American Foreign Policy, Essay Example

The efforts of Americans to prop up the global economy contradicted the general view of American foreign affairs as segregationist in the period of interwar. Expanding into fresh markets was essential to the 1920s affluence, and American officials looked for an international order, which was stable to facilitate investments of America in European, Asian and Latin American markets. American companies, like Ford, General Electric, Standard Oil and United Fruit Company insistently sought for investment opportunities abroad. America went on with the pursuit for peaceful means of dominating the Western Hemisphere both diplomatically and economically but withdrew slightly for Latin America military intervention. There was little political or popular support for official diplomatic obligations to partners, European or otherwise; America never joined the Court of International Justice or the League of Nations (Henretta and Brody 2009).

Global cooperation came by forums, for instance, the Washington Naval Arms Conference of 1921, on which it was agreed by the naval powers to stop battleships’ construction for a period of ten years. It was also agreed that a limitation of their future building of ships to a set proportion to ensure stability in places like Far East exists, and to guard the economy after the war from a costly arms race. All through the Kellogg-Briand Peace Act, America joined other countries in the condemnation of militarism; there was a complaint by critics that the Act did not have enforcement mechanisms. American policymakers wavered between desiring to play a bigger role in global events and having fear that responsibilities and treaties would set a limit on their capability of acting unilaterally; their efforts of diplomacy were not adequate to the mounting disasters happened after the First World War (Schmitz 2007)

Bibliography

Henretta, James A., and David Brody. 2009. America: A Concise History. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins.

Schmitz, David F. 2007. The triumph of internationalism Franklin D. Roosevelt and a world in crisis, 1933-1941. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books.