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March 2005
S U M M A R Y
Beveridge declared that God had “marked What Will History Teach Us?
the American people as His chosen nation to Obviously, this framework does not exhaust
finally lead in the redemption of the world.” the reasons why the United States has
Richard Nixon in the 1960 campaign adopted one foreign policy over another. U.S.
affirmed that “America came into the world policy makers have sometimes acted in imme-
180 years ago not just to have freedom for diate self-defense—for instance, after the Sep-
ourselves, but to carry it to the whole tember 11, 2001, attacks—as well as for
world.” And of course, George W. Bush pro- broader economic or geopolitical reasons. As
claimed in April 2004 that “as the greatest one state department official quipped prior to
power on the face of the Earth, we have an the invasion of Iraq, the Bush White House
obligation to help the spread of free- would probably not have decided to go to war
John B. Judis is a visiting dom.…That is what we have been called to with Iraq if the Gulf ’s main product were
scholar at the Carnegie do, as far as I’m concerned.” kumquats instead of oil. And sometimes, such
The third idea is that in carrying out this as during the Indian wars of the nineteenth
Endowment for International
mission, the United States is representing century, religion was merely invoked ex post
Peace and a senior editor of
the forces of good over evil. “There never facto to justify actions that were clearly based
The New Republic. He is the has been—there never can be—successful on quite different motives. But on major
author of five books: William F. compromise between good and evil,” questions involving war and peace—such as
Buckley: Patron Saint of the Franklin Roosevelt said about the conflict the decision to annex the Philippines or go to
Conservatives (Simon and
with Germany and Japan in World War II. war in 1917 or 1941—the idea of a chosen
And George W. Bush declared at West Point nation attempting to transform the world in
Schuster, 1988), Grand
in May 2003, “We are in a conflict between the face of evil has played a significant role.
Illusion: Critics and Champions good and evil, and America will call evil by By describing Americans as having been
of the American Century its name.” called by God, Bush and other U.S. officials
(Farrar Straus, 1992), The These ideas, taken together, make up a have defined this framework in explicitly reli-
Paradox of American framework of understanding that has guided gious terms. But the framework is religious in
many Americans—whatever their religious two other important ways. First, it is rooted
Democracy (Pantheon, 2000),
faith or lack of one—as they have thought in the Protestant millennialism that was
The Emerging Democratic about the role of the United States in the brought to America from England and
Majority (with Ruy Teixeira) world. The individual terms of the frame- Holland in the seventeenth century. The
(Scribners, 2002), and The work—what kind of world Americans want English Puritans originally believed that
Folly of Empire: What George to create and who is standing in the way— England was to be the “new Israel”—the site
have changed over the last two and a quarter of the millennium and of the climactic battle
W. Bush Could Learn from
centuries. The first generation of Americans, of Armageddon that was predicted in
Theodore Roosevelt and
for instance, saw themselves creating what Revelations. After the collapse of Oliver
Woodrow Wilson (Scribners, Jefferson called an “empire of liberty” against Cromwell’s revolution in 1658, however, they
2004), from which this essay the opposition of Old World tyranny; transferred their hopes to Puritan New
is adapted. He wishes to Jacksonian Democrats wanted to build a England. The American version of Protestant
thank Spencer Ackerman, Christian civilization against the opposition millennialism, as put forth, for instance, by
of “savages”; Theodore Roosevelt’s generation Jonathan Edwards in the 1740s, saw that “the
Jonathan Cohn, Jessica
envisioned the spread of Anglo-Saxon civi- dawning, or at least the prelude, of that glori-
Tuchman Mathews, George lization against the opposition of barbarians ous work of God…will begin in America.”
Perkovich, Frank Pierson, and savages; and Wilson and his successors In the late eighteenth century, America’s
Robert Wright, and Eli wanted to create a global democratic order founders transformed this Biblical millennial-
Zaretsky for their assistance against the opposition of imperial Germany, ism into what historian Nathan Hatch has
fascism, and communism. But the basic called America’s “civil millennialism.” They
with this policy brief.
framework of a chosen nation seeking to translated Protestant millennialism into the
transform the world has remained. language of American nationalism and excep-
Th e I n f l u e n c e o f R e l i g i o n o n U . S . F o r e i g n P o l i c y 3
generally do this by itself but by working with Ronald Reagan signed an arms control agree-
other nations cooperatively in international ment with the country he had once called the
organizations. Wilson was foiled by opposi- hub of an evil empire.
tion at home and abroad, but his overall At other times, however, U.S. officials
approach was adopted later by presidents have become captivated by the religious men-
from Franklin Roosevelt through Bill tality handed down from Protestant millenni-
Clinton. While reserving America’s right to alism. In the late 1890s, Theodore Roosevelt
defend itself, these presidents vested the effort and other imperialists, ignoring ample evi-
to transform the world in an array of U.S.-led dence of discord, maintained that the race to
international and regional organizations, carve up colonies was leading to a more
including the United Nations, the peaceful, prosperous world. Although
International Monetary Fund, the World Woodrow Wilson had a realistic view of
Bank, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization World War I, he had an entirely unrealistic
(NATO), and the World Trade Organization. view, nourished by Protestant millennialism,
What has distinguished the most success- of what kind of international organization
ful U.S. presidents and diplomats has been could be created in the wake of the war and
their ability to pursue the framework’s goals what it could accomplish. In Great Britain on
while retaining a realistic—non-apocalyptic eve of the Versailles peace conference, Wilson
—view of means and ends and capabilities. In insisted that “as this war had drawn the
the early 1790s, some Americans dreamed of nations temporarily together in a combina-
creating a world revolution by supporting the tion of physical force, we shall now be drawn
French. In his farewell address in 1796, together in a combination of moral force that
George Washington warned against the will be irresistible.”
United States, which was a minor, marginal During the Cold War, many U.S. officials
power, identifying itself with either side in succumbed to a view of the Soviet Union as
the European struggle. He cautioned against the demonic center of a seamless world con-
“permanent inveterate antipathies against spiracy that threatened not only Western
particular nations and passionate attachments Europe but also Phoenix, Boise, and San
for others.” Washington was not arguing for Diego. These exaggerated fears led not only
what would later be called isolationism, but to the Red Scare at home, but to policy mak-
for grounding America’s ultimate objectives ers ignoring Sino–Soviet tensions for at least a
in a realistic appraisal of its power and of decade and discounting the strong nationalist
foreign threats. element in communist movements in
During World War I, Wilson resisted the Vietnam and Latin America.
widespread perception that German ambition During the height of this hysteria,
was the sole cause of the war. During World Reinhold Niebuhr, a supporter of Truman’s
War II, Franklin Roosevelt rejected plans, Cold War policies, took aim at the mentality
based on a view of Germans as inherently that America’s millennial view was nurturing.
evil, for dismembering and deindustrializing “Success in world politics,” Niebuhr wrote in
the country afterwards. In 1963, John F. The Irony of American History, “necessitates a
Kennedy looked beyond the “long twilight disavowal of the pretentious elements in our
struggle” of the Cold War and backed a test original dream, and…requires a modest
ban treaty with the Soviet Union. In 1971, awareness of the contingent elements in the
Richard Nixon put aside his own past of values and ideas of our devotion, even when
demonizing “Red China” and sought to nor- they appear to us to be universally valid; and
malize relations with China. And in 1987, a generous appreciation of the valid elements
6 P o l i c y B r i e f
Palestinian militants, and the end of the a dissenting strain of Protestant millennialism
Organization of Oil Exporting Countries that emphasizes Christians seeking their own
(OPEC). At a speech in Nashville in August salvation before the “end times.” That view
2002, Vice President Dick Cheney claimed may have influenced Bush’s initial skepticism
that as a result of Saddam’s ouster about foreign intervention, which he
“Extremists in the region would have to expressed during the 2000 campaign, and his
rethink their strategy of jihad. Moderates disdain for the United Nations, but it was not
throughout the region would take heart.” reflected in the expansive view of U.S. aims
That could certainly occur, but did not hap- that Bush adopted after the September 11,
pen in the aftermath of Saddam’s outster. 2001, terrorist attacks and in his tolerance of
Cheney’s statement was, of course, for public religious diversity.
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