The Necessity of Intervention: A Foreign Policy Analysis of the U.S. and WWI

By Kyle Amonson
via the Small Wars Journal web site

“International relations is not a constant state of war… it is a state of relentless security competition, with the possibility of war always in the background.”

-- John Mearsheimer

Foreign policy often implores the inquiry, is war necessary to solve foreign policy challenges? It is not; however, the capability to wage, and win, conflict is necessary. War is often the insurance plan in the periphery of successful foreign policy, ready to be called upon when foreign policy no longer suits national interests or effectively ensures security. Prosperity and principles are essential, but security is the ultimate objective of foreign policy, and nations achieve security and peace through power.

President Woodrow Wilson, left, and Col. Edward M. House, who was Wilson's confidant and adviser on foreign affairs.Political and military strength remain the currencies of power. They are crucial to a strong national defense, to credible deterrence and to other effective means of statecraft. As the ancient Greek historian Thucydides wrote in The History of the Peloponnesian War, “the strong do what they have the power to do, and the weak accept what they have to accept.”

While the United States entered into “The Great War” in 1917 for several reasons, this unprecedented act of intervention introduced the international community to the U.S. as a global military and economic power for the first time.

This essay will examine the U.S. transition from unilateral policy and neutrality, to involvement in WWI as a case study to examine war as a tool of foreign policy.

Regardless of geographical displacement, US intervention became a necessity to ensure the progressive concept of American exceptionalism that, eventually, suited both classical realist and liberal internationalist ideologies.

This essay is structured to begin with a short overview of theory applied to foreign policy, a historical context to demonstrate U.S. unilateral polices pre-WWI, transition to U.S. intervention and conclude with an analysis focused on the application of warfare in support of U.S. national interests.

Read the entire article on the Small Wars Journal web site.

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