainly exhibited a unilateral or multilateralinternationalist foreign policy. Here, I take the position that the United States has mainly pursued “unilateral internationalism” I mean seeking to retain one’s freedom of action while engaging with other countries. This has been achieved either through lax formal obligations or overwhelming control of the decision-making bodies governing the rules of the interaction. Thus, I argue that contrary to the conventional wisdom, the United States sufficiently safeguarded its unilateral maneuverability when constructing the second postwar order in the 1940s. Therefore, rather than the Second World War and the international institutions inaugurated in 1945 signifying a “turn-around” to Wilsonian order built by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman in fact accommodated the historic U.S. foreign policy tradition of unilateral internationalism.
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