Two Divergent Foreign Policies

Morgan M. Burks From their unique status as "polices of the world," to strict isolationists, just to return to their interventionist ways, the United States took extremely different approaches towards foreign policy succeeding each of the world wars. Post World War I, the United States was left in a period of economic despair, and, bidding their former interventionist policy adieu, turned to a stringent policy of isolationism. During the preliminary stages of World War II, Americans were adamant about staying out of the war, however, due to heavy provocation by Germany and Japan, United States was impelled to enter the second world war. Unlike the first world war, however, the second aroused the profuse desire of intervention. After the second world war, the United states once again found themselves to be vehement interventionists. Posterior to World War I, America experienced an economic tragedy that would go down in history known as the Great Depression. This period of financial and industrial recession aroused americans to become strict isolationists, seeking time to lick their monetary wounds left behind by the previous world war. As an affect of their isolationistic foreign policy, legislation reacted by passing Immigration Acts which served to prohibit an excessive influx of immigrants of the same race, to allow only higher class and skilled immigrants into America, and to reserve more jobs for Americans. Another reaction by american legislation was the passing of Neutrality Acts, which forbade interaction between merchants and belligerent ships. Americans were intransigeant upon their beloved policy of isolationism and refused to become involved in other nations' affairs. Following World War II, disparate from the foreign policy adopted after the first, America embraced a new policy of intervention. Americans thought it their duty to promote peace throughout the world. The passage of the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, and the Eisenhower Doctrine are cold-hard evidence of their religious belief in interventionism; they each exemplified the severe desire to interfere, protect, and aid other countries. Another action birthed from the very belly of interventionism, was the Berlin Air Lift. Interventionism was a powerful and enduring policy that swept the nation preceding World War II. The foreign policies preceding both world wars were completely opposite of one another, one being isolationism, the other being interventionism. Rising from the ashes of World War I arose the desperate desire to remain isolated and focused on local and national affairs. Irreconcilably, however, the victory of World War II erected a sense of condescending nationalistic pride, and along with it came the foreign policy of interventionism. Two wars and two very different foreign policies, each

world war evoked two opposing desires for two contradicting foreign policies, isolationism and interventionism