The Wilsonian Moment?

How are we to balance the principle of national sovereignty and fundamental issues of human rights when the two are in conflict? The debate began in earnest after World War I and continues to this day.

by James Chace

alter Lippmann, 27 years old and Lippmann on a secret matter: Wilson Wone of the brightest young men in wanted to assemble a group of experts Washington, was working in the War who would draw up material for an Department in 1917. A crusading progressive eventual peace conference. Lippmann journalist at the New Republic, Lippmann had was to be general secretary to the group, once been enamored of Theodore Roosevelt which would meet in New York under the but had become an avid supporter of rubric of “The Inquiry.” Burying them- Woodrow Wilson. He joined the office of selves in the offices of the American Secretary of War Newton Baker in an advisory Geographical Society at 155th Street group that included the future Supreme and Broadway, the members of The Inquiry Court justice Felix Frankfurter and Eugene pored over books and maps that would be crit- Meyer, later the publisher of the Washington ical to redrawing the frontiers of Europe. Post. Lippmann established himself in the Lippmann did not exaggerate when he department as a standard-bearer for liberal called the group’s work “huge, superabundant, causes, in particular that of protecting the and overflowing.” press from arbitrary censorship. Using As Ronald Steel recounts in his biogra- Wilsonian language, he reminded Wilson’s phy of Lippmann, the effort to apportion ter- éminence grise, Edward House, “We are ritory was seriously compromised by top- fighting not so much to beat an enemy, as to secret documents that Secretary Baker make a world that is safe for democracy.” revealed to Lippmann one October after- Though he was not, in his own words, a noon at the War Department. The sheaf of “sentimental liberal,” he recognized that lib- agreements, which the Allies had signed erals were vital constituents in Wilson’s with one another, spelled out how Britain, search for consensus. France, Italy, Russia, and Japan planned to Lippmann’s toughness recommended compensate themselves once Germany was itself to the president and to House (who beaten. To Lippmann, a war that had liked to be called “Colonel,” an honorary already cost the antagonists millions of casu- Texas title). One day in September, six alties now seemed to have been fought for months after the United States had entered reparations and territories. That hardly the Great War, Colonel House asked to see embodied the ideals to which Wilson was

34 Wilson Quarterly Tumultuous crowds greeted President Woodrow Wilson in Europe in 1919. committed. France was to recover Alsace eight of the 14 points Wilson would present and Lorraine, the two provinces it had lost to in a speech in January 1918 as the founda- Germany in the Franco-Prussian War of tion of an enduring peace. The first five 1870–71, as well as parts of the Saarland. points and the fourteenth—dealing with Great Britain was to get African colonies. open covenants openly arrived at, freedom Italy would be awarded the Austrian-held of the seas, lower tariffs, disarmament, territories of Istria and Dalmatia. Japan respect for colonial peoples, and, last but would get the Shandong Peninsula of hardly least in Wilson’s schema, a League China. Wilson knew of these treaties, but of Nations—the president added himself. he believed, as he told Colonel House, that Points six through 13 took up the terri- when the war was over, the Allies could be torial provisions that had been the concern brought around to his way of thinking, of The Inquiry. Wilson struggled to resolve “because then, among other things, they will the provisions’ inherent contradictions. He be dependent on us financially.” wanted to grant all peoples the right of self- determination and to acknowledge the ith that inducement in reserve, legitimacy of their national aspirations, for WWilson and House went to work he believed that to deny the legitimacy of drafting and redrafting the contents of the nationalism by drawing boundaries that memorandum Lippmann gave them. reflected dynastic claims would almost What had emerged from weeks of discussion surely lead to conflict. Had not the war by The Inquiry was the rough basis for broken out because a Serbian nationalist

Autumn 2001 35 Wilson’s Moment?

autonomy for peoples who would presum- ably continue to live within it should have been provided. But it was not. Serbia was supposed to have frontiers that rested on national, economic, and historical rights. But what about those non-Serbian peoples who lived among the Serbs? How were their national and historical rights to be satisfied? Finally, a restored Poland was to have access to the sea, which meant that Poland would have to include lands that were inhabited predominantly by ethnic Germans.

he effort to fulfill Wilson’s dictum Tthat ethnic self-determination be the bedrock rule was a noble one. But more often than not, both the Americans who worked at The Inquiry and Wilson himself, who adopted many of their rec- Walter Lippmann ommendations, pretended that the inher- ent conflict between ethnic and econom- killed the heir to the throne of Austria- ic boundaries did not exist. If a relatively Hungary, a rickety empire that imposed its homogenous state were created to fulfill the rule over a congeries of peoples who were requirements of cultural homogeneity, it neither Austrian nor Hungarian? At the might not have the economic wherewith- same time, Wilson and House were aware al to prosper. But an empire or other large of the danger of creating states whose pop- supranational grouping that offered a ulations did not share a common culture. common market for states not otherwise They called for restoration of Belgium as economically viable, and that provided a neutral nation and the return of Alsace- overall security for its subject peoples, Lorraine to France (but not for French might well violate the principle of self- annexation of Germany’s Saar region). Re- determination. And yet, was the alterna- establishing the status quo in those two tive—breaking up the empire—likely to cases was relatively easy. But their other offer more stability? attempts to grant the principle of self- In a message to Congress a month after determination—while recognizing the he set forth his Fourteen Points, Wilson need for large states to provide a measure appeared to recognize the danger that any of stability in Europe—foundered. What did blanket promise of self-determination it mean to redraw the Italian frontiers might pose for European stability. He “along clearly recognizable lines” when declared that “all well-defined national the lines were by no means clear? Even aspirations shall be accorded the utmost more difficult to fulfill was their promise satisfaction that can be accorded them that the peoples of Austria-Hungary would without introducing new or perpetuating old be accorded “the freest opportunity of elements of discord and antagonism that autonomous development.” Because would be likely in time to break the peace Wilson and House did not intend to of Europe and consequently of the world.” destroy the Austro-Hungarian Empire, But although Wilson seemed to under- some definition of what was meant by stand the danger that self-determination

>James Chace is the Paul W. Williams Professor of Government and Public Law at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. He is the author of Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the Modern World (1998), and is completing a book on the American presidential election of 1912. Copyright © 2001 by James Chace.

36 Wilson Quarterly posed, he never faced the implications of the gave rise, in the words of John Maynard issue. Much the same dilemma confronts Keynes, then a young official in the British the European Union and the United States Treasury who was at Versailles, to “the today as they attempt to reconcile demands weaving of that web of sophistry and for self-determination by the disparate peo- Jesuitical exegesis that was finally to clothe ples of former Yugoslavia with the need to with insincerity the language and sub- create states that are viable in both their stance of the whole Treaty.” political and economic dimensions. Even many of his most devoted admirers Despite the hard examination of maps have admitted that Wilson was over- and ethnic peoples that The Inquiry had whelmed at Versailles by the machinations undertaken, Wilson was woefully unpre- of the European statesmen—in a Jamesian pared to deal with the other victorious pow- sense, by the very corruptions of Europe ers at Versailles. While sailing to Europe on that he had sought to exorcise. At home, the ocean liner George Washington, he was the U.S. Senate subsequently defeated his telling Assistant Secretary of State William hopes for American membership in the Bullitt about the plan to merge Bohemia, League, a defeat born largely of his own Moravia, and Slovakia into Tomas Masaryk’s intransigence. He absolutely refused to Czechoslovakia. “Bohemia will be a part of accept any part of the reservations proposed Czechoslovakia,” Wilson explained. Bullitt, by the Senate Foreign Relations Com- taken aback, responded, “But Mr. President, mittee. In essence, the committee asserted there are three million Germans in Bo- that America would assume no obligation to hemia.” Wilson looked puzzled: “President preserve the territorial integrity or political Masaryk never told me that.” independence of any country unless autho- When it became clear that there was no rized to do so by Congress. Asked by the way to satisfy the strict requirements for self- French ambassador whether he would determination, Wilson simply fell back on his accept the senatorial restrictions, Wilson proposal for a League of Nations. The retorted: “I shall consent to nothing. The League would resolve disputes and make Senate must take its medicine.” The Senate whatever settlements needed to be made. refused. So the map of Europe was redrawn But how to ensure against aggression the ter- at Versailles, but the League, which was to ritorial integrity of the European nations, implement Wilson’s idealistic vision, was both old and new? Wilson argued that “the born an empty shell. only method by which we can achieve this end lies in our having confidence in the ilson’s ghost (the words provide good faith of the nations who belong to the Wthe title of a recent book by for- League.” He promised that “when danger mer secretary of defense Robert McNamara comes, we [i.e., America] too will come, and and Brown University professor James we will help you, but you must trust us.” Blight) has come to haunt the would-be Trust is hardly the common currency of peacemakers of the 21st century. McNa- nations. But the essential factor, Wilson mara and Blight acknowledge that Wilson believed, was that international misunder- “inadvertently set the 20th century on its standings would be subject, through the chaotic and violent course of communal League, to “the moral force of public opin- killing by failing to grapple successfully ion in the world.” with problems of self-determination and ethnic and religious conflict.” But they t Versailles, Wilson insisted that note as well that Wilson “believed in the ABritain’s prime minister, Lloyd power of human beings to change the George, and France’s premier, Georges course of history for the better,” and Clemenceau, demonstrate to him that what thought that “the world’s peace ought to be they wanted—territorial settlements based on disturbed if the fundamental rights of the power realities of Europe, no matter humanity are invaded.” His vision survives what the fate of minorities—would con- because it tapped into a deep strain of form to his lofty pronouncements. That America’s sense of itself: The United States

Autumn 2001 37 Wilson’s Moment? was ordained for a special role in the world. War, America proclaimed a new world order In Wilson’s words, “America was estab- by applying its stated domestic values to the lished in order to indicate, at any rate in world beyond its shores. one government, the fundamental rights of With the Cold War over, Wilson’s view man. America must hereafter be ready as a that the worldwide spread of democratic member of the family of nations to exert institutions is the key to peace has been her whole force, moral and physical, to the adopted by both major American political assertion of those rights throughout the parties. His appeal to American exception- round globe.” alism resonates in the triumphalist era that has Wilson understood that Americans are, marked the emergence of the United States after all, most comfortable with a foreign as the most powerful imperium since policy imbued with moral purpose. Even ancient Rome. But the problem of reconcil- when the pursuit of justice has led to unin- ing a respect for sovereignty with intervention tended consequences, even when our ideals in states that scorn any commitment to have concealed, from ourselves and from democracy and violate fundamental norms of others, motivations of a darker and more human rights remains as knotty as ever. complex nature, we have preferred a policy What, in fact, are the American canons for based, at least rhetorically, on moral purpose intervention? rather than on self-interest. This vision of Some interventions can be defended eas- America as the redeemer nation was per- ily on realist grounds, as matters of national fectly expressed by John Adams when he interest. Thus, the United States would sure- wrote in his diary, 11 years before the ly intervene to protect its national territory or Declaration of Independence, “I always con- its dependencies—for example, Puerto Rico sider the settlement of America with reverence or Guam. It would also honor its commit- and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene ments to allies in the Atlantic Alliance and to in Providence for the illumination of the Japan. And trouble in other countries close- ignorant, and the emancipation of the slav- ly aligned with the United States, such as ish part of mankind all over the earth.” South Korea and Israel, would likely trigger some form of intervention. ilson himself might have written Additional situations might also bring Wthose words. But Adams’s paean to intervention by the United States and other American exceptionalism should be set powers, whether under the rubric of the against the cautionary but no less eloquent North Atlantic Treaty Organization words of Alexander Hamilton, who warned (NATO) or the European Union, or simply Americans to reject “idle theories which as a coalition of the willing: (1) aggression have amused us with promises of an excep- that threatens regional stability, or (2) mas- tion from the imperfections, weaknesses, sive or systemic violations of human rights. and evils incident to society in every Such situations force us to confront the shape.” In The Federalist 6, Hamilton central issue of sovereignty—that any inter- asked, “Is it not time to awaken from the vention by one (or more than one) nation deceitful dream of a golden age and to necessarily involves violation of the sover- adopt as a practical maxim for the direc- eignty of another. The principle of sover- tion of our political conduct that we, as eignty remains as problematic as it was in well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are Wilson’s day. So under what principle is yet remote from the happy empire of perfect the violation of other nations’ sovereignty to wisdom and perfect virtue?” be justified? Hamilton went unheeded. The Wilson- ian assertion that America’s role in World he global economy provides strong War I reflected divine will was a resonant Tincentives for states to limit their sov- echo of American exceptionalism: “It was of ereignty. But intervention to prevent a this that we dreamed at our birth. America nation’s withdrawal from, say, the World shall in truth show the way.” After World Trade Organization is highly unlikely. If a War I, after World War II, and after the Cold country such as Myanmar (the former

38 Wilson Quarterly Burma) chooses to isolate itself from global economic and political organizations, no one will mount an inva- sion to force the government to end its isolation. But if Myan- mar were to attack Thailand, intervention by other powers to curb the aggression would be a distinct possibility. Political economist Ste- phen Krasner has pointed out that “the struggle to establish international rules that compel leaders to treat their subjects in a certain way has been going on for a long time.” The Congress of Vienna in 1815 guaranteed religious tolera- tion for Catholics in the Netherlands. Successor states of the Ottoman Empire, beginning with Greece in 1832, had to accept civic and political equality for religious minorities as a condition for international recognition. Peace settlements after World War I included extensive pro- visions for the protection of A 1915 poster solicited American dollars to aid the Serbian cause. minorities, but because those provisions were not backed by a credible region. Only when the United States threat of force, many of them failed. joined the conflict was peace restored. During the post–World War II period, the Similarly, in Kosovo, NATO was able to United Nations endorsed both human operate without shackles on its use of fire- rights and the principle of sovereignty. Yet, power. as we have seen in the former Yugoslavia, The essential preconditions for any human rights violations ceased there only humanitarian intervention must be that it when an external authority controlled the is the last feasible option to stop mass domestic structures of the states, as in slaughter and that the intervention is like- Bosnia, or when a state became a virtual ly to do more good than harm. Kenneth protectorate, as with Kosovo, many of Roth, the director of Human Rights whose affairs are overseen by NATO. Watch, acknowledges that “in war some Therefore, we should not only examine unintentional killing of noncombatants the conditions under which great powers may be unavoidable. Humanitarian law intervene but evaluate the means by provides the best standard we have for dis- which a military intervention can suc- tinguishing unfortunate but unintentional ceed. When UN peacekeepers were first loss of civilian life from the deliberate tar- sent into Bosnia, they were ineffective geting of civilians or their killing through because their guns were muzzled. Unable indiscriminate warfare.” But even if that to fire first or credibly threaten to fire to standard applies, no major power today repel an attack, they suffered numerous will countenance any violation of its own casualties without bringing peace to the sovereignty—although a Wilsonian appeal

Autumn 2001 39 Wilson’s Moment?

A 1920 cartoon evokes Americans’ ambivalence about the effectiveness of the League of Nations. to world public opinion, amplified by late human rights, such as China and (in international media attention, might per- Chechnya, at least) Russia, can hardly be suade a great power to modify its policies expected to endorse interventions else- and curb its persistent and excessive viola- where that might help to legitimize the tions of human rights. And if the major practice of compromising sovereignty in power is a nuclear power—as is, for exam- the name of human rights. Nor can one ple, Russia, committing atrocities in imagine that the United States would Chechnya—there is a risk that the use of accept any violation of its own sovereignty, military force would, in Roth’s words, including the sphere-of-influence sover- “trigger accelerated or broader killing that eignty it holds in the Caribbean-Mexican- the intervenor is unable or unwilling to Central American region. prevent.” Are the humanitarian criteria for inter- f it should prove impossible to assemble vention nonetheless so compelling that the Ia coalition of the willing, would the great powers will act even when action consequence be an America whose hege- involves a clear violation of the sovereign- mony allows it to act as it chooses? And ty of others? Great powers that habitually vio- would we then see, in the new century,

40 Wilson Quarterly the exercise of American unilateralism Smith, one of the most eloquent spokesmen linked to and justified in the name of for neo-Wilsonianism, has observed, human rights—a neo-Wilsonian attempt “‘Multilateralism’ may be little more than “to make the world safe for democracy”? a polite way of camouflaging what in prac- Implementing Wilsonian goals at a time tice is unilateralism with allies. The when the United States enjoys such a pre- degree of U.S. power is so great relative to ponderance of power will almost certainly that of America’s often disunited allies that prove a near-impossible task, for a hege- we should not be misled by labels.” The monic power such as America is bound to United States should continue to seek a be resented. Other big powers, such as concert of powers whose shared values—the Russia and China, are unlikely to endorse practice of democracy and the integrity of the view, put forward by America, that the the judicial system—will permit coalitions principle of sovereignty can be violated in of the willing to intervene across borders to the name of humanitarian goals as defined call to order those states that violate any rea- by Washington. sonable norms of human rights. In the pursuit of justice, America will simply o less difficult to implement will be have to pretend that it is only first among Nthe doctrine (which Wilson would equals, its ideals tightly fastened to the have endorsed) that international politics realities of power among nations. should be submitted to extranational judi- cial procedures, such as the workings of ilsonian ideals are being invoked the International Criminal Court, and Wby Europeans with renewed that some crimes, such as genocide, are so enthusiasm at the dawning of the 21st cen- heinous that their perpetrators should not tury, but in the United States at least, the be able to escape justice simply by invok- Wilsonian moment has not arrived. The ing the sacred principle of sovereignty. Bush administration has refused to adhere The concern is that enforcing the doctrine to an array of agreements that its closest would lead to a global gendarmerie head- allies have approved. It has refused to seek ed by the United States—even as the ratification of a treaty that would require United States insisted on being exempt industrialized nations to cut emissions of from any prosecution by an international gases linked to global warming. It has judicial body on the grounds that it would refused to endorse a draft accord to ban never commit such heinous crimes. But biological weapons. It will not become a there is little reason to believe that a glob- member of the International Criminal al police force will come into being. A Court. It will not send back to the Senate more realistic scenario would have for reconsideration the Comprehensive America, and the other great powers, Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. applying pressure on countries that shelter Though the United States guards its war criminals. That was done successfully sovereignty these days to a degree that when the United States used economic would have horrified Wilson, the Wilson- coercion to persuade the new Serbian gov- ian vision of a more just world has not ernment to surrender Slobodan Milosevic evaporated. The individuals who made up to the War Crimes Tribunal in The The Inquiry in 1917 struggled to acknowl- Hague. edge the legitimacy of a people’s need for If the United States still harbors national identity, even as they demanded Wilsonian dreams, it would do well to loyalty to a higher standard than the muzzle its unilateralism and conduct its national interest narrowly defined. The foreign policy in concert with other powers. issue is as paramount today as it was then. In a sense, that has already occurred. The The new inquiry into these matters may recent interventions in the former Yugo- well have to take place without govern- slavia and the Horn of Africa have been ment sanction, but in time its findings mounted under the banner of multilater- will almost surely be reflected in Amer- alism. But as political scientist Tony ican foreign policy. ❏

Autumn 2001 41