Discuss the changes in, actions of, and results of American foreign policy from 1921 to 1941.

    During the decade of the 1920s, following United States' involvement in World War I, the basic American foreign policy stance was one of irresponsibility - irresponsible in the sense of not being willing to accept any responbility for preserving world peace. While the nation's leaders did not refuse to negotiate treaties with foreign powers. they refused any commitment that would require United States' action overseas. Nor did the American government accept any responsibility for international economic order.

   An illustration of American refusal to act responsibly in international economic affairs was the failure to accept the fact that the only way the World War I allies could make money to pay back their war debts was by selling goods to the United States. While preventing sales of materials to the United States through the highest protective tariffs in the nation's history, the government demanded full and timely repayment of the war debts. This stubborn refusal to acknowledge the relationship between tariffs and war debts was epitomized by President Coolidge's classic statement "They hired the money, didn't they?" This attitude embittered America's former allies.

   The United States' policy toward the Soviet Union also reflected a rather irresponsible, "head-in-the sand" stance. Following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the United States refused because of moral disapproval to recognize the Communist government that was in power. Diplomatic recognition does not denote approval of a regime, but simply the fact of its existence. A country can hardly have any influence on a nation whose government it refuses to acknowledge. Yet throughout the 1920s no diplomatic ties existed between the two nations. It was not until 1933 that the United States formally recognized the Soviet Union and that action did not signify approval or cordial relationships.

   The United States took the diplomatic initiative in calling for the Washington Conference of 1920-21 to head off a naval arms race in the Pacific lead by an increasingly aggressive Japan. That conference resulted in several treaties being signed. By the terms of the 5-Power treaty the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, and Japan agreed to limit the construction of capital ships. A Nine-Power treaty guaranteed China's independence and territorial integrity, thus reaffirming the "Open Door" policy. The drawback was that none of the treaties required the signatory members to take any action in the event of a violation of the treaty. The United States would sign treaties provided it did not have to accept any responsiblity for their enforcement.

    Perhaps the most dramatic expression of irresponbility in foreign policy was the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1929. This treaty, originally proposed as a bilateral defense treaty between France and U.S., was extended to include all nations that would agree to its primary pledge to "outlaw war as an instrument of national policy." Sixty-two nations, including the United States, eventually signed this treaty to outlaw war. But once again the treaty provided no sanctions against any nation which violated it, except the moral force of world opinion. It was, in the words of one diplomat, "an international kiss" - a nice but meaningless gesture. The United States certainly had no monopoly on irresponsibility in foreign policy.

   With a new decade American foreign policy shifted from simple irresponsibility to outright determined isolationism. The reasons for this rapid movement toward trying to isolate the nation from any involvement overseas were the severe economic depression of the decade and the emergence of aggressive, militaristic regimes in Europe and the Far East. The nation was too absorbed in trying to solve its own economic problems to have the time or energy to worry about world affairs. And memories of American involvement in World War I were still vivid enough the make the nation wary of any approaching war overseas.

   An example of American inaction in the face of violations of the Nine-Power treaty and the Kellogg-Briand pact occurred in 1931 when Japanese troops invaded Manchuria, a northeastern province of China, and established a military governement there. After refusing to take any military action or impose any economic sanctions, the United States finally decided that it would not recognize the military regime in Manchuria (renamed Manchukuo by the Japanese). This was known as the Hoover-Stimson doctrine of "non-recognition of the fruits of aggression." The Japanese government simply ignored this token gesture and established full control over Manchukuo.

   The rise of three powerful and aggressive nations not content with the international status quo led to increasing uneasiness. Germany, Italy, and Japan, all strongly anti-communist, had not only stated individual intentions of territorial aggression but joined in a mutual defense treaty, the Axis Pact. The United States reaction was to set up a Senatorial committee, the Nye committee, to investigate the causes of American involvement in World War I so that congress could avert a repetition of that action. The Nye committee reported that the enormous profits of American munitions makers led to the needless involvement in World War I. Loans had been made by the U.S. to buy, and American ships had delivered these munitions. and that led to war.

   On the basis of the Nye committee findings, Congress passed a series of laws in l935, 1936, and 1937, known as the Neutrality Acts, designed to keep the U.S. out of any possible future war. These acts provided that when the President found a state of war to exist anywhere he would have to invoke a mandatory arms embargo on all belligerent nations, that no American vessels could travel in war zones, and that all loans to belligerent nations were prohibited. These Neutrality Acts marked the peak of isolationist sentiment. They were invoked when Hitler's Germany invaded Poland in September, 1939 and World War II began in Europe.

   The problem was that the American people wanted two things which turned out to be mutually exclusive. They wanted to avoid involvement in the European war and they wanted England and France to defeat Germany. Since the arms embargo prevented the U.S. from selling any war materials to the Allies (England and France), and since the American people wanted to provide aid without running any risk of entanglement in the war, a revision of the Neutrality Acts was necessary. This revision came in the form of the Cash-Carry policy which allowed for sale of munitions to belligerent nations if they would pay cash for them (no loans) and carry them from American shores in their own vessels (no American ships in war zones).

   The Cash-Carry policy was only the first step away from strict neutrality. When England indicated that it could not continue the war without some additional means of protecting its merchant ships against German submarines, Roosevelt came up with the Destroyer Deal. Under this executive action the U.S. would "trade" fifty "over-age" destroyers to England in return for American leases on British naval bases in the Western Hemisphere. This was pitched as an action to increase our hemispheric security. Then in 1941 when England ran out of money, Congress passed the Lend-Lease bill allowing the U.S. to lend or lease "any materials of war not necessary for our defense to any nation whose defense was deemed vital to our national security."

   While moving away grudgingly and slowly from real neutrality in the war in Europe, the U.S. had no such reluctance in adopting an unneutral stance when Japan invaded China in 1937. Since there was no official declaration of war, Roosevelt did not invoke the Neutrality Acts but instead immediately provided for shipments of war materials to China. As Japan continued to increase its control over mainland China during 1940-41, President Roosevelt attempted to halt Japanese aggression by applying economic pressure through a series of trade embargos. After Japan invaded Indo-China the U.S. issued a series of diplomatic ultimata which the Japanese rejected. Japan then responded with its attack of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. was at war.