A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny
Encyclopedia
A Republic, Not An Empire is a 1999 book written by American political figure Patrick J. Buchanan. Buchanan critiques foreign policy commitments by the United States
. He likens America's overseas involvement to those of past empire
s--and predicts a similar decline without a change in course. Buchanan writes, "Present U.S. foreign policy, which commits America to go to war for scores of nations in regions where we have never fought before, is unsustainable. As we pile commitment upon commitment in Eastern Europe
, the Balkans
, the Middle East
,and the Persian Gulf
, American power continues to contract--a sure formula for foreign policy disaster."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He likens America's overseas involvement to those of past empire
Empire
The term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....
s--and predicts a similar decline without a change in course. Buchanan writes, "Present U.S. foreign policy, which commits America to go to war for scores of nations in regions where we have never fought before, is unsustainable. As we pile commitment upon commitment in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
,and the Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
, American power continues to contract--a sure formula for foreign policy disaster."
Contents
- Preface
The idea for A Republic, Not at Empire came out of my year-long campaign for the Republican PartyRepublican Party (United States)The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
nomination in 1996. From March 1995 thought the California primary, I sought to persuade my party that the course on which America had embarked was replicating, with alarming exactitude, the course that brought the British EmpireBritish EmpireThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
to ruin. The free-trade-uber-alles policy of the (ClintonBill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
) Administration, and its compulsive interventionism, I argued, violated America's greatest traditions and followed a course that been repudiated and rejected by its greatest men.
...Repeatedly, I found that my arguments were not being refuted, but airily dismissed as "isolationism" or "protectionism." This suggested to me that millions of Americans are oblivious to their own country's history and heritage. The propagandists in the educational establishment have done their work well. For not only was the party of (AbrahamAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
) Lincoln, (WilliamWilliam McKinleyWilliam McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
) McKinley, Theodore RooseveltTheodore RooseveltTheodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, (WilliamWilliam Howard TaftWilliam Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
) Taft, and (CalvinCalvin CoolidgeJohn Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state...
) Coolidge born and bred in protectionismProtectionismProtectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other government regulations designed to allow "fair competition" between imports and goods and services produced domestically.This...
, it was defiantly and proudly protectionist. Moreover, the economic nationalism that carried Lincoln to the presidency was rooted in the ideas that (GeorgeGeorge WashingtonGeorge Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
) Washington, (AlexanderAlexander HamiltonAlexander Hamilton was a Founding Father, soldier, economist, political philosopher, one of America's first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury...
) Hamilton, and (JamesJames MadisonJames Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
) Madison had take to Philadelphia and written into the American Constitution, and that Henry ClayHenry ClayHenry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...
had refined to create "The American SystemAmerican School (economics)The American School, also known as "National System", represents three different yet related constructs in politics, policy and philosophy. It was the American policy for the 1860s to the 1940s, waxing and waning in actual degrees and details of implementation...
" that was the marvel of mankind.
- Part One: America Reaches for Global Hegemony
- 1. How Empires Perish
- 2. Courting Conflict with Russia
- 3. America's Future Wars
- 4. The Myth of American Isolationism
- Part Two: 1789-1823: Independence and Expansion
- 5. Birth of an American Foreign Policy
- 6. "Mr. Madison's War"
- 7. How We Took Florida
- Part Three: 1845-1869: Manifest Destiny
- 8."Jimmy Polk's War"
- 9."One War at a Time"
- Part Four: 1898-1919: The Turning Point
- 10."Splendid Little War"
- 11.The New Imperialists
- 12."He Kept Us Out of War"
- 13."Wilson's War"
- Part Five: 1921-1941: Triumph of the Interventionists
- 14.Disarmament Decade
- 15.The Zeal of the Convert
- 16.Back Door to War
- Part Six: 1945-1989: Twilight Struggle
- 17. America's Longest War
- Part Seven: A Foreign Policy for America
- 18."Passionate Attachments" and Press Power
- 19.Claimants to Kennan's Legacy
- 20.A Republic, Not an Empire
External links
- An empire after all Review by Christopher HitchensChristopher HitchensChristopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
. - Review by John J. Reilly
- Buchanan.org