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World Order: Theoretical Interrogations It is not a secret that today America is the most influential country in the world. Americas rise to world power is a consequence of the nations geographical position, natural resources, and dynamic energy. (Carpenter 1992, 74) For relatively short period, America became so strong that today it is a single superpower in the world. After the First World War, the European nations assumed that the United States would continue to involve itself in international matters, particularly in helping to reconstruct Europe and help maintain the balance of power. However, America showed no inclination to become involved. On the one hand, this was seen in Europe as evidence of selfishness and immaturity. On the other, whilst many Americans shared the Europeans sense of disillusionment with the war and its aftermath, they also believed that their involvement had been both unnecessary and a grave mistake.
The Nye Committee (1935) proclaimed that the United States had been lured into the war by armaments manufacturers and by Wall Street bankers who wanted to save their fortunes. Foreign policy had seldom interested many Americans, and there was no earthly reason in the inter-war years why they felt that they should become involved in what they considered the affairs of other nations. They were not threatened. Activities that are more important were available, to which they wanted to devote their time and money. Many thought of relations with other nations in terms of trade and finance, which belonged in the realm of the private sector and that there was little need for political and hence public involvement with other countries. As a result, the American approach to foreign policy in the inter-war years appears to be confused.
Public opinion, and Congress, appeared to be predominantly isolationist and this had to be taken into account by presidents and policy makers who wished to be more active. During the 1920 s, Republican Party administrators implemented a foreign policy consisting of two main themes. First, the reconstruction of Europe in which the government would take a back seat to the private sector, and second the backing of moves for the reduction of armaments and limitation in which the government itself took the lead. From 1933, the Democratic Party came to power and isolationism continued to be a dominant strain in United States politics and foreign policy. Roosevelt announced at the World Economic Conference in 1933 that the United States would concentrate on domestic economic recovery.
In addition a series of Neutrality Acts were passed by Congress which were intended to fence off the United States from future conflicts by ensuring that businessmen and financiers could not do business with those waging war. Public opinion continued to remain strength severity of the Depression led many to conclude that their efforts and attention ought to be focused on home affairs rather than abroad. Isolationism also had a historical source as well. America was largely a land of immigrants, of people who had left Europe and its problems behind. They had no desire and need to be involved in the problems again. The idea of a New World Order has been around for a long time.
This ideal centers on the concept of a one-world government led by the United Nations. Many have praised the idea of a New World Order, including some of our very own Presidents of the United States, while other stand against the idea all together. In theory the idea of a one world government would be nice, uniting the world as one, however, the shortcomings, in my opinion, out weigh the positive factors. A suggested idea for the 21 st century government has been the ideology of the New World Order, one world government lead by the United Nations. It would create new forms of global economics, global politics and overlapping and diminishing cultures. The economic system would be based financial and momentary supported by the New World Order.
State borders would be either severely reduced, or erased to create a one-world government for the New World Order. Some or all this may sound quite appealing but it would come with many strings attached, many consequences and many drawbacks. In a New World Order, as proposed by Mehdi Alavi author of A New World Order: Democracy, Civility and World Peace, government would be based on the Law of Nature, or the Natural Law. This would consist of global peaceful participation, majority rule and respect for human rights. Although this may sound good for many, however, the drawbacks and consequences are never mentioned in the book. Some of the major problems with the notion of a New World Order are that the States would experience a loss of identity, power and sovereignty as well as combined or lost cultures for the citizens of the world (Alavi 1998, 23).
The concept of globalization, both economically and otherwise, will prove to cause another set of major problems. States identities as well as their sovereignty will be undermined if not lost all together. It would cause for the abolishment of states and combining cultures. Since sovereignty would now not lie solely with the states, there could possibly be a new concept of a worldwide system of limited sovereignty, which might possibly lead to another concept of a sovereign individual (web).
However, the State and Treasury Departments had a vision of a multilateral, peaceful world without trade barriers. The Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthaus ambition was to return the international economy to a world of freely convertible currencies. He made small headway in 1936 by negotiating the Tripartite Stabilization Agreement with France and Britain. Secretary of State at the time, Cordell Hull was convinced that free trade and non-discrimination might have prevented war in Europe. However, both Morgenthau and Hull lacked clear-cut political support for their policies. In 1938, the United States possessed the most productive economy in the world with one of the largest navies.
However, to describe it as a fully active world power as we have shown already would be inaccurate. If it was America that sealed the fate of Germany in the First World War, its financial muscle during the twenties that brought a degree of stability to Europe, then it was its isolationist policy in the thirties compounded by the Depression that upset the international system. This encouraged German and Japanese expansion and weakened the resolve of more liberal democracies to stand up to their aggression. Subsequently what the United States did and did not do in the inter war years had an enormous impact on world politics.
The United States tried desperately to shield itself from the war in Europe and Asia by retreating into isolation. However, after the fall of France in 1940 Roosevelt believed that vital American interests were at stake. He considered the defense of Britain to be vital to United States interests. Whilst America remained technically neutral, Britain managed to exchange a number of naval and air bases in exchange for 50 destroyers.
The subsequent Lend-Lease act of March 1941 allowed the sale of war materials to any country whose defense the President considered would promote the defense of the US, without the need for immediate payment. By December 1941, the US had declared war on Germany and Japan. The Atlantic Charter of 1941 declared that the war would have a democratic purpose winning wars was not enough. Without the promise of a better world, ordinary people would not be prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to ensure victory.
A lasting peace presupposed freedom and the champion of freedom was the United States. By 1945, the America controlled about one-half of the worlds industrial output. The war effort had broken the back of the depression and GNP had doubled in four years. The war not only changed the economy of the US it also transformed it militarily. Its navy was the biggest, its air force the strongest and it possessed the atomic bomb.
In his interview on Tape 5, Paul Note declares that as early as 1942 he believed that Hitler would be defeated by the USSR and it would be unlikely that Germany would win the war. At that time, it became apparent to him that the United States needed to begin thinking about what it wanted to see as its role in the post-war world. Whilst the USSR was an ally of the United States in war it seemed likely due to their position in the post-war era that they would pose the greatest threat to the United States as a huge power bloc in Europe. Germany would not exist as a power, the French had suffered a great deal and Britain had been gravely weakened. Because of the war, the United States and the USSR had gained much more intellectual and physical power. The focal issue would be the relationship between the two.
America would have to take a much more significant role in world affairs than it had done in the inter-war period. The results of isolationism were clear and it was no longer an option. American prosperity and security was not untangled from developments in other parts of the world what happened elsewhere had a direct bearing on the United States. In planning for peace, American policy makers assumed an open world economy, the primacy of liberal democratic principles and the benign use of hegemonic power to create the new-world order. The dream that the USSR could be drawn into a close relationship with the United States foundered quickly. However, the transition from wartime co-operation to the Cold War occurred in stages.
The USSR did not live up to promises made at the Yalta summit in 1945. American initiatives such as the Marshall plan, the formation of NATO and the war in Korea established and confirmed the division of the world into two camps. Also in 1947, Secretary of State, George Marshall decided to create a Policy Planning Staff (PPS). The PPS was headed by George Kennan, who declared in his Long Telegram to Washington that Stalin and the communists had been misunderstood and posed a large threat to the United States and other Western capitalist countries. It played a central role in shaping American security policy in the early post-war years by establishing where the risks were and what should be done about them. It also aimed to think in strategic...
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