[EAI·JoongAng Sunday Joint Project] Interwar Isolationism: America's Choice and a Debate Rekindled 100 Years Later

EAI·JoongAng Sunday Joint Project ② The Wilson Paradox

British, Italian, French, and U.S. leaders (from left) attend the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919.

U.S. President Wilson proposed the creation of the League of Nations. [JoongAng Photo]

Paradoxically, World War I created the historical conditions to rebuild the international order on a new foundation through immense destruction. And President Woodrow Wilson was more aware of that opportunity than anyone else. Wilson was not only a devout believer in American exceptionalism but also someone who, since his youth, believed that America's federal system should ultimately serve as a model for an 'assembly of mankind.' Just as the Founding Fathers devised a federal system over the North American continent for the peace and cooperation of the thirteen colonies, a grand political experiment was about to commence to build a union among nations on a global scale.

Wilson's Uncompromising Stance with the Republican Party Led to Ruin Thus, in the spring of 1917, under Wilson's leadership, the United States entered the old world's war with idealistic slogans such as 'a new diplomacy,' 'a war to end all wars,' and 'making the world safe for democracy.' According to Wilson and his liberal allies, the reason for America's participation was not merely secular, such as territorial acquisition or the promotion of national interests. It was a noble attempt to overthrow the old international order based on the greed of autocratic monarchies that only produced endless wars and the rules of balance of power, and to establish a completely new liberal international order where equal and democratic nations freely trade and form a community of power instead of a balance of power. In this context, the speech announcing the so-called 'Fourteen Points' to Congress in January 1918 served as an occasion to concretely articulate the principles of Wilsonian new diplomacy—including ▶open diplomacy ▶freedom of navigation ▶national self-determination ▶elimination of trade barriers ▶arms reduction—with the concept of collective security and the idea of a League of Nations at its apex.

After the war ended, Wilson personally stayed in Paris for over six months, striving to realize these ideals at the peace conference. However, despite Wilson's good intentions, the other victorious powers, Britain and France, held entirely different, traditional realist agendas. France, in particular, having suffered significant territorial destruction and keenly aware of its weakened national strength, sought to completely avenge itself against Germany and preemptively eliminate future threats, which directly clashed with Wilson's principle of 'peace without victory.' Therefore, to preserve his vision of a League of Nations, Wilson had to accept a considerable portion of the demands of the two European victors in the post-war settlement.

The signing of the Treaty of Versailles, concluded at the Palace of Versailles in 1919.

A work by William Oppen, with U.S. President Wilson holding the document in the center. [JoongAng Photo]

Consequently, the Treaty of Versailles imposed humiliating terms on Germany. For instance, Article 231, the so-called 'war guilt clause,' unprecedented in history, was inserted, placing sole responsibility for the outbreak of the war on Germany with harsh moral condemnation. The imposition of unilateral arms reduction, the cession of vast territories and overseas colonies, and astronomical reparations—all these combined to sow the seeds for World War II. They suffocated the newly born Weimar Republic with enormous national debt and, instead, created fertile ground for revanchist nationalism based on victimhood and the desire to reclaim lost territories to flourish within Germany. When the shackles of arms reduction were removed in the 1930s, the conditions were ripe for Nazi Germany to emerge rapidly.

A greater obstacle lay within American domestic politics. A fierce debate erupted in the federal Congress over the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, revealing a fundamental conflict between internationalist and nationalist approaches regarding America's role in the world. With the Republican Party, the opposition that had won the midterm elections in November 1918, controlling the Senate, which held the key to treaty ratification, Article 10 of the Covenant, which stipulated collective security, became the central battleground. This article mandated that member states take measures against aggression, and opponents argued that its ratification would inevitably entangle the United States in international conflicts against its will. Based on America's long-standing nationalist tradition ('America First'), they critically interpreted the concept of collective security and expressed concern about the transfer of sovereignty to a supranational institution.

Conversely, Wilson showed an uncompromising attitude on this issue from the outset. For example, when departing for the Paris Peace Conference, he exclusively appointed delegates from his own Democratic Party. Nevertheless, there was room for compromise during the great debate of 1919. The Senate was divided into three factions: one was the Democratic pro-ratification group, loyal to Wilsonianism; another was the hardline Republican faction that fundamentally opposed treaty ratification. In between, there was a significant number of reservationists who advocated for the addition of reservations to protect American sovereignty and somewhat reduce the obligations of participation in the League of Nations. If Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the leader of the Republican reservationists, had compromised with Wilson, the treaty could have been passed. However, Wilson, believing that any modification to Article 10 would nullify the core purpose of the League of Nations, refused negotiations and embarked on a nationwide speaking tour in September 1919, traveling over 8,000 miles (12,874 km) for three weeks to appeal directly to public opinion.

Ultimately, the Senate's decision not to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or join the League of Nations led to the ruin of Wilson's greatest political achievement and incapacitated Wilson himself with a severe stroke.

In the 1920 presidential election, Republican candidate Warren Harding won a landslide victory (404 out of 531 electoral votes, 60% of the popular vote) by advocating isolationism as a return to 'normalcy.' It was, in effect, a referendum on isolationism. Consequently, with the League of Nations officially launched in January 1920 without the United States, interwar Europe faced peace on an unstable foundation, lacking the key hegemonic stabilizer. This was the second seed sown during the post-war settlement of World War I, which ultimately led to World War II.

Defense of the Liberal Order vs. Regression of the Nation-State The rise and fall of Wilsonianism after World War I, as described above, bears a strange sense of déjà vu when superimposed on the trajectory of the liberal international order project after the end of the Cold War. The end of the Cold War was perceived by Americans as an opportunity for another idealistic revolution. In the unprecedented unipolar environment, it was seen as a historical chance to realize the dream of Wilsonianism globally without any geopolitical obstacles. Slogans like 'The End of History' and 'New World Order' represented the optimistic global spirit of the time. The grand dream of social engineering based on liberal triumphalism began to spread, particularly in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The grand plan to transform past communist dictatorships into liberal democratic and laissez-faire capitalist societies emerged in the form of NATO expansion and the 'shock doctrine.' However, the backlash from a 'punitive peace' imposed on the defeated is bound to return, albeit with a time lag, during the post-war settlement process. Just as in Germany during the interwar period, a sense of humiliation from a peace imposed by unilateral 'diktat' became prevalent within Russia in the post-Cold War era, ultimately fostering a broad foundation for angry ethno-nationalism. The West cannot escape responsibility for having indulged in the euphoria of victory, like the previous victors, and inadvertently laying the structural groundwork for the next war.

The fact that the true danger to the hegemonic order originates from domestic politics in the United States also evokes a sense of déjà vu. The reason the interwar period fell into a state of interregnum, a power vacuum, was that the American people themselves chose the path of isolationism. Today, as in the great debate of 1919, a contest is underway among social forces within the United States over whether America will become the guardian of the liberal world order or regress into an independent nation-state prioritizing its own sovereignty. The fierce debate engulfing American society since the 2016 election, centered around Trump's slogans of 'America First' and 'Make America Great Again,' goes beyond a dispute over a nation's foreign policy stance; it forms a critical juncture determining whether the world will plunge back into systemic chaos like the Great Depression and World Wars or move towards an opportunity to create a new global order. In a sense, we are traversing a historical temporal zone once again, after a century.

Cha Tae-seo is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Seoul National University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University and has previously taught at Sungkyunkwan University and the Korea Air Force Academy. His publications include 'The 30-Year Crisis: The United States and the World Order in the Post-Unipolar Era'.

[Source: JoongAng Ilbo, Reporter Ko Jung-ae] https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25423184