U. S. Foreign Policy [antikvár]

INTRODUCTIONFor a very special reason a few words of explanationare needed by way of introduction to this book. Mymain thesis is that the foreign policy which had servedthe United States, on the whole so well, during most ofthe nineteenth century became dangerously inadequateafter 1900. Then the United States expanded its commit-ments into Asiastic waters by the occupation of thePhilippines, and then Germany, by deciding to build agreat navy, emerged from continental Europe as a chal-lenger for world power. I shall be arguing in this bookthat because of our failure to readjust the foreign policyof the United States to this revolutionary change in thesituation, the nation has for over forty years been unpre-pared to wage war or to make peace, and has remaineddivided within itself on the conduct of American foreignrelations.The argument, as the reader will see, becomes a severecriticism of American policy during this period. Since Ihave lived through this period, and have for thirty yearsbeen writing books and articles about current events, Ihave been troubled because, with the advantages of hind-sight, I am criticizing others for holding views which atthe time I may myself have shared, or for a lack of fore-sight of which I was also guilty. Therefore, I should liketo make it as plain as possible at the outset that nothingcould be further from my intention than to say to anyonethat I told him so. For the conclusions which I have setdown in this book are drawn from experience. I was not