Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy

While William Appleman Williams argues that it is the work of calculating capitalists and George Keenan contends that the Cold War was a moral battleground, Michael H. Hunt contends in Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy that ideology is the core impetus that has shaped American foreign policy. Hunt argues, "an ideological continuity in (U.S.) foreign policy with few if any equals among great powers in modern time" (Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy 13). Hunt posits that this "core foreign-policy ideas" informed US policy from the very start (Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy 14). These polices were validated by "a remarkable string of success" in US foreign affairs (Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy 125). Hunt suggests that Vietnam is "the culmination... of an old impulse to impose on the world the patterns of an ideological policy" (Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy 170). Hunt's anti-ideological stance/critique argues from the position that this ideology is based on a premise of a national mission, on racial stratification (reminiscent of Matthew Frye Jacobson's Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign People at Home and Abroad 1876-1917), and on distrust toward social revolutions and upheavals (Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy 92-124). What is the way out of this dilemma? According to Hunt education is the key; that by developing a more cosmopolitan outlook, we might one-day work our way out of this rut. Hunt examines the exchange between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on the efficacy of revolutions. According to Hunt, the exchange between the two founding fathers, "make[s] them a study in contrasts" (Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy 92). On the one hand, Adams argued that for revolutions to succeed, "its leaders had to recognize three crucial points: the inherent flaws in all men, the ineradicable differences among men, and the need for a form of government that took practical account of these first two conditions" (Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy 93). Adam's Apollonian vision is in marked contrast to Jefferson's. According to Hunt, "Jefferson liked to compare revolution to a thunderstorm that would have to break form time to time to clear the air of the accumulating cloud of political evils" (Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy 93). Despite the Dionysian qualities of Jefferson's musings, both he and Adams eventually came closer to agreement. Hunt writes, "Adams began to look for those variations in the makeup of different people that might serve as a more discriminating gauge of their capacity to gain and hold liberty. Jefferson, meanwhile, came to acknowledge that the unseen bonds tied by king and priest had impaired the rational faculties of some peoples and hence their ability to carry a revolution through to a satisfactory conclusion" (Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy 96). The collegial tension that marked these contrasting worldviews served as the template as Hunt traces the impact of this ideological back and f

The general American needs to read this book. Hunt provides a solid and thoughtful introduction to the roots of American foreign policy, and does so in a clear and crisp way that makes this book suited for both academics and the average reader. Americans are sadly under-educated regarding their own history and Hunt should be the starting point for anybody interested in understanding where the foreign policy ambitions and motives of this nation come from.

Many historians of diplomacy refer to some inchoate set of common principles and ideas that seems to lie behind all the twists and turns of American 20th-century foreign policy; Hunt actually tries to determine what that shared ideology was. He describes three basic components of this shared ideology: 1) America's vision of national greatness, 2) the American propensity to view the world's population in a hierarchy of race (and later culture as its substitute), and 3) America's growing disappointment and horror at failed revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries. He makes a sound, logical argument, and this book holds an importance place in its field. Certainly, Americans have always believed (and rightly so, in my opinion) that theirs is the greatest political system on earth. Indisputably, Americans have tended to assign characteristics to peoples on the basis of race (from blacks to eastern Europeans to Asians). I can't buy as strongly into the effects of failed revolutions--surely, the French Revolution shocked and displeased Americans who expected it to be a revolution in the American vein and just the first in a series of changes that would bring peace and freedom to all peoples. The Bolshevik Revolution also affected Americans' views of the world significantly, but I think Hunt overexaggerates the fears generated at home by Third World revolutions abroad. As Hunt would be the first to admit, ideology alone cannot explain foreign policy, and I find that his arguments do not explain to my satisfaction the disparity between Jeffersonian/Wilsonian and Federalist/FDR/LBJ thinkers. Overall, though, I found this book noble in its intentions and quite utilitarian in covering a neglected area in the field of foreign policy. Then I read the last chapter. After putting forth his arguments, Hunt feels compelled to proscribe a new, more effective foreign policy for the United States. The fact that this exceeds the purview of an historian is beyond the point. His suggestions for changing the ideological notions of American diplomacy strike me as dangerously isolationist (despite his assertion to the contrary), exceedingly liberal, and naïve. He basically argues that America should get out of the business of imperialism, stop worrying about what other countries are doing, and devote itself to creating social and political equality at home. The Cold War had not ended when this book was written, but his suggestion was that we basically let Communism determine its own future while we implement socialism at home. Hunt must have been terribly disappointed to see Ronald Reagan win the Cold War so soon after this book's publication because that victory invalidates many of his recommendations. Hunt's main contention is that America cannot simultaneously maintain liberty at home while working to spread freedom abroad--while I think he is completely wrong about this, the subject is being hotly debated in the context of the war on terrorism and wil

This is that rare combination of a serious intellectual effort for scholars and a highly-readable work that should satisfy a broader audience. Michael Hunt trained at Yale, and teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It's simply a remarkable book. I've used it teaching High School students, college and graduate school students, and adults wishing to broaden their understanding of the complex motivations that underpin foreign policy.

I have just finished my master's thesis on American foreign policy and Michael Hunt's book was one of the foundations of my study. It is a highly readable and fascinating study. I can recommend it for the general reader as well as the academic. It is one of the most insightful books I have ever read.