I remember reading "The Presidents: From Clay to Smith" some time ago. Enjoyed it very much too !
Well, it's hard to think of an bad volksmarschall AAR
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Well, it's hard to think of an bad volksmarschall AAR
Why thank you for the kind words. I'm glad you have enjoyed the pilgrimage; after all, the AAR is meant to help foster a joy and appreciation of the subject matter even if it sometimes re-contextualized for the in-game events and timeline! Alas, given our rapidly approaching deadline and my extensive writing commitments elsewhere, I doubt we'll make another 30 pages for 15 in game years!
If we give him enough time I don't doubt @volksmarschall has at least another 30 pages in him
But if you've liked his efforts here you might like some of his other AARs too.
I seem to calculate a 2 page for every 1 in game average to reach this goal!
I remember reading "The Presidents: From Clay to Smith" some time ago. Enjoyed it very much too !
Well, it's hard to think of an bad volksmarschall AAR
Why thank you again; always good to know someone who has read a previous AAR appears again or makes himself known! I suppose you can say, in some ways, Empire for Liberty is a spiritual successor to that AAR.
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Anyone interested in my ongoing Homeric scholarship and writing can read my latest essay on the Iliad which, in some ways, is an excessively condensed version of my current manuscript on Homer: Reading Homer from Here to Eternity. I provide a defense of why the classics are important and worthwhile; offer contextual background with Homer's poetic rival Hesiod and the "Hesiodic cosmos"; and offer a new reading of the Iliad as an epic about the metamorphosis of Achilles from rageful killer to humanistic lover which praises the heroism of forgiveness which begets the Homeric revolution of humanism. For anyone who will be receiving my essay published in this month's New Oxford Review you will see the theme of love and forgiveness that I'm homing in on in that essay as well. No knowledge of ancient Greek is necessary for this essay. Though the eventual book does highlight some of the importance of the original language. VV (where I also serve as an editor) is also republishing a handful of my other essays on Homer today and tomorrow.
Per aspera ad astra fellow voyagers.
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CHAPTER XIX: THE RISE OF THE LION
Domestic Reform
Part of the domestic policy of Roosevelt, as part of the broader movement of the so-called progressive movement, was national reform along more efficient lines of production, personal health and fitness, and standards of living. The impetus behind the massive push for domestic reform on the part of the progressives, most of whom were upper middle-class bourgeoise types, was to prevent growing radicalism and potential revolution in their cities and across American society. One of the great myths of progressivism was that it was socialist in character and nature. It was anything but.
Roosevelt belonged to the emerging new movement of what some now call managerialism or managerial theory. Accordingly, Roosevelt believed in the synthesis of big business, big government, and big labor to cooperate together in a harmonious troika to achieve domestic reform that benefited everyone. The aim of progressive reform was to retrench the existing and emerging techno-capitalist model of political economy but in a way that didn’t exacerbate income inequality and standards of living as had happened in the Gilded Age. After all, many of the leading progressives from Theodore Roosevelt himself to Henry Ford and Frederick Taylor were descended from well-off families or prominent businessmen.
Frederick Taylor, on this note, ought to be regarded as one of the pioneers of the new progressive theory. Called “Scientific Management,” Taylor’s model for economic efficiency sought the unity of labor production with capital inflow and outflow to create a steady machine of economic productivity with increased productivity meaning increased profit and increased profit being able to be returned to the hands of the workers.
Progressivism, as we’ve said before, held certain metaphysical assumptions about the nature of the world and man in it. Progressivism was a thoroughly materialist outlook on life. This is not uniquely socialist. Capitalism, of course, even classical liberalism so-called, are equally materialistic in their first principles. In fact, in the scope of historical development it is socialism that comes after classical liberalism and in many ways grew out of the liberal tradition and its various assumptions with certain key alterations to the liberal outlook on life. Given this materialist underpinning to progressivism, it isn’t surprising to learn that progressivism came to envision man and society not as an organic living organism as had earlier conceptions of man and society but as a machine needing tuning.
The machine needing efficiency became the great motif of progressivism. Everything was a machine needing perfection. In perfection there would be greater efficiency. In greater efficiency there would be greater production. In greater production there would be greater wealth.
Progressivism, then, as the Marxist historian Gabriel Kolko says, was never a movement about wealth redistribution, per se, but about wealth creation. The general goal behind it was the more wealth the more profit for everyone; redistribution was a secondary effect of greater wealth creation along the lines of Taylorism and Fordism.
Unlike Populism which focused on the rural-urban dynamic and dialectic, progressivism sought to extend its theories and practices to the agricultural sector of American society. It is true, as we’ve previously said, that progressivism was a mostly urban movement. However, progressivism was not without its agrarian proponents who also believed in the general tenets and cornerstones of the progressive vision. The world itself was a machine needing tuning and greater efficiency. This, more-so than government grants and free-silver, would help the plight of farmers and agrarian communities across the United States.
A typical progressive propaganda poster for the Women’s Land Army of America. Progressivism, while a mostly urban and male-dominated movement, knew the art of propaganda and agrarianism as essential for its public image. Progressivism worked tirelessly to cultivate an image that was beneficial and supportive of all segments of American society. Women and agrarian forces were regularly courted and promoted as an essential cornerstone of the progressive movement. This helped contribute to its universal popularity.
Roosevelt, then, presided over the most ambitious social engineering campaign thus far in American history. He hoped, with the help of scientists, advisors, and other technocrats and societal elites, to create the well-oiled American machine that could eventually surpass the United Kingdom in economic output and productivity. The United States, in the aftermath of the Civil War, had grown into a massive and energetic Leviathan becoming, in 1907, the world’s second largest economy and power. Perhaps this is also why Roosevelt embarked on a pro-British policy during his administration as well—to try and alleviate the obvious competition between the two nations.
Debs and the Socialist Challenge
Despite the progressive movement’s ascendency, it was challenged by reactionary and socialist forces. Inside the Republican Party and among some Democrats, traditional Brahmin industrialists and their partisans sought to oust Teddy Roosevelt. They felt him insufficiently pro-business and remained weary over his public trust-busting image (even though Roosevelt was actually not a very exhaustive trust buster in real life; he knew the value of a cultivated public image). Southern and Western Democrats were also suspicious toward the Roosevelt Administration. While there had been some effort in producing a rapprochement with the populist and agrarian forces in American society, must remained skeptical to the big city attitude and politics that the Roosevelt Administration exuded. Increased naval spending, concentration on factory output and regulations, and a renewed commitment to the Gold Standard all perturbed anti-war, isolationist, and agrarian Democrats and Republicans.
The most vocal challenge to progressivism came from Eugen Debs and the American Socialist Party. Debs, a prominent labor-activist and former Democrat, railed against the suffocating managerial capitalism and industrialism of the progressive movement. He considered, rightly, a largely upper-class movement aimed at stifling worker resistance to the supremacy of industry and capital over American life. Whatever modest gains workers received under the progressive movement weren’t worth it according to Debs; the movement, not far dissimilar from the projects launched by Disraeli in the United Kingdom and Bismarck in the newly unified Germany, aimed at preventing worker revolution instead of fostering it.
The Socialist Party ticket in 1908, Eugene Debs and Ben Hanford. It was the best showing of the Socialist Party in the United States thus far.
That became the dividing line between socialism and progressivism. Socialism, as Debs routinely said, organized to advance worker consciousness and activism. Progressivism, by contrast, organized so as to integrate into the existing system which proved its resilience and superiority. In 1908, Roosevelt was carried back to the Presidency in a landslide. It was, however, also the best showing of the Socialist Party in America to date with 11.4% of the vote.[1]
[1] Based on in-game tabulation and manipulation.
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Very nice look into the Progressives and Socialists. Interesting to point out the links with Bismarck's State Socialism and One Nation Toryism. The conservative elements of Progressivism often get overlooked. Debs doing notably better than IOTL. May we be seeing a shifting dynamic in the party system? The brahmins forced to accept Progressivism as the only defence for free enterprise and property in the face of a mainstream American socialist party?
There has always been more than a little of the whiff of champagne socialism from American Progressives
Taylorism... ech. I've had to work in a call center before where pretty much my every move was tracked from clock-in to clock-out. Breaks were scrutinized down to the minute, and wage bonuses were tied to quotas, time limits, and "quality" metrics that were frankly nigh-impossible to meet if you actually cared enough about the real quality of the assistance you were rendering to the customer. It was honestly the most miserable and dehumanizing work experience I've ever had, and I've had some bad ones.
So yeah, I've had some personal encounters with the dark side of the progressive approach. I don't really rate it all that highly.
So yeah, I've had some personal encounters with the dark side of the progressive approach. I don't really rate it all that highly.
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It will be interesting to see if and how the Socialist Party's strong showing will affect this timeline, or if it's just Vicky shenanigns
I've just finished page 22 and what a ride it's been, the civil war, Sherman's march along the coast, reconstruction, the "counter revolution" of the grandfather laws, and now the start of the labour struggle and the railroad barons. All very interesting stuff and I'm sure more of the same to come.
I might try to ration the rest of this AAR, I really don't want to be in the position of having to wait for updates!
I might try to ration the rest of this AAR, I really don't want to be in the position of having to wait for updates!
Isn't that pretty much what happened all over the Western World in the twentieth century?
There has always been more than a little of the whiff of champagne socialism from American Progressives
I admit to being a fan of beers, scotch, whiskey, wine, but champagne -- never had much love for champagne!
Tis one of the reasons why I've never done anything with my degree in economics. I could easily be employed in a dehumanized environment working on statistical analysis and regression, finance or accounts, but have no desire to do that. Now I also never intended that with my econ degree as I enjoyed it more for the intellectual side, but some people still are curious why I spent an extra 4 years in grad school for several master's degrees and have entered classical education and writing instead of making the bigger bucks in a corporate suit! Well, they're exactly the kind of people I pity. I'd never survive in such an environment!
It's a lot of Vicky shenanigans. After all, Socialist Parties start to do very very well toward the end stage of the game. No different in the US barring all the deliberate in-game manipulation on my point, well, not so much manipulation per se since selecting a political party and ideological preference is a legitimate game tactic. That said, as I've hoped to have drawn out in the post-Civil War era, America does have a rich labor and worker history and movement even if it never is much discussed or known to the broader public (let alone the European world that thinks a worker movement never existed in America!) xD.
This won't be the end for Debs. Not yet at least.
Thanks for the kind words! A wild ride indeed. I hope it has been as exilerating as you're implying. And rationing the rest might not be a bad idea since I've come to such a slow pace of updating with all my other, admittedly, more pertinent, responsibilities. But, fear not (though it is sad to think of it on my part), we're approaching the end too. Perhaps the timing of the current pace of updates and your wise approach to rationing will synchronize perfectly!
I'm looking forward to this next phase of the AAR. My wife and I recently had a conversation where our biases in regards to labor unions came up (they're very opposite opinions), and I'm curious to see the historical roots of some of our opinions.
I've tried rationing this one since April, reading about six chapters per week and *finally* made it to the end.
This has truly been wonderful to catch up with. With my northern European outlook, I've tended to gloss over so many aspects of American history which have been really interesting to read about in the course of these past few months. From the descriptions of the Know-Nothings to the Tory Unionists and the description en passant of John Locke as "devil-incarnate" which made me laugh out loud - so many good chapters, interesting highlighted historians and above all so many things I've wanted to comment and question on.
I'll settle on one: reading about the American turn of the millennium from a Scandinavian context, I find it natural to cast William Jennings Bryan into a kind of social democratic mold. With regards to his political base, actual policy goals and rhetoric style, there seems to be some similarities between the political movements in Europe which you describe as based on "welfare liberalism" and which you (if I have interpreted correctly) regard as starkly contrasting to Bryan's populism. I understand that, from the point of view of an intellectual historian, the roots of American populism and Scandinavian social democracy are miles apart, but I still wonder just *how* diametrically opposed they can be considered given what seem to be many similarities "on the ground".
On another note, I've really appreciated the literary discussions. Sadly, I haven't read many (perhaps any) of the American classics. The only American historical novel I can think of having read is Butcher's Crossing by John Williams which I am tremendously fond of, and which unfolds in tandem with the innumerable cultural, geographical and political divisions that this AAR, and perhaps that whole continent across the pond, seems to be driven by. Anyhow, thanks again!
This has truly been wonderful to catch up with. With my northern European outlook, I've tended to gloss over so many aspects of American history which have been really interesting to read about in the course of these past few months. From the descriptions of the Know-Nothings to the Tory Unionists and the description en passant of John Locke as "devil-incarnate" which made me laugh out loud - so many good chapters, interesting highlighted historians and above all so many things I've wanted to comment and question on.
I'll settle on one: reading about the American turn of the millennium from a Scandinavian context, I find it natural to cast William Jennings Bryan into a kind of social democratic mold. With regards to his political base, actual policy goals and rhetoric style, there seems to be some similarities between the political movements in Europe which you describe as based on "welfare liberalism" and which you (if I have interpreted correctly) regard as starkly contrasting to Bryan's populism. I understand that, from the point of view of an intellectual historian, the roots of American populism and Scandinavian social democracy are miles apart, but I still wonder just *how* diametrically opposed they can be considered given what seem to be many similarities "on the ground".
On another note, I've really appreciated the literary discussions. Sadly, I haven't read many (perhaps any) of the American classics. The only American historical novel I can think of having read is Butcher's Crossing by John Williams which I am tremendously fond of, and which unfolds in tandem with the innumerable cultural, geographical and political divisions that this AAR, and perhaps that whole continent across the pond, seems to be driven by. Anyhow, thanks again!
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One of the best books on the Labor Movement, whether or not it is still applicable today is debatable, is Frank Tannenbaum's The Philosophy of Labor. If you can find it at an affordable price I'd recommend it. I can't recall if I've listed it in any of the Recommended or Suggested Reading notations that sometimes come with these updates.
Well it's great that you've caught up and thanks very much for the kind words. It's always good to know readAARs have enjoyed the AAR and have taken much from it. I wouldn't worry about not being able to follow all the literary and cultural discussion and echoes -- naturally that is tailored for Americans and most Americans probably won't follow them all!
Anyhow, I suppose asking a political philosopher (by education) isn't the best approach for wanting the nuance of American populism with social democratic welfarism. I suppose the best way to approach things is that American populism never envisioned any sort of welfare state as much as it saw the executive branch (in particular) as the buttress against corporate excess and industrialism. It was agrarian at heart. Social democracy, is, of course, of the opposite mold. Whatever aid it provided to rural dwellings, the heart of that political philosophy is girded in the inevitable and superior reality of urban industrialism with the government taking a proactive role in facilitating a comfortable welfare state. I think that the two traditions are superificially similar, but when you dig into the metaphysics and practical applications of the two schools, they're, in fact, miles apart. One of the problems, as we've been highlighting in the post-Bryan era, is how progressivism coopted the populist mantle despite being of a far different persuasion and outlook. On this note I'd say that Trump is, truly, a great example of the American populist tradition. Few people would be willing, with this acknowledgement, to think him part of the social democratic mold.
Now if I may ask one question to you, I find it fascinating that you've read Bucther's Crossing. How, may I ask, did you happen across it? It's rare enough to find an American who has read the book! And the fatalistic Western tragedy is among my favorite genres. As a classicist and literary essayist I always get excited when someone mentions a book that I'm fond of!
Well it's great that you've caught up and thanks very much for the kind words. It's always good to know readAARs have enjoyed the AAR and have taken much from it. I wouldn't worry about not being able to follow all the literary and cultural discussion and echoes -- naturally that is tailored for Americans and most Americans probably won't follow them all!
Anyhow, I suppose asking a political philosopher (by education) isn't the best approach for wanting the nuance of American populism with social democratic welfarism. I suppose the best way to approach things is that American populism never envisioned any sort of welfare state as much as it saw the executive branch (in particular) as the buttress against corporate excess and industrialism. It was agrarian at heart. Social democracy, is, of course, of the opposite mold. Whatever aid it provided to rural dwellings, the heart of that political philosophy is girded in the inevitable and superior reality of urban industrialism with the government taking a proactive role in facilitating a comfortable welfare state. I think that the two traditions are superificially similar, but when you dig into the metaphysics and practical applications of the two schools, they're, in fact, miles apart. One of the problems, as we've been highlighting in the post-Bryan era, is how progressivism coopted the populist mantle despite being of a far different persuasion and outlook. On this note I'd say that Trump is, truly, a great example of the American populist tradition. Few people would be willing, with this acknowledgement, to think him part of the social democratic mold.
Now if I may ask one question to you, I find it fascinating that you've read Bucther's Crossing. How, may I ask, did you happen across it? It's rare enough to find an American who has read the book! And the fatalistic Western tragedy is among my favorite genres. As a classicist and literary essayist I always get excited when someone mentions a book that I'm fond of!
Thanks for your answer, that sounds like a very reasonable analysis.
It's interesting to hear that Butcher's Crossing is rare in America! In Sweden, it is virtually impossible to find a person with an interest in literature who has *not* read Stoner (whereas other mentioned American authors, like aforementioned Steinbeck (now I'm speaking almost exclusively from personal experience), tend to be more or less glossed over.) From my experience, lots of Swedes between 20 and 40 consider Stoner the best novel they've ever read. I don't really know why that is - perhaps my social circles are a bit too centered around campus environments - but I would guess that the kind of bittersweet, melancholic, autumnal vibe (for lack of a better word) is reminiscent of some of the most revered Swedish 20th century writers. Anyhow, in 2016, two years after Stoner was first translated into Swedish, we got Butcher's Crossing which together with Augustus has been widely read in Sweden in only the last four years.
I think I'm one of very few who went from stumbling over Augustus via Butchers' Crossing to just finishing reading Stoner a few weeks back actually. I have to say, in all honesty, that although I thoroughly enjoyed reading all three, I found Butcher's Crossing to be the better novel. The images conjured up by the last twenty or thirty pages of that novel are hard to erase from my mind, haha.
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IMAGE INTERLUDE
FIGURE 1: A romanticized modern painting of the Battle of Havana and the “Charge of the Rough Riders” which catapulted Theodore Roosevelt to stardom and fame—helping launch his international celebrity and national political career. Roosevelt was a master of propaganda and used his exploits in the Cuban War for much self-gain.
FIGURE 2: A Chinese Junk ship explodes. The stagnation and breakdown of China in the nineteenth century was a major international event that led to the Open Door Policy and the exploitation of East Asia by European powers as well as an ascendant Japanese Empire.
FIGURE 3: The Battle off the Coast of Guyana. During the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, relations between France and America deteriorated because of complex circumstances relating to the Monroe Doctrine and domestic instability in the French Republic following her defeat at the hands of a combined German-Italian alliance and radical revolutions. The Battle off the Coast of Guyana was the last hurray of the sail ships – itself indicative that neither the US nor France really wanted a full-scale conflict. Peace negotiations were later settled and a rapprochement between the nations led to a secret Franco-American alliance.
FIGURE 4: French soldiers pose in front of a captured socialist barricade during the Third Commune, the most vicious and extreme of the four domestic revolutions that swept the country in the span of just 13 years.
FIGURE 5: HMS Dreadnought. The launching of the HMS Dreadnought by the British Royal Navy revolutionized the naval arms race. The American navy, already languishing somewhat and behind the curve thanks to the isolationist tendencies of William Jennings Bryan, had to scrap its six pre-dreadnought battleship plans. It worked out however since the Roosevelt Administration embarked on a grand program of naval modernization that rivaled Britain and gave rise to the “Great White Fleet.”
FIGURE 6: The British Home Fleet on maneuvers in 1911. With international tensions rising in the Near East due to the instability of the Ottoman Empire, the British Home Fleet was sent out on maneuvers in March 1911 as a grand display of British power – still the leading global power at the time.
FIGURE 7: An artistic rendering of the Massacre at St. Petersburg in 1907. Like many European nations between 1881-1910, Russia suffered a series of domestic uprisings, unrest, and revolution. The Massacre at St. Petersburg, a peaceful demonstration with many clerics leading the prayers for reform, were shot by palace guards and run down by the Cossacks.
FIGURE 8: An anti-Roosevelt cartoon lampooning the so-called “Big Stick” policy as just a fanciful cover for American imperialism in the Caribbean.
FIGURE 9: Constantinople at the turn of the century. Long considered the “Sick Man of Europe,” Constantinople was still a jewel port city and had newly constructed railroads running through it part of the famous “Orient Express.” No one would have expected the situation in the Porte to deteriorate so quickly, however, to cause a massive international crisis.
FIGURE 1: A romanticized modern painting of the Battle of Havana and the “Charge of the Rough Riders” which catapulted Theodore Roosevelt to stardom and fame—helping launch his international celebrity and national political career. Roosevelt was a master of propaganda and used his exploits in the Cuban War for much self-gain.
FIGURE 2: A Chinese Junk ship explodes. The stagnation and breakdown of China in the nineteenth century was a major international event that led to the Open Door Policy and the exploitation of East Asia by European powers as well as an ascendant Japanese Empire.
FIGURE 3: The Battle off the Coast of Guyana. During the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, relations between France and America deteriorated because of complex circumstances relating to the Monroe Doctrine and domestic instability in the French Republic following her defeat at the hands of a combined German-Italian alliance and radical revolutions. The Battle off the Coast of Guyana was the last hurray of the sail ships – itself indicative that neither the US nor France really wanted a full-scale conflict. Peace negotiations were later settled and a rapprochement between the nations led to a secret Franco-American alliance.
FIGURE 4: French soldiers pose in front of a captured socialist barricade during the Third Commune, the most vicious and extreme of the four domestic revolutions that swept the country in the span of just 13 years.
FIGURE 5: HMS Dreadnought. The launching of the HMS Dreadnought by the British Royal Navy revolutionized the naval arms race. The American navy, already languishing somewhat and behind the curve thanks to the isolationist tendencies of William Jennings Bryan, had to scrap its six pre-dreadnought battleship plans. It worked out however since the Roosevelt Administration embarked on a grand program of naval modernization that rivaled Britain and gave rise to the “Great White Fleet.”
FIGURE 6: The British Home Fleet on maneuvers in 1911. With international tensions rising in the Near East due to the instability of the Ottoman Empire, the British Home Fleet was sent out on maneuvers in March 1911 as a grand display of British power – still the leading global power at the time.
FIGURE 7: An artistic rendering of the Massacre at St. Petersburg in 1907. Like many European nations between 1881-1910, Russia suffered a series of domestic uprisings, unrest, and revolution. The Massacre at St. Petersburg, a peaceful demonstration with many clerics leading the prayers for reform, were shot by palace guards and run down by the Cossacks.
FIGURE 8: An anti-Roosevelt cartoon lampooning the so-called “Big Stick” policy as just a fanciful cover for American imperialism in the Caribbean.
FIGURE 9: Constantinople at the turn of the century. Long considered the “Sick Man of Europe,” Constantinople was still a jewel port city and had newly constructed railroads running through it part of the famous “Orient Express.” No one would have expected the situation in the Porte to deteriorate so quickly, however, to cause a massive international crisis.
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Looks like the US is going to have a few more eventful years ahead of it in the near future.
Lots of good stuff going on, I enjoyed the digs against Dewey's view on education, am childishly pleased to see the 3rd Mexican war clearing up the border gore in the south. After all we Paradox fans know the desire for nice clean borders is the main cause of wars, not nationalism, religion or economics.
I was glad to see the railway workers standing their ground against the dardardly Pinkertons and particularly enjoyed the science and technology pieces early on page 28.
It's odd too see the US with a decent sized African empire and reading about the taming of the west was interesting too. I'm up to the end of page 28... I'm not very good at this rationing thing.
I was glad to see the railway workers standing their ground against the dardardly Pinkertons and particularly enjoyed the science and technology pieces early on page 28.
It's odd too see the US with a decent sized African empire and reading about the taming of the west was interesting too. I'm up to the end of page 28... I'm not very good at this rationing thing.
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CHAPTER XX: THE END OF CONTINENTALISM
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. ~ Revelation 6:8
American Foreign Policy In Perspective
In Chapter 4 I outlined the view that “Manifest Destiny” was the prevailing ideology of American politics for the first half century of America’s independent existence; culminating in the Mexican-American War, America’s bid for westward expansion was the natural pragmatism of what many historians and foreign policy scholars have termed “continentalism” or, in derision, “isolationism.”
American foreign policy, it will be known and noted, experienced a gradual but dramatic shift away from continentalism toward internationalism at the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. This was not met without opposition. Here, however, I think it prudent to remark on the “end of continentalism” but not necessarily the “end of isolationism.”
The United States, among all the great powers of the world and in world history, is the one nation that has never actually acted like a historic great power. That is, great powers have always had strategic policy goals in mind. The United States, by contrast, either owing to its blessings on the North American continent so isolated from the rest of the world, or its own ignorance of grand strategy, has never really embarked on such grand strategy strategic goals. Let us take a few prominent examples from history.
First there is the example of Athens; the first imperial democracy in world history. The Athenian grand strategy, following their primary role in the Persian Wars and the liberation of the Aegean Sea with their navy, was to maintain maritime hegemony over Hellas and to maintain a maritime supremacy over Sparta—their great rival. Sparta, as a land power, was not to be trifled with. Athens, then, had to concentrate on a maritime policy to offset Spartan land power. Athenian strategy for maritime hegemony also caused it to look overseas, to the other Greek colonies, principally in Sicily. This want for empire in Sicily, however, we know to have been Athens’ downfall despite exceeding performances during the early years of land war against Sparta.
Second is the example of Rome. While Rome eventually secured Italian domination, the primary strategy of Rome was always the eventual destruction of Carthage. Though the Romans were often fighting Samnites, northern barbarians, and other lesser powers, the grand strategy of the Roman Republic was confrontation, displacement, and supremacy over the Carthaginian Empire situated in North Africa. The Romans never lost sight of this goal and, in fact, it can be said—and has been said—that once Carthage was destroyed the raison d’être for the Roman Republic was destroyed with it; thus causing the republic to spiral down into the gradual transformation into empire. But even in the imperial era, Roman grand strategy – after the defeat at Teutoburg, was to maintain the imperial borders along the Rhine (rather than the Elbe) and have a parity with the Parthians.
Third is the example of Britain. The British, from roughly 1690-1815, while colonizing and settling much of the rest of the world, never lost sight of its primary strategic goal of maintaining a balance of power in Europe. The continent should never become unified under a single political ruler or state. This naturally brought Britain into conflict with the leading nation whose very strategic policy was the hegemonic domination of Europe: France. Which, to be fair, was – and remains, to some extent – France’s natural role. For it was the Carolingian Empire that forged the walls, cathedrals, and spirit from which modern Europe would spring. And it was out of the embers of the Carolingian Empire, with modern France under the dynasties afterward – especially the Capetian and Bourbon – and even the republican era with its despotism and Bonapartism, that continued the very spirit of that strategy irrespective of new political and religious ideologies.
Continentalism, by contrast to the strategic policies of historic great powers, was never a long-term grand strategy. Already after 1812 Britain’s position in the New World was precarious and weak. The American victories in the Great Lakes Campaign ensured the western road, already laid by the Northwest Ordinances, was secure. Spain had been vanquished by the Latin American revolutions. Mexico, a very strong power initially, nevertheless lacked the organizational fortitude of the young American republic. There were no great powers or barriers, beside nature herself, to prevent the United States from pragmatically moving west as pragmatic rationality would dictate. In fact, one could say, as other more esteemed historians have, that pragmatic westward settlement forced the American government to accept Manifest Destiny by the mere dictates of practicality. One of the reasons stipulated for the American Revolution – though not often promoted in public consciousness – was the British closure of westward settlement past the Appalachian Mountains. The then-English settlers of the American colonies were furious at this decree.
Lacking any serious rival, American foreign policy was exceedingly pragmatic. Coast to coast hegemony was going to occur no matter what. Practical living ensured it so.
Grant Wood’s famous 1930 painting, “American Gothic.” The austere but simple farmer had long been the ideal and idyllic image of America and the American. Simple. Rustic. Hard-working. Although a legacy of continentalism, even into the 1950s, this ideal of America was already slipping away after the Civil War. Nick Carraway, from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby, is another “salute to a vanquished America.”
Now, however, with America the second leading industrial power in the world just behind the United Kingdom in 1908, with Germany a distant but encroaching third (and displacing France as the likeliest European contender for European supremacy), the prospects of America in the new century were changing. With a small, but sizeable, African imperium and Pacific and Caribbean outposts, the United States began shedding its insular continentalism for a more robust internationalism. This, of course, was always the design of Alexander Hamilton.
The true power and prestige of the United States, according to Hamilton, rested on the northeast corridor—the vaunted halls of former Federalist turned Republican power—with its banks, commercial industries, and maritime prospects. This naturally put the United States under the orbit of the British Empire, both for protection (ironically it would be the British Empire America just rebelled against that would protect the fledgling prodigal son) and growth. America’s grand strategy, if it started to develop one after the end of the Civil War, was rapprochement and integration into the British maritime commercial system with the same goals of the British Empire as the goals of the United States: namely, prevention of a united or hegemonic Europe under a single power that could threaten Anglo-(American) commercial and maritime economic supremacy.
Roosevelt, the shrewd Machiavellian that he could be at times, recognized this. Though Roosevelt included the public image of himself as a continentalist (a cowboy, naturalist, and conservationist), as President he moved America away from its insular idealism (captured most fantastically by Bryan himself) and toward integration into the British system as a junior but important partner. The problem, of course, was whether Britain would accept this integration which, naturally, meant power sharing. Furthermore, Roosevelt’s secret alliance with the French was part of this strategy as well. France, beset by domestic turmoil and a rising Germany which had gobbled up Bohemia and shattered the pretensions of the millennium old Habsburg Empire (now a de facto captive of Berlin’s strategic goals), was clearly on the decline. Yet the French republic was still a powerful force in Europe. Roosevelt, seeing Germany as America’s forthcoming new opponent (as it was for the British), saw the need for a stronger relationship with France to offset Germany’s new ambitions.
Despite it all, the ironies of history are cruel indeed. For it wasn’t Britain or Germany that would drag the world into war. But the ancient rivalries of Russia and the Ottoman Empire that would bring forth a global crisis. Yet, even here, we see the British policy at work. The British were committed to the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. The fall of the “Sick Man of Europe” would mean Russia would gain the Bosporus at Constantinople and the balance of European power would shift in Russia’s favor. This, too, was opposed by the French who equally didn’t want Russia to seize France’s historic role as premier (though not hegemonic) power in Europe. Yet, in 1910, Germany, not Russia as she had been in aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, was the real European power primed for European hegemony.
Constantinople at the turn of the century. No one would have expected that a crisis in the Ottoman Empire would bring the world into a global conflict.
Continetalists, who were natural isolationists, naturally saw European affairs as nothing important for the United States. As the guns of Europe bringing banging loudly, American foreign policy and self-identity was reaching a boiling point. The battle lines were now drawn between “America First” and “America for the World.”
- 4
1 - Bullied everyone weaker than it? - confirmed
2 - Not wanting anyone else to play in thier backyard? - confirmed
3 - Think they are justified and everyone else is duplicitous? - confirmed
Must say, I think American in this timeline is acting exactly like every other great power in history, and however "default" continentalism may be, it is still a clear geographic imperative. One to which America brooks not even the merest whiff of a threat. Much like the "natural borders" of France, or a "united island" of Britain.