Republic in Peril

American Empire and the Betrayal of the Liberal Tradition

David C. Hendrickson

Controversially advocates for a return to liberalism, opposing critics who blame liberal ideology for America's current foreign policy failures
Argues that liberalism offers a powerful critique of US imperialism and military intervention
Traces America's departure from the republican liberal position through major episodes of US history from the past century
Asserts the value of the iso-internationalism that preceded Woodrow Wilson's presidency based on an in-depth knowledge of American foreign policy

Republic in Peril

American Empire and the Betrayal of the Liberal Tradition

David C. Hendrickson

Description

It has become a staple among critics of American foreign policy to refer to the United States's approach as "liberal imperialism." By this they mean that America's globalist agenda and its willingness to use force in theaters across the globe derives from its desire to evangelize the gospel of liberalism and thereby extend the reach of a US-dominated democratic capitalist order. These critics point to the presidency of Woodrow Wilson and trace how this agenda evolved over the next century. The dominance of liberal ideology, they argue, is so all-encompassing that virtually all of the main variants within the modern US foreign policy tradition, from anti-communism to neoliberalism to neoconservatism, fit under liberalism's umbrella.

In Republic in Peril, the eminent foreign policy scholar David C. Hendrickson turns this thesis on its head. A trenchant critic of America's quest for global dominance, Hendrickson argues not only that liberalism is not the culprit, but is in fact where we should turn because it offers a powerful critique of both militarized interventionism and the US quest for full-spectrum global dominance. Covering all of the major episodes of the past century, he shows how the US has fully abandoned a tradition of republican liberalism that dates back to the Founders. The republican liberal tradition, which dominated US foreign policy for over a century, mandated non-intervention and the promotion of peace. This "golden rule" policy toward other nations served America well, he contends, and many of the pathologies that plague US foreign policy now—particularly its disastrous approach to the Middle East—can be traced to the desertion of the republican liberal tradition. He therefore advocates returning to the more collegial form of internationalism ("iso-internationalism") that preceded Wilsonianism. Combining both a rich historical overview of modern American foreign policy with a forceful indictment of the illiberal straitjacket in which US has bound itself, Republic in Peril provides a genuinely original defense of liberalism in the service of peaceful non-intervention—a position that contemporary critics of aggressive liberalism are sure to find surprising.

Republic in Peril

American Empire and the Betrayal of the Liberal Tradition

David C. Hendrickson

Preface
Introduction
Obama Legacy and Trump Revolution
America, Liberalism, and Empire
Plan of the Work
Chapter I: Liberal Hegemony
Officialdom
Rule Maker, Rule Breaker
Friends and Enemies, Protector and Protected
The Neo-Liberal Economic Order on the Ropes
Who-Whom?
Chapter II: Universal Empire and Westphalian Ruins
Toward Universal Empire
Rome and America
Revolution, Intervention, and the Law of Nations
The American Synthesis
Pluralism and Liberal Internationalism
Realism, Liberalism, and the Legal Order
The Golden Rule
Chapter III: Public Bads in the Illiberal World Order
Freedom of Navigation and East Asia
The Greater Good in the Greater Middle East
Surveillance State, Sanctioning State, and the New Praetorian Elite
The Open Door and Its Enemies
Recovering Liberalism
Chapter IV: Taps for Republican Liberty
Internationalism's Broken Promises
Sacralizing Militarism
The Security Theory of Republican Liberalism
Chapter V: Nation, Union, Empire
The Exceptional Nation
What Kind of Union?
Old Testament, New Testament: Neutrality vs. Collective Defense
Chapter VI: The Renovation of American Foreign Policy
Globalism and Isolationism
A New Internationalism
Return of the Lippmann Gap
The Nixon Precedent
Toward a New Detente
Reconstituting the European Alliance
East Asian Retrenchment
Concert vs. Dominance
Heart of Darkness
Blood and Oil
Israel and the Thrasybulus Syndrome
Conclusion
Short Titles and Select Bibliography
Notes
Index

Republic in Peril

American Empire and the Betrayal of the Liberal Tradition

David C. Hendrickson

Author Information

David C. Hendrickson, Campbell Professor of History, Colorado College

David C. Hendrickson is Campbell Professor of History, Colorado College, and co-author of Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson.

Republic in Peril

American Empire and the Betrayal of the Liberal Tradition

David C. Hendrickson

Reviews and Awards

"This is an incisive critique of American policy from the standpoint of an earlier era but with troubling implications in the unlikely event that it actually gains traction in Washington, D.C." - Kirkus Reviews

"Hendricksons concern about the direction of US foreign policy is well founded and this well-written, flowing volume will be of interest to scholars, policy-makers and students of international relations." - Michael John Williams (New York University), International Affairs 94:2