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In granting official diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union in November 1933 Franklin Roosevelt was “unintentionally,” of course, returning to the traditions of American foreign policy. From the early days of the Republic, throughout the 19th century and into the 20th — in the days, that is, of the doctrine of neutrality and nonintervention —

  “The turning point was signaled by a series of military adventures Together, they represented a profound break with American traditions of government.” [The Future of Freedom Foundation, 1995] With the end of the 20th century rapidly approaching, this is a time to look back and gain some perspective on where we stand as a nation. Were the

The year 1898 was a landmark in American history. It was the year America went to war with Spain—our first engagement with a foreign enemy in the dawning age of modern warfare. Aside from a few scant periods of retrenchment, we have been embroiled in foreign politics ever since. Starting in the 1880s, a group of Cubans agitated for independence

In the two centuries or so of our history, it has happened that a few of our leaders — a very few — became symbols of some powerful idea, one that left a permanent imprint on the life of our country. Thomas Jefferson is one such symbol. With Jefferson, it is the idea of a free, self-governing people, dedicated to the enjoyment of their God-given

In 1783 the treaty ending hostilities between Great Britain and its rebellious colonies along the eastern seaboard of North America was signed in Paris. For their part the English proclaimed that, “His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations “ — there

The sharp contrast that Alexis de Tocqueville drew in 1835 between the United States and Tsarist Russia—”the principle of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude” —became much sharper after 1917, when the Russian Empire was transformed into the Soviet Union. Like the United States, the Soviet Union is a nation founded on a distinct

[ Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal (2010)]   With the World War mankind got into a crisis with which nothing that happened before in history can be compared. In the world crisis whose beginning we are experiencing, all peoples of the world are involved. War has become more fearful because it is waged with all the means of the

[ Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal (2010)]   The immediate origins of the 1914 war lie in the twisted politics of the Kingdom of Serbia. In June, 1903, Serbian army officers murdered their king and queen in the palace and threw their bodies out a window, at the same time massacring various royal relations, cabinet ministers,

Wherever blame for the war might lie, for the immense majority of Americans in 1914 it was just another of the European horrors from which our policy of neutrality, set forth by the Founding Fathers of the Republic, had kept us free. Pašić, Sazonov, Conrad, Poincaré, Moltke, Edward Grey, and the rest—these were the men our Fathers had warned us

[ Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal (2010)] With the onset of war in Europe, hostilities began in the North Atlantic which eventually provided the context — or rather, pretext — for America’s participation. Immediately, questions of the rights of neutrals and belligerents leapt to the fore. In 1909, an international conference