The Realistic Roosevelt
Mini Teaser: As president, Teddy Roosevelt was not the Bull Moose of his earlier years. His prudence and respect for the balance of power are a model for any future president.
Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy career lends itself easily both to hagiography and hostile caricature--particularly in a presidential election year. American advocates of the robust use of military force to deal with current challenges ranging from the terror threat to China often cite Roosevelt as a model statesman who wielded military power unapologetically and unilaterally for the sake of the national interest and thus see TR as the precursor of "national greatness conservatism." His swagger is best captured in his ultimatum to the kidnapping of an American citizen, Ion Perdicaris, by Ahmad ibn Muhammad Raisuli, a Moroccan warlord: "We want Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead." Carving Panama out of Columbia, winning a difficult counter-insurgency campaign in the Philippines, and warning Japan with the display of the Great White Fleet were successful policies that can guide the conduct of a second Bush Administration or any other.
In contrast, liberal detractors are uniformly critical of Roosevelt's perceived arrogance. For example, his aggressive policies in Central America fostered an anti-Americanism that bedeviled U.S. relations with the region through to the 1980s. He (and by implication President George W. Bush) belongs to the 19th-century age of imperialism with its black-and-white verities rather than to the more complicated, multilateral world of today.
While there is some truth to both of these images before he became president, Roosevelt in office preferred to "speak softly and carry a big stick" rather than make good on the braggadocio of his younger days. He carved out Panama as a last resort, not a first; regretted the annexation of the Philippines; and sought to accommodate, as well as to warn, Japan. Thus the lessons that Roosevelt has to impart for today are those of a statesman who combined periodic audacity with methodical political realism.
Early Years
The "unilateralist" advocates of Roosevelt can certainly cite his early years to buttress their case. While initially a sickly, asthmatic boy, Roosevelt took up boxing lessons as a teenager to stop other boys from picking on him. By his twenties, he had developed a reputation as a walking battering ram, who once leaped off a horse out west "into a pack of hounds, kicked them aside and knifed a cougar to death." Not surprisingly, this combative and self-confident Roosevelt shared the prevailing Victorian political ideology of "Anglo-Saxonism", the belief that European peoples, and particularly North Americans and Britons, had a right and duty to expand throughout the world to spread their superior institutions and values.
Roosevelt and his expansionist friends, led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, lobbied successfully for his appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy after McKinley's victory in 1896--despite McKinley's views that TR was too pugnacious. Coming to office several years into the Cuban insurgency, TR's top priority was expelling Spain from the Americas, but he had to contend with a variety of naval war plans on how to do it. In the event of war, the Office of Naval Intelligence advocated an attack on not only Cuba but also the Philippines to force a Spanish war indemnity and to tie down their fleet. The Naval War College planned for a defensive coastal war if Britain joined Spain in defending Cuba, but an attack against Spain itself if Britain stayed out. Typically, TR favored the most aggressive option--attacking Spanish forces more or less everywhere.
The relatively easy, six-week war produced euphoria, even hubris, which bolstered those, including Roosevelt, who wanted to annex the Philippines from Spain. What was missing was an analysis about the islands' intrinsic importance and whether the United States could defend them (not to mention Wake Island and Guam, which were also taken), against a rising Japan. The predominant temper of the times, the expansionist "Anglo-Saxonism", resulted in a decision that Roosevelt would come to regret deeply.
Roosevelt as President
As president, Roosevelt would move beyond the simple bromides of Anglo-Saxonism, which saw expansionism as an end in itself. While he would sometimes resort to bold and even ruthless "unilateralism", as he did in creating the Panama Canal, his main focus was encouraging a favorable balance of power in Europe and Asia through diplomacy that recognized the limits as well as the possibilities of growing American power.
Europe: Roosevelt's growing sophistication was demonstrated by his changing attitude towards Great Britain. In 1895, Britain, recognizing that it was over-extended in the face of a more powerful Germany, adopted a conciliatory strategy towards the United States during the boundary dispute between British Guyana and Venezuela (an example of a strategic change of direction in response to an incident of intrinsically minor importance). During the Spanish-American War, Britain, as part of this new strategy, sold coal and ships to the U.S. Navy and allowed Dewey to communicate with Washington via the undersea cable in Hong Kong--not unlike the low-profile support that the United States was to provide Britain during the Falklands War. As a result, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt approved the Naval War College's decision to hold its last war-gaming exercises involving Britain as a potential adversary in 1899.
Roosevelt's increasingly positive views about Britain were reflected in his attitude towards the Boer War (1899-1902). While he felt that "American values" favored the underdog Boers, he knew that his country's interests favored the British, and as someone who was now increasingly a geopolitical realist, he ranked the strategic pursuit of American interests as his top priority: "If the British Empire suffers a serious disaster [in the Boer War], I believe in five years it will mean a war between us and one of the continental European military nations", he wrote to a British friend. Thus, by the time Roosevelt became president, he had given up his youthful musings about expelling Britain from Canada.
In another sign of growing maturity, Roosevelt took a relatively conciliatory approach to one of his first foreign policy challenges, the Alaska Boundary Dispute. This border dispute between the United States and Canada, which had developed with the discovery of gold in the 1890s, came to a head in 1902. After Roosevelt concluded that he could no longer ignore the issue, he sent U.S. troops to the border, but "as quietly and unostentatiously as possible." He also agreed to the British idea of an arbitration tribunal and rejected the more hawkish Lodge's advice to break off negotiations with London. A tribunal eventually ruled in America's favor, thereby removing an important obstacle to the growing U.S.-British rapprochement. By the end of his presidency, Britain was sharing detailed military intelligence with Roosevelt and the U.S. Navy on its new Dreadnought-class battleships to ensure that America would keep abreast of the latest technical developments. As a result of TR's moderate stance towards Britain's interests in North America, the United States gained a new international partner.
Roosevelt would also come to conclude by the time of his presidency that Germany had become the most serious potential threat to U.S. interests. As a result, he took a hard but subtle line toward German assertiveness during the Moroccan Crisis of 1905-06, when Berlin pushed for a role in governing Morocco in order to undermine the French-British entente of 1904 by demonstrating that London would not risk war to support Paris. Privately, Roosevelt supported the French position and urged Britain not to waiver. He flattered the kaiser's "restraint" in their correspondence while warning the German ambassador that he might regretfully have to publish selected letters. Throughout the confrontation, Roosevelt hardly acted as the blustery "cowboy" of the Spanish-American War period.
Asia: Though Roosevelt believed in maintaining a balance of power in Asia, the region presented a difficulty not found in Europe: The title of dominant power was constantly changing hands. Before becoming president, Roosevelt initially was most concerned with Germany after friction over Samoa in 1889. His concerns shifted towards Japan after it sent a cruiser to Honolulu in response to the expulsion of a thousand Japanese illegal immigrants in 1897. His focus would then shift to Russia, which moved its military forces into Manchuria in 1901.
As a result, Roosevelt was initially pleased with Japan's military victory over Russia at Port Arthur in 1904. At the same time, Roosevelt wrote to Lodge that he wanted a balance of power between these strongest Asian powers:
"While Russia's triumph would have been a blow to civilization, her destruction as an eastern Asiatic power would also in my opinion be unfortunate. It is best that she should be left face to face with Japan so that each may have a moderative action on the other."
After months of mediation, Russia accepted his advice that it give up its attempts to recapture its lost territory, and Japan abandoned its insistence on an indemnity, thereby ending the war and winning him America's first Nobel Peace Prize.
With Japan firmly established as the leading naval power in the western Pacific, Roosevelt reacted with scrupulous public respect, diplomatic accommodation and subtle military threat. When a period of tension erupted after the California legislature segregated white and Japanese students in the San Francisco school system in 1906, Roosevelt publicly criticized the legislature's actions and informed the Japanese that they did not represent those of the U.S. government. Roosevelt also sought to accommodate Japan's rising power by not challenging its new presence in Korea or its probing in southern Manchuria. Roosevelt subsequently wrote to Taft:
"As I utterly disbelieve in the policy of bluff, in national and international no less than in private affairs, or in any violation of the old frontier maxim, 'Never draw unless you mean to shoot', I do not believe in our taking any position anywhere unless we can make good: and as regards Manchuria, if the Japanese choose to follow a course of conduct to which we are adverse, we cannot stop it unless we are prepared to go to war, and a successful war about Manchuria would require a fleet as good as that of England, plus an army as good as that of Germany."
Roosevelt felt that as long as Japan had to expand it was preferable that it expand into the Asian mainland, where it would bump up against Russia and China, rather than seek gains in the Pacific, where it would clash with the United States and Britain. Though not a heroic policy, Roosevelt's acquiescence in Japan's position in Korea and southern Manchuria made sense, given the limits of American power.
At the same time, Roosevelt sent the entire U.S. fleet around the world for the first time ever during his last year in office as a signal to Japan of American military power and as a means of testing the readiness of the U.S. fleet and of building domestic support for a strong defense. He insisted that the visit to Japan be performed with utmost courtesy, but he hoped that the spectacle of a three-mile line of modern battleships would have a sobering effect on Japanese militarists. Japan's welcome to the fleet and its gift of cherry trees to Washington, dc, several years later--a symbol of its interest in a relaxation of tensions--would prove him right. He also ordered the fleet to visit Australia and New Zealand, the first implicit commitment by the United States to their defense.
Ruthlessness and Restraint
Roosevelt's changing attitude towards the Philippines best illustrates his greater maturity as president: He initially defended the squalid counter-insurgency campaign against Philippine guerrillas that he inherited from McKinley and turned a blind eye to American atrocities--probably the most morally reprehensible act of his political career--until they were made public in the Gardner Report towards the end of the war in 1902. Roosevelt, however, began to rethink the U.S. military presence after the Russo-Japanese War established Japan as a true Pacific power. He began to advocate privately either a serious congressional funding effort to defend the Philippines, assuming that any defense were possible, or granting them independence in order to withdraw U.S. troops. In a 1907 letter to Secretary of War Taft , he lamented:
"I don't see where they are of any value to us or where they are likely to be of any value. . . . The Philippines form our heel of Achilles. They are all that makes the present situation with Japan dangerous. . . . Personally I should be glad to see the islands made independent."
Yet, there was too much congressional and public support for maintaining a U.S. presence after the sacrifices of the war.
Liberal historians bridle at Roosevelt's putative arrogance in helping to create the Panama Canal and see it as the return of the impulsive "cowboy" and a clear violation of international law--something that admittedly never concerned Roosevelt. Yet Roosevelt proceeded on the issue of Panama in a very methodical manner, unlike in 1898. He negotiated a treaty with the Colombian government only after making a careful study of the comparative advantages of a Nicaraguan canal. It was only after the Colombian parliament rejected the treaty that he decided to support independence for the province of Panama. Even here, he first sought legal opinion to justify intervention based on an American treaty with Colombia of 1846. Privately he told his advisers that he supported an uprising "but for me to say so publicly would amount to an instigation of a revolt, and therefore, I cannot say it." When he sent naval ships towards Panama to deter Colombian intervention, he did so without fanfare. Partly as a result, international reaction to the successful revolt was largely positive or neutral, even in Latin America; only in Germany did the press warn about the "master" expansionist.
Nor was the creation of Panama an exercise of power for its own sake. Roosevelt knew that if the United States had to continue to maintain Atlantic and Pacific fleets, neither would be strong, as Russia learned in the Russo-Japanese war. This predicament was driven home during the Spanish-American War: The battleship USS Oregon took 67 days to go from San Francisco--where it was when the USS Maine exploded--to the Battle of Santiago Bay in the Caribbean, for which it arrived only just in time. The trip would have taken about two and a half weeks if there had been a canal.
Aside from Panama, Roosevelt was quite moderate in his use of American power in the Caribbean, contrary to his reputation among liberal historians. He withdrew American forces from Cuba in 1902, as had been promised, and turned aside the Dominican Republic's overtures for annexation in 1904: "I have about the same desire to annex it as a gorged boa constrictor might have to swallow a porcupine." In 1906 he initially turned aside requests for intervention by both opposing political factions in Cuba and ordered the withdrawal of American troops that had been landed there without his authorization by an American naval commander. Roosevelt reluctantly intervened militarily after the Cuban government collapsed. He chose a civilian judge, who never flew an American flag, rather than a military officer to govern. Roosevelt withdrew American troops three years later, after peaceful elections.
Even the response to the kidnapping of Perdicaris--the one use of American power by Roosevelt that did recall the gunboat diplomacy of the Spanish-American War--was more complicated than at first glance. For all the theatricality of the one line threat about Perdicaris and Raisuli--which was written by Secretary of State Hay, not Roosevelt--America's response was relatively measured. Roosevelt initially asked Hay to explore the possibility of a joint military expedition with Britain and France. And Hay's next line in his cable to the American consul--which was not read to the Republican Convention--was a moderate caution: "Further than this we desire least possible complications with Morocco or other powers." Nor presumably were Roosevelt's martial inclinations increased after learning that Perdicaris had renounced his citizenship to avoid paying taxes during the Civil War.
Creating the Big Stick
One thing that all students of Roosevelt can agree on is his remarkable interest in his country's military. After college, Roosevelt published a book in 1882 on the U.S. Navy during the War of 1812, which was placed on every American naval ship soon after and is still considered one of the best books on the subject. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he wrote to Secretary Long about Samuel Langley's successful experiments using steam-powered model planes: "It seems to me worthwhile for this government to try whether it will not work on a large enough scale to be of use in event of war." As president he succeeded in getting an average of two battleships a year authorized, in addition to many smaller vessels. He also descended in one of the Navy's new submarines to the bottom of Long Island Sound, taking control of the vessel at one point. Roosevelt's idea of light entertainment was to sail out in his presidential yacht in the sound to analyze the target practice of the Atlantic fleet.
Thus, as he welcomed home the Great White Fleet in 1909 just before leaving the presidency, Roosevelt probably recalled that the U.S. Navy had gone from being the world's 12th-largest fleet, when he wrote his book on the War of 1812, to the fourth or fifth largest by the beginning of his presidency, to the second largest by the end of it. Roosevelt must have taken great pride in knowing that three-quarters of the battleships that passed before his presidential yacht had been built during his administration.
Missed Opportunities
During World War I, Roosevelt became Woodrow Wilson's most vociferous critic. He urged an aggressive military response to German attacks against American vessels and despaired of the public ever being willing to mount the total war effort that he favored. After hostilities were declared, he encouraged his four sons to fight--two were wounded and one was killed--and sought Wilson's permission unsuccessfully to lead a U.S. Army division into combat.
Roosevelt favored a decisive military victory against Germany, implying that he was ready to push into Germany itself. At the same time, the geopolitician in him anticipated the dilemmas of the post-World War II period. Several days after the war broke out, he wrote to an English friend: "If Germany is smashed it is perfectly possible that later she will have to be supported as a bulwark against the Slav by the nations of western Europe." Like Churchill towards the end of World War II (and unlike President Franklin Roosevelt and General Eisenhower), TR had the ability to pivot quickly from one potential adversary to another, a hallmark of a political realist.
Historians believe that Roosevelt would have had a reasonably good chance of getting the Republican nomination and winning the election in 1920 at the age of 62 if he had not died unexpectedly in 1919. The prospect of another Roosevelt presidency probably would have convinced Lodge not to scuttle the League of Nations. And while even as charismatic a leader as Roosevelt would have had a difficult time rousing America from its isolationism, he would have pursued as vigorous and assertive a foreign policy as possible. No doubt he would not have withdrawn American forces from Europe in response to France's occupation of the Ruhr valley in 1923. And no doubt he would have made major investments in aircraft, tanks and aircraft carriers. Probably he would have withdrawn U.S. troops from the Philippines.
Lessons of Principle
Roosevelt's world is a very different one from our own. The Spanish-American War ushered in a relatively brief period in America's history when it had become a major power but still had to relate to the other powers as an equal. Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt had to worry more about Germany and Japan projecting their power to the Americas and Hawaii than about using American power on the Eurasian landmass. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that faced with a situation of approximate parity, Roosevelt pursued a realist foreign policy. Might not contemporary observers argue that TR's policy of relative caution as president is less relevant for a superpower?
Yet Roosevelt's policy towards Europe is still relevant. Roosevelt believed that as an island power, America's "natural" ally was Britain, which together with a France that was slowly becoming a midsize power, could counter-balance the strongest continental powers, Germany and Russia. Today, America's interest is still to counter periodically the strongest continental powers, the Franco-German partnership, and Russia. The Iraq War underscored that the medium-sized states surrounding the Franco-German partnership will probably continue to be the more reliable U.S. partners.
Similarly, Roosevelt's Asia policy remains relevant today and may be even more so in the future. Already, American attitudes towards China are similar to Roosevelt's views of Japan after the Russo-Japanese war: a combination of respect, wariness and rivalry. As China's power grows over the decades, the United States may want to emulate TR's willingness to accommodate a rising power--in his case, Japan--when necessary, while seeking clear military superiority. The United States may also want to accommodate a growing India in order to draw it more closely into a circle of partners concerned with China, just as Britain did with the United States during the 1890s.
One principle that has not changed since Roosevelt's presidency is the need to combine assertiveness, and sometimes ruthlessness, with a sense of limits: For power to remain powerful, it must be combined with moderation. The mature Roosevelt, the supreme realist, sought a balance of power in Europe and Asia and used ruthlessness to create Panama, but in a careful manner for important interests. At the same time, he came to realize that taking the Philippines had been a mistake. In doing so, he rejected the facile expansionist Anglo-Saxonism of his youth, a policy based on vague values, in favor of a political realism that focused on tangible national interests. And while Roosevelt was always an intense nationalist, he was sensitive to the differing interests of others and never took those differences personally. The young, somewhat bumptious "cowboy" ended his career as a statesman who spoke with measured courtesy, used guile and flattery, and prepared America to crush those who would not listen.
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