The pursuit of a world order

We will see how the United States positions itself vis-à-vis the international order and the quest for a world order of which it would be among the main ones if not the principal organizers.

From the moment the United States emerges as a great global power, American diplomacy aims to seek a world order. The safeguarding dimension of American security policy and messianism have two notions that are permanently articulated in American foreign policy with varying degrees of difficulty depending on the period. Long-term prospects are important. The United States has been a major player in the world system since the First World War and even more so at the end of the Second World War.

It is interesting to ask whether it is a stand-alone system operating on its own logic or a relay of American foreign policy. Thus, there is a permanent oscillation between globalism and regionalism in American foreign policy.

The hesitations of American globalism [1890 - 1939]

The Wilsonian project and its failure

Le Conseil des Quatre à la conférence de paix : Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando, Georges Clemenceau, et Woodrow Wilson.

The Wilsonian project is fundamental, the Wilson presidency is the moment when the United States formulates a project of international organization. Things start before Wilson. The Wilsonian project is only the culmination of a project that had been formalised and formulated before, particularly with a whole series of pacifist and internationalist movements in the United States that had begun to reflect on the idea of perpetual peace and international order. There is a whole body of experience already in place. If one is interested in the sociology of decision making, one often forgets that they are only chambers of echoes of things that happened before and of which they are not the inventors, but that they legitimize. The idea of this project is to propel the United States into the arena of major international powers. There is a certain geopolitical thought in the thinking of internationalist peace organizations. Governments are not the only ones who reason in terms of power, especially private actors.

The U. S. project is deployed above all on the scale of the American territory with in particular the Pan-American conferences in 1880 and in 1890 being formalized with the creation of the Pan-American Union in 1910 which is a first attempt of international organization on the scale of the American continent that is to say on the scale of what the United States envisages of its field of intervention in 1910 is the American continent. When Wilson came to power in 1912, he believed he could transform the Pan American Organization into a regional security organization. The League of Nations has a history in the South American continent. In fact, the Pan-American Union in 1910 and between the two world wars was going to compete with the League of Nations if not against the South American continent. What is important is that the questions of reflection on the international organization and the international order are first deployed on the scale of the American continent.

From this point of view, the First World War is a pivotal moment because between 1914 and 1918, on the American side, a project of world-wide scope will crystallize to apply to the whole planet something largely thought on the scale of the American continent at first. The global project formulated by Wilson will crystallize with the Fourteen Points and the League of Nations project presented to the Senate and the world. It is a completely new political project in international relations which until the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century was characterized by a club of powers organizing international relations according to their changing interests. From now on, the idea is to create a global political body managing relations between different states within the model of American democracy. There is a formalized organizational project with a political project behind it with the League of Nations as a parliament of the Nations.

The League of Nations is a compromise between three competing projects between the French, American and English projects. The Americans and the British agreed to merge their projects. The League of Nations project bears the mark of Wilson, but is also a compromise with the English and French. It is a notion of voluntary association between nations within the framework of an association of states where everyone is in solidarity with the others.

The question of ratification in Congress means that the question of the organization of the international order is not obvious internally, being strongly contested since 1919. The rejection of the Treaty of Versailles and the result of a deep rift in American political society. It is important to consider that the issue of international order is not self-evident. Those who voted "for" and "against" this project were those who voted "for" and "against" the most. It was a political imbroglio in an extremely strong debate on the role of the United States in international relations and whether it should contribute to the organization of the world or not.

The Second Life of Wilsonism?

The Wilsonian moment is the time when Wilson brings his project to life and plays a central role in the peace conference. But in 1919, his project fell to the ground when the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles. The next presidential election in 1920 brought a Republican to the presidency. Finally, throughout the interwar period, wilsonism continued.

At the League of Nations, there are member states and non-member states. As soon as it became clear that the United States was going to refuse to participate in the League of Nations, the League of Nations secretariat came up with a series of strategies to integrate the United States anyway. The secretariat of the League of Nations will consider that, while non-member states may participate in the League of Nations indirectly, they can participate directly in a range of areas of negotiation. The distinction between Member States and non-member states is legally clear, but in fact much more blurred. The participation of the United States in the League of Nations will be done through the major American foundations, allowing us to see that apart from the theory that the United States is not in the League of Nations, they are there anyway.

In the technical sections that are non-political organizations and ancestors of UN agencies today with the hygiene section, economic and financial organization, opium council and others, we find the United States as in the hygiene section and the economic and financial section financed mainly by American capital from American foundations, in particular the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

If we look at the specialized commissions that organize expert meetings, there are American experts almost everywhere represented almost as much as any other state. The Permanent Court of International Justice was broadly defined by Elihu Root and throughout the inter-war period there were American judges, including two former secretaries of state such as Frank Kellogg and Manley Hudson. The United States joined the ILO in 1934.

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  Elihu Root.

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  Frank Kellogg.

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  Manley Hudson.

E. H. Greenwood, U.S. Delegate, and Harold B. Butler, Secretary-General, with secretarial staff of the first International Labour Conference in Washington, D.C., October–November 1919,
in front of the Pan American Building

In the late 1930s, the United States came very close to the League of Nations in the technical sections, particularly the Hygiene and Economic and Financial Section. In fact, the United States is in the League of Nations. Wilsonism has failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, but wilsonism is reflected in the activity of non-governmental organizations at the League of Nations carrying out the American international project with the League of Nations.

The Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations operate both within and outside the League of Nations. These foundations set up health campaigns on almost the whole world, devising an international health policy in complementarity and competition with the League of Nations. It should be noted that this is not just about health. These organizations also have political implications such as the dissemination of international law with a corpus corresponds to American foreign policy through the Carnegie endowment for international peace.