DOCSLIB.ORG

Resurrecting Wilson: a Christian Critique of Liberal Internationalism

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Resurrecting Wilson: a Christian Critique of Liberal Internationalism RESURRECTING WILSON: A CHRISTIAN CRITIQUE OF LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM Matt GobusH On January 8, 1918—one hun- dred years ago—President Woodrow Wilson mounted the rostrum of the House of Representatives, America’s in- ner sanctum of democracy, to deliver one of the most conse- quential speeches in history. The setting was somber; the audience, anxious; the speaker, stern. An ocean away, American soldiers were preparing to fight, kill, and possibly die on Europe’s western front. Wilson had led the country into the Great War and mobilized its armed forces nine months be- fore with a stirring speech to Congress pledging to make the world “safe for democracy” and secure “ultimate peace.”1 Now, as American troops finally de- scended into the trenches and awaited the enemy’s imminent onslaught, Wilson returned to this august chamber to renew his pledge and sanctify their certain sacrifice. The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 28th June 1919, by William Orpen, 1919. Imperial War Museum London. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Fittingly, he would do so not form the Council on Foreign he proposed what one senator with the soaring rhetoric of his Relations, Wilson outlined in later called “the one great new earlier call to arms, but with a his address a fourteen-point idea of the 20th century in the subdued speech detailing his program for settling territorial field of international relations”: vision of a post-war peace, how- disputes and answering na- an international association for ever distant it might have then appeared. On this occasion, tional aspirations from Alsace- collective security, the League Wilson chose to play the profes- Lorraine to Austria-Hungary, of Nations. sor, not the preacher. Drawing Belgium to Bulgaria. He framed upon the recommendations it with policies of open diplo- Despite its professorial sobriety, of “The Inquiry,” a secretive macy, free trade, arms control, Wilson’s Fourteen Points ad- circle of experts convened by and national self-determina- dress nevertheless held spiritual the president that would later tion. And, in his final point, power. In a sense, it baptized US 70 foreign policy, infusing it with foreign policy to bear a pres- realism, is fundamentally ide- renewed moral clarity. It recast ident’s name—Wilsonianism. alistic, optimistic, liberal, and a European war of realpolitik as Despite its personal associa- universal. a global clash of ideas, with the tion—or perhaps because of it— United States seizing the mantle the term is difficult to define. It Wilson ended his seminal of liberalism to resist both im- is typically equated with liber- speech with a bold assertion: perialism and communism. And al internationalism, although “The moral climax of this, the it reconceived the very practice neoconservatives have also culminating and final war for of international politics as an claimed its mantle. Embraced human liberty, has come.” evangelistic enterprise, aim- by presidents of both parties, Tragically, this prophecy proved ing to elevate the better angels from Roosevelt to Reagan, false; the Great War would be of mankind’s nature. Each of Wilsonianism defies political but the first of the century’s his fourteen points sought to label. Compounding the confu- world wars. History mocked achieve one noble ideal: “the sion is Wilsonianism’s evolution Wilson’s prediction of “ulti- principle of justice to all peo- over the past century in re- mate peace.” The catastrophic ples and nationalities, and their sponse to changing realities. Its collapse of the interwar world right to live on equal terms of enduring essence can nonethe- order could be ascribed to a liberty and safety with anoth- less be traced to the Fourteen host of factors, including the er, whether they be strong or Points address, in which the punitive terms of the Versailles weak.” As Americans prepared president proposed that polit- Treaty, the eventual rejection by to fight in the world war, their ical and economic liberalism, the US Senate of the League of Nations, and even Wilson’s own commander in chief reminded combined with universal mul- negotiating intransigence. But them of the world they were tilateralism, form “the program 2 no small measure of responsi- fighting for. of the world’s peace.” bility lay with a crucial weak- The Allies would withstand the ness in Wilsonianism itself: the This assertion rests on as- Central powers’ spring offen- moral tension between liberal- sumptions regarding the mor- sive and, with vital American ism and universalism. To make al behavior of nations. It as- assistance, turn the tide. By the world safe for democracy, sumes that a nation’s internal November 1918, the war was Wilson envisioned a League governance structure shapes won and the work of winning of Nations that encompassed its external relations, that so- the peace had begun. Wilson’s all sovereign, self-determined called “regime types” are rel- Fourteen Points, endorsed by nations, regardless of their in- evant to international politics. all parties in the war, became ternal constitutional character. It assumes that freedom fosters the basis for peace negotiations He entrusted democratic and peaceful relations, a concept held in Paris. The president autocratic nations alike with journeyed to Europe—the first informing what political scien- collective security, relying on sitting president to do so—to tists later framed as “democratic a process of “common counsel” advocate for his agenda and was peace theory.” And it assumes guided, as he declared in a con- greeted by adoring multitudes international organizations are gressional address a month lat- hailing “Wilson the Just” and capable not simply of aggregat- er, by a “spirit of unselfish and “Savior of Humanity.” Future ing interests of sovereign states, unbiased justice” among mem- president Herbert Hoover, on but also engendering a sense of ber states. Tellingly, the term hand for the triumphant ar- community, enabling members “democracy” is absent entirely rival, observed that “no such to transcend parochial inter- from the president’s Fourteen evangel of peace had appeared ests. This creed most clearly Points. To achieve universal since Christ preached the distinguishes Wilsonianism participation, Wilsonianism Sermon on the Mount.” Less en- from realism, which holds that tolerates moral equivalency. thused, French premier George nations behave similarly re- Clemenceau grumbled, “The gardless of regime type, that There is, however, a caveat. At good Lord Himself required material rather than moral the Paris Peace Conference, only ten points.” sources of power govern in- Wilson assured an American ternational relations, and that delegation skeptical of his de- Wilson’s Fourteen Points served ordered competition in the form signs that he was “playing for as a platform for peacemaking of a balance of power is the best a hundred years hence.” If as well as a springboard for guarantor of peace and stability. so, having now reached this the first and only school of US Wilsonianism, in contrast to centennial horizon, a deeper 71 assessment of the moral ten- of promoting democracy and Be.3 Braiding their research sion inherent in Wilson’s worl- international community nec- provides an understanding of dview is due, in part because essary. Underpinning Niebuhr’s Wilson’s mind and spirit, and our world today bears ominous constructive critique was a dual how Wilsonianism incorporates resemblances to Wilson’s on doctrine: the persistence of sin both. As former senator Daniel the eve of World War I. Now, and its corrupting impact on Patrick Moynihan observes, as then, autocracies such as all human relations, and an “Wilson’s vision of a world or- Russia and China are increas- abiding hope for humanity to der was a religious vision: of ingly energized and militarized; achieve proximate justice, if not the natural goodness of man democracies, including our own, ultimate peace. prevailing through the Holy seem embattled and besieged, Ghost of Reason.” from within and without. Civil A Christian realist appraisal wars, particularly in the Middle of Wilsonianism rightly be- The role of reason in Wilson’s East, threaten to become cruci- gins with its namesake. As worldview is most pronounced bles of great power confronta- Providence contributing edi- in his academic career, as Smith tion, not unlike proxy wars in tor Walter Russell Mead notes, reveals. The only president to the Balkans that sparked the although the Wilsonian tradi- earn a doctorate, Wilson dis- first global conflagration. The tion is rooted in the American tinguished himself as one of Trump administration’s recent- Christian missionary movement America’s leading political sci- ly released National Security predating the man himself, entists at Princeton University. Strategy echoes the antebellum President Wilson was undoubt- His research centered, as he militancy and materialism of a edly the nascent tradition’s most put it, on “my chief ambition: century ago. President Trump prominent and powerful ad- the historical explanation of portrays multilateral institu- vocate. The contours of clas- the modern democratic state.” tions not as forums for coop- sic Wilsonianism reflect the Wilson was an intellectual ex- eration, but as cockpits for the character of Wilson himself. ponent of the Enlightenment “competition for influence.” Winston Churchill observed and a proponent of the pow- Moreover, he sees America’s that the fate of the world at the er of reason to shape history. role in promoting democracy height of the Great War rested Although a descendent of high- and human rights as one of on “the workings of this man’s landers, his patterns of thought mere “encouragement.” Priority mind and spirit to the exclusion aligned not as much with skep- appears to be placed squarely of almost every other factor.” tical Scottish Enlightenment on the pursuit of national ma- But “in all his strength and in all philosopher David Hume as terial interests in a competitive, his weakness, in his nobility and with Immanuel Kant, the lu- zero-sum international envi- in his foibles, he was…an un- minary of the German variant ronment darkened by war and known, an unmeasured.” Never of the intellectual movement.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Neoconservatives Among Us? Astudy of Former Dissidents' Discourse
    43 L 62 Neoconservatives Among Us? A Study of Former Dissidents’ Discourse* JENI SCHALLER Abstract: Neoconservative political thought has been characterized as “distinctly American”, but could there be fertile ground for its basic tenets in post-communist Europe? This paper takes an initial look at the acceptance of the ideas of American neo- conservative foreign policy among Czech elites who were dissidents under the communist regime. Open-ended, semi-structured interviews with eight former dissidents were con- ducted and then analyzed against a background of some fundamental features of neocon- servative foreign policy. Discourse analysis is the primary method of examination of the texts. Although a coherent discourse among Czech former dissidents cannot be said to ex- ist, certain aspects reminiscent of American neoconservative thought were found. Key words: neoconservatism, Czech dissidents, foreign policy, discourse analysis I. INTRODUCTION Neoconservatism, as a strain of political thought in the United States, has been represented as “distinctly American” and Irving Kristol, often considered the “godfather” of neoconservatism, emphatically states “[t]here is nothing like neoconservatism in Europe” (Kristol 2003: 33). Analyst Jeffrey Gedmin writes that the “environment for neoconservatism as such is an inhospitable one” in Europe, especially Germany (Gedmin 2004: 291). The states of Cen- tral Europe, in contrast to many of the established continental EU members, represent a rather more pro-American stance. With groups of former dissi- dents whose political leanings are in part informed by the American anti- communist, pro-democracy policies of the 1970s and 1980s, could there be a more hospitable environment for neoconservative ideas in a Central Euro- pean state such as the Czech Republic? The Czech dissident community was not as extensive or well-organised as that in Poland or even Hungary, largely due to the post-1968 “normalisation” in Czechoslovakia.
    [Show full text]
  • The New Israel: American Exceptionalism
    GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE THE NEW ISRAEL: AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM “For fifty years the inhabitants of the United States have been repeatedly and constantly told that they are the only religious, enlightened, and free people. They ... have an immensely high opinion of themselves and are not far from believing that they form a species apart from the rest of the human race.” — Alexis de Tocqueville AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM HDT WHAT? INDEX AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE WHITE JACKET; OR, THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR: Escaped from the house of bondage, Israel of old did not follow after the ways of the Egyptians. To her was given an express dispensation; to her were given new things under the sun. And we Americans are the peculiar, chosen people — the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world. Seventy years ago we escaped from thrall; and, besides our first birth-right —embracing one continent of earth— God has given to us, for a future inheritance, the broad domains of the political pagans, that shall yet come and lie down under the shade of our ark, without bloody hands being lifted. God has predestinated, mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feel in our souls. The rest of the nations must soon be in our rear. We are the pioneers of the world; the advance-guard, sent on through the wilderness of untried things, to break a new path in the New World that is ours. In our youth is our strength; in our inexperience, our wisdom.
    [Show full text]
  • Of the Conventional Wisdom
    M A SS A C H USE tt S I N S T I T U T E O F T EC H NOLOGY M A SS A C H USE tt S I N S T I T U T E O F T EC H NOLOGY April 2008 MI T C EN T E R F O R I N T ERN at ION A L St U D IES 08-04 of the Conventional Wisdom The Audit of Wilson, Bush, and the Conventional Wisdom Evolution of Liberal Foreign Policy In this series of essays, MIT’s Center Tony Smith for International Studies tours the Tufts University horizon of conventional wisdoms that define U.S. foreign policy, and put them to the test of data and history. By subjecting particularly well-accepted he first subject to discuss in considering the future of the liberal inter- ideas to close scrutiny, our aim is Tnationalist agenda is the importance of the democratization project to re-engage policy and opinion leaders on topics that are too easily passing to the definition of Wilsonianism. The second is the meaning of multilat- such scrutiny. We hope that this will lead to further debate and inquiries, eralism. In the first case, Thomas Knock and Anne-Marie Slaughter argue with a result we can all agree on: in a forthcoming volume that democratization was never an important part better foreign policies that lead to a more peaceful and prosperous world. of Wilsonianism; that, instead, multilateralism is the key to liberal interna- Authors in this series are available to the press and policy community.
    [Show full text]
  • Neo-Conservatism and Foreign Policy
    University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Master's Theses and Capstones Student Scholarship Fall 2009 Neo-conservatism and foreign policy Ted Boettner University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/thesis Recommended Citation Boettner, Ted, "Neo-conservatism and foreign policy" (2009). Master's Theses and Capstones. 116. https://scholars.unh.edu/thesis/116 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses and Capstones by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Neo-Conservatism and Foreign Policy BY TED BOETTNER BS, West Virginia University, 2002 THESIS Submitted to the University of New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Political Science September, 2009 UMI Number: 1472051 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI" UMI Microform 1472051 Copyright 2009 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
    [Show full text]
  • Still the American Century
    Copyright © British International Studies Association 1999 Still the American Century BRUCE CUMINGS At the inception of the twenty-first century—not to mention the next millennium— books on ‘the American Century’ proliferate monthly, if not daily.1 We now have The American Century Dictionary, The American Century Thesaurus, and even The American Century Cookbook; perhaps the American Century baseball cap or cologne is not far behind. With one or two exceptions, the authors celebrate the unipolar pre-eminence and comprehensive economic advantage that the United States now enjoys. Surveys of public opinion show that most people agree: the American wave appears to be surging just as the year 2000 beckons. Unemployment and inflation are both at twenty-year lows, sending economists (who say you can’t get lows for both at the same time) back to the drawing board. The stock market roars past the magic 10,000 mark, and the monster federal budget deficit of a decade ago miraculously metamorphoses into a surplus that may soon reach upwards of $1 trillion. Meanwhile President William Jefferson Clinton, not long after a humiliating impeachment, is rated in 1999 as the best of all postwar presidents in conducting foreign policy (a dizzying ascent from eighth place in 1994), according to a nationwide poll by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. This surprising result might also, of course, bespeak inattention: when asked to name the two or three most important foreign policy issues facing the US, fully 21 per cent of the public couldn’t think of one (they answered ‘don’t know’), and a mere seven per cent thought foreign policy issues were important to the nation.2 But who cares, when all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds? If this intoxicating optimism is commonplace today, it would have seemed demented just a few short years ago: back then, the scholars and popular pundits who are supposed to know the occult science of international affairs were full of dread about American decline and Japanese and German advance.
    [Show full text]
  • American Foreign Policy Toward International Law and Organizations: 1898-1917
    Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review Volume 6 Number 2 Article 1 3-1-1983 American Foreign Policy toward International Law and Organizations: 1898-1917 Francis A. Boyle Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ilr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Francis A. Boyle, American Foreign Policy toward International Law and Organizations: 1898-1917, 6 Loy. L.A. Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 185 (1983). Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ilr/vol6/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LOYOLA OF LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW JOURNAL VOLUME 6 1983 NUMBER 2 American Foreign Policy Toward International Law and Organizations: 1898-1917* FRANCIS A. BOYLE** TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................. 187 A. PoliticalRealism ........................................ 187 B. Legalism-Moralism ..................................... 188 C. The Legalist Approach to InternationalRelations ......... 190 II. AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ORGANIZATIONS ........................................ 198 A. American Legalism as a Reaction to the Spanish-American War .................................................... 198 B. American Legalism as a Rejection of the European Balance of Power System ........................................ 201 C The American Legalist War Prevention Programfor World P olitics .................................................. 204 1. A system for the obligatory arbitration of interna- tional disputes ....................................... 207 a. the First Hague Peace Conference ................ 207 * Copyright 1983 by Francis A.
    [Show full text]
  • The League That Wasn't
    stephen wertheim The League That Wasn’t: American Designs for a Legalist-Sanctionist League of Nations and the Intellectual Origins of International Organization, 1914–1920* In 1919 “isolationism” was a word not yet in circulation, much less a disposition seen as the principal antagonist of a new Wilsonian “internationalism.” One could be forgiven for assuming otherwise. So many narratives of the political fight over the League of Nations portray President Woodrow Wilson as the embodiment of a monolithic U.S. internationalism that represented the only meaningful alternative to traditional isolationism. Such books, produced even today but first written surrounding World War II—when “isolationism” entered common usage and “internationalism” came to connote nonisolationism—tell the defeat of the Versailles Treaty as a two-sided morality tale. Wilson’s retro- spective sympathizers tar League opponents for hewing to naïve nonentangle- ment, hidebound nationalism, or greedy partisanship. Realist critics, meanwhile, offer no less simple a schematization, seeing their naysaying selves in Wilson’s contemporaneous foes.1 The twilight of the Cold War illuminated some creative intellectual positions among League opponents. Ralph Stone showed that senators irreconcilable to Wilson’s Treaty of Versailles championed international engagement nonethe- *My thanks to Benjamin Coates, Matthew Connelly, John Milton Cooper, Robert David Johnson, Ernest May, Mark Mazower, Adam McKeown, Thomas Meaney, Stefano Recchia, Simon Stevens, and the anonymous reviewers
    [Show full text]
  • Wilson, Bush, and the Evolution of Liberal Foreign Policy
    M A SS A C H USE tt S I N S T I T U T E O F T EC H NOLOGY M A SS A C H USE tt S I N S T I T U T E O F T EC H NOLOGY April 2008 MI T C EN T E R F O R I N T ERN at ION A L St U D IES 08-04 of the Conventional Wisdom The Audit of Wilson, Bush, and the Conventional Wisdom Evolution of Liberal Foreign Policy In this series of essays, MIT’s Center Tony Smith for International Studies tours the Tufts University horizon of conventional wisdoms that define U.S. foreign policy, and put them to the test of data and history. By subjecting particularly well-accepted he first subject to discuss in considering the future of the liberal inter- ideas to close scrutiny, our aim is Tnationalist agenda is the importance of the democratization project to re-engage policy and opinion leaders on topics that are too easily passing to the definition of Wilsonianism. The second is the meaning of multilat- such scrutiny. We hope that this will lead to further debate and inquiries, eralism. In the first case, Thomas Knock and Anne-Marie Slaughter argue with a result we can all agree on: in a forthcoming volume that democratization was never an important part better foreign policies that lead to a more peaceful and prosperous world. of Wilsonianism; that, instead, multilateralism is the key to liberal interna- Authors in this series are available to the press and policy community.
    [Show full text]
  • Liberal Internationalism, the Peace Movement, and The
    DIVERGING WILSONIANISMS: LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM, THE PEACE MOVEMENT, AND THE AMBIGUOUS LEGACY OF WOODROW WILSON by ERIC M. KENDALL Submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy History Department CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY January, 2012 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the thesis/dissertation of ___________Eric M. Kendall________________________________ candidate for the ________Doctor of Philosophy________degree *. (signed)_____Dr. David C. Hammack_________________________ (chair of the committee) _____Dr. Kenneth Ledford___________________________ _____Dr. Alan Rocke_______________________________ _____Dr. Pete Moore_______________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ (date) ___November 1, 2011_____ *We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein. 1 © 2012 Eric M. Kendall All rights reserved. 2 Table of Contents Abstract 4 Introduction: Wilson‘s Ghost 6 Chapter One: The First Wilsonian Era 39 Chapter Two: Reinventing Wilson—the Rooseveltian Formulation 106 Chapter Three: the Wilsonian Postwar Consensus 185 Chapter Four: Demise of the Wilsonian ―Big Tent‖ 268 Conclusion: Diverging Wilsonianisms 337 Bibliography 346 3 Diverging Wilsonianisms: Liberal Internationalism, the Peace Movement, and the Ambiguous Legacy of Woodrow Wilson Abstract by ERIC M. KENDALL Wilsonian liberal internationalism has provided a consistent,
    [Show full text]
  • The Progressive Era to the New Era, 1900-1929 | Gilder Lehrman
    Where are you on the Gilder Lehrman Institute TIMELINE? #myGLI25 The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History The Progressive Era to the New Era, 1900-1929 • by Daniel T. Rodgers We should not accept social life as it has "trickled down to us," the young journalist Walter Lippmann wrote soon after the twentieth century began. "We have to deal with it deliberately, devise its social organization, . educate and control it." The ambition to harness and organize the energies of modern life of which Lippmann spoke cut through American economy, politics, and society in many different, sometimes contradictory ways between 1900 and 1929, but it left virtually none of its major institutions unchanged. The modern business corporation, modern politics, the modern presidency, a modern vision of the international order, and modern consumer capitalism were all born in these years. More than in most eras, Americans in the first years of the twentieth century felt the newness of their place in history. Looking back on the late nineteenth century, they stressed its chaos: the boom-and-bust cycles of the economy, the violent and exploitative aspects of its economy and social life, the gulf between its ostentatious new wealth and the lot of its urban poor and hard-pressed farmers, and the inefficiency of American politics in a world of great nations. A Revolution in Organization The pioneers in the reorganization of social life on more deliberate and systematic lines were the architects of the modern business corporation. In the aftermath of the 1890s depression, they undertook to supplant the unstable partnership and credit systems of the past with the forms of the modern corporation: broadly capitalized, more intensely managed, and national in scope and market.
    [Show full text]
  • Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points 100 Years On
    ANDREY KORTUNOV "SEVEN DEBATES OVER THE FOURTEEN POINTS" FOREIGN AND SECURITY POLICY WOODROW WILSON’S FOURTEEN POINTS 100 YEARS ON: RETHINKING THE LIBERAL WORLD ORDER MOSCOW JANUARY 2018 1 Project Management: Pavel DEMIDOV, Anton TSVETOV Project Coordinator: Oleg SHAKIROV AUTHORS Andrey KORTUNOV, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council, RIAC member, PhD in History Olga TROITSKAYA, Senior Specialist, Center for Sociological Research, PhD in Political Science Oleg SHAKIROV, Expert of the Foreign and Security Policy Department at the Center for Strategic Research Alexey PORTANSKIY, Professor at the Higher School of Economics, Leading Research Fellow at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations, PhD in Economics Pavel GUDEV, Leading Research Fellow at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations, PhD in History Alexey ARBATOV, Head of the Center for International Security at the Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, PhD in History Sergey UTKIN, Head of the Foreign and Security Policy Department at the Center for Strategic Research, Head of the Strategic Assessment Section at the Centre for Situation Analysis of the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations, PhD in Political Science Ivan TIMOFEEV, RIAC Director of Programs, Program Director of the Valdai Discussion Club, RIAC Member, PhD in Political Science Oleg DEMIDOV, Cybersecurity Consultant at PIR Center
    [Show full text]
  • Woodrow Wilson and the Principle of 'National Self-Determination': A
    Review of International Studies (2002), 28, 419–436 Copyright © British International Studies Association Woodrow Wilson and the principle of ‘national self-determination’: a reconsideration ALLEN LYNCH Abstract. Examination of Woodrow Wilson’s concept of national self-determination in light of both Wilson’s own intellectual development and the evolution of wartime strategy and diplomacy establishes that there was no prior consideration of ethnic or collective versus liberal or civic nationalism in Wilson’s idea of ‘national’ self-determination and that the actual enunciation and application of the principle was deeply affected by considerations of wartime strategy and diplomacy, above all to counter defeatist tendencies following Russia’s withdrawal from the war as well as to induce a separate Austrian peace. Wilson thus understood that the idea could not be applied in an unqualified way, that considerations of national self-determination might in specific instances have to yield to compelling questions of security, diplomacy and economics. At the same time, Wilson was not well informed about many key aspects of nation and state in East-Central Europe. In the end, Wilson accepted many unsatisfactory compromises at the peace table based on the promise that the League and its version of collective security held for international security and justice. Ignorance, liberal myopia, and political incompetence thus have to be weighed against Wilson’s considerable tactical pragmatism in prosecuting the war when arriving at a final judgement on Wilson and the legacy of national self-determination. ‘Theory and practice in politics are never safely divorced’.1 Introduction Adherents, opponents, and agnostics agree that Woodrow Wilson’s liberal inter- nationalism has decisively shaped the theory and practice of foreign policy and international politics throughout the twentieth century.
    [Show full text]