1993/01/01 by John Lewis Gaddis · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Communism, Protests, Social Movements #Twentieth Century Scientific Developments #Nuclear Issues and Defense #Tragedy (event) #Cold war #Political science #History #Ancient history #Literature #Law #Art #Politics
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.1993.tb00156.x
openalex publication_date 1993/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
It has been well over three decades, now, since William Appleman Williams first called for “a searching review of the way America has defined its own problems and objectives, and its relationship with the rest of the world.” In one of the most influential books ever written about the history of United States foreign relations, Williams rejected the celebratory tone that had characterized the work of an earlier generation of American diplomatic historians, insisting that the record of this nation's foreign policy had been a “tragedy” because of the gap we had allowed to develop between our aspirations and accomplishments in world affairs. We had preached self-determination but objected when others sought to practice it; we had proclaimed the virtues of economic freedom even as we sought to impose economic control. The result, Williams concluded, was that “America's humanitarian urge to assist other people is undercut—even subverted—by the way it goes about helping them.”1 The classical definition of “tragedy” is greatness brought low through some fundamental flaw in one's own character. When one considers the difficulties the United States created for itself in the world through its own hubris and arrogance during the 1960s and early 1970s, it is hardly surprising that Williams's tragic view of American diplomatic history seemed, to a great many people at the time, to make sense. To a good many people even today, it still does. John Lewis Gaddis, Ohio University photo by Jeff Friedman Therein, however, lies a danger. Any view held by a considerable number of people risks becoming an orthodoxy, and the members of our profession are no more exempt than others from that tendency. I only met Bill Williams once, but I gather that he was, if anything, a profoundly unorthodox character.2 I suspect that the last thing he would have wanted would be to see his own ideas—or anybody else's, for that matter—become conventional wisdom.3 As he himself put it in The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, “history is a way of learning, of getting closer to the truth. It is only by abandoning the clichés that we can even define the tragedy.”4 What I would like to do here is to question some clichés and then try to redefine a tragedy. For if we mean what we say when we enjoin one another—in a way that has become, in itself, almost an orthodoxy—to transform diplomatic history into a truly international history,5 then surely Williams's tragic view of the American experience in world affairs is a good place to start. How well does it hold up when placed within an international context? How does an interpretation that has influenced the writing of so much Cold War history look today, now that the Cold War is over? And how might we apply Williams's habit of asking creatively irritating questions as we seek to understand the post-Cold War world? The end of the Cold War has obliged most of us, after all, to jettison quite a number of clichés, orthodoxies, and long-cherished pearls of conventional wisdom: in this sense, we are all well on the way to becoming post-Cold War revisionists. It is all the more important, then, that we take another look into what Williams called the “mirror” of history, “in which, if we are honest enough, we can see ourselves as we are as well as the way we would like to be.”6 Let us begin with an issue our students are already beginning to raise with us, which is what the Cold War was all about in the first place. Given what we now know about the internal fragility of the Soviet Union; given what has long been clear about the economic absurdity of Marxism-Leninism; given the persuasive evidence that an international Communist “monolith” never really existed; given all of these things, exactly what was the threat to American interests anyway? Whatever could have justified the massive expenditures on armaments, the violations of human rights abroad and civil liberties at home, the neglect of domestic priorities, the threats to blow up the world—whatever could have excused all the deplorable things the United States did during the Cold War if no genuine threat ever existed? Does not this record only confirm what Williams suspected: that the American system has a built-in propensity to fight cold wars, and that if the Soviet Union had not provided the necessary adversary, someone else would have? Few historians would deny, today, that the United States did expect to dominate the international scene after World War II, and that it did so well before the Soviet Union emerged as a clear and present antagonist. Woodrow Wilson years earlier had provided the rationale, with his call for a collective security organization to keep the peace, and for self-determination and open markets as a way of simultaneously removing the causes of war.7 It took the fall of France and the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor to bring Wilson's ideas into the policy arena, to be sure, but the country's leadership, if not yet the country as a whole, was thoroughly committed to them long before World War II ended.8 This vision of the future assumed a strong military role for the United States:9 Americans would hardly have been prepared, even under the best of circumstances, to turn the entire task of peacekeeping over to the United Nations, however enthusiastically they endorsed that organization.10 And there is no question but that careful calculations of material advantage lay behind all of this. After all, no one had ever combined the fact of self-interest with the appearance of disinterest more skillfully than Woodrow Wilson, and that aspect of his legacy was still very much around as influential Americans, inside and outside the government, set out to design the postwar world.11 But let us be fair to those designers: they also assumed that the Great Powers would act in concert rather than in competition with one another. That presupposition had been the basis for Franklin D. Roosevelt's early and somewhat crude concept of the “four policemen,” and it carried over into the more sophisticated planning for the United Nations and the organization of the postwar international economy that went on during the last two years of World War II.12 It is certainly true that the United States expected to lead the new world order; it alone was in a position to set the rules and to provide the resources without which that system could hardly function. But the system was to have been based, we need to remember, upon the principle of what we would today call common security. It was to have operated, at least insofar as the Great Powers were concerned, within a framework of consent, not coercion; and most Americans expected, perhaps naively, that this relatively open and relaxed form of hegemony could be made to coincide with their own security interests.13 Let us recall, as well, that the United States plan for the postwar world was never fully put into effect. Part of the reason was its failure to take into account the extent of wartime devastation in Europe, and the consequent improbability that a return to open markets alone could solve that problem.14 But the main difficulty lay more in the realm of geopolitics than economics: it was that Washington's conception of common security ran up against another one, emanating from Moscow, that was of a profoundly different character. There was nothing relaxed, or open, or “consensual” about Josef Stalin's vision of an acceptable international order, and the more we reconsider Soviet history now that the Soviet Union itself has become history, the harder it becomes to separate any aspect of it from the baleful and lingering influence of this remarkable but sinister figure. One need hardly accept a “great man” theory of history to recognize that in the most authoritarian government the world has ever seen, the authoritarian who ran it did make a difference.15 Stalin was, above all else, a Great Russian nationalist, a characteristic very much amplified by his non-Russian origins.16 His ambitions followed those of the old princes of Muscovy, with their determination to “gather in” and to dominate the lands that surrounded them. That Stalin cloaked this goal within an ideology of not to its and Stalin's most influential role as his most has now made were not or even but the Great and the His the of earlier by the great Russian the resources of the they only the of the without the of the The the people if the Soviet Union had let us the position of in the War II international this of certainly would have those who had to under but it would hardly have a Cold the Soviet Union had been the that it was, but with a system of and that could have Stalin's authoritarian a Cold War might have but it would not have been as or as a the Soviet Union had been a and an authoritarian but if someone other than Stalin had been for or perhaps even a its government could have been in the of a by no a would at least have the outside and might have it than Stalin did to with on a basis of of But of these Stalin was and the people of the Soviet with the rest of the were with at the end of World War That was a if not in a classical sense, then in an all Let try to with a of on some of the new we have about the great we are a in a in his The Soviet had the habit of up and in his for long of time, his about and on the One the this many to Stalin's Stalin by into the and the with his Stalin was on in the and was during the by a he his Josef they the is a and it to a the Stalin the to the Stalin had a his had an and who was becoming about the of his After with about this one he and or and Stalin had a was Stalin not only and had he also he could who had ever been with or any other as well as of of other people who had never had at all to do with or with else who could have Stalin's three Soviet it is as a of these Stalin had an that in to the that theory had to take place before there could be a the Soviet government had to a of for by The best is that over Soviet from the and that Stalin over the of a great in which at least another Soviet were When it was he himself not only on a great but on the had he his foreign were a in World War one country out of the of The created a The in this is to make the that the United States and its at the end of World War II, were not with a of a but fully and who had his own not only those around but an entire and had with it in his And he had that I might long before the Cold War of the United States could have given an to do The has been of but what Stalin did to the Soviet Union let us not to its as well, surely as the of them. One might at this so not Stalin's fully and did they not in the of Cold War not this issue now a of a that has not only long been but is even There are I this is not the the of is an issue to which American diplomatic historians need to are important, even if all they do is to confirm old The new Soviet however, well do more than the evidence we are getting that inside the not under Stalin but also under and of Stalin's were than most outside on that country had ever one is about the from or from the or from the one considers the with which the were one the economic and on the in which they one at what the Soviet system for other that into the Soviet of of Soviet history one what is from the are more than most of the put without the of by the Soviet most the Cold War was still That to in itself, to be But there is a reason I a of is in order, and it has to do with the way American diplomatic historians have for long about the Cold one of the most to out of that we have to the rather like into three We have ourselves as one might have expected, with the most of the have long been We have quite in to our to the and to to the the United States has had on the that made it It is very that with all of our on and on the need for a international American diplomatic historians have made so to understand what was really what the of American was This in of from It was to out much because in the Soviet Europe, and other so much so Part of the also had to I with the lingering of on our The of the and the early so American that for we at the that might have influenced the of some of Soviet were we assumed that all of them had that the were of we like as a form of to we to of the fact that there really were And perhaps we also that if we about these of things, we would up much like John for a more There was another as well, that in the way of an of what was in the It had to do with an from international to ourselves into a view of the world that and more or to of the within the that had brought them into and the by which they in all seek and or so theory we into the habit of that they did so for that in turn to a of in which the of was to be different from that of This was to be sure, a tendency. members of our profession have long that held and have American foreign policy for up with them. But not who took this view was to to what those of the world who were to had been us all during the Cold which was that as it was in the Soviet Union really was, and had at least as and a that they are to to people of the Soviet Union to have more with of that as an than with our own more The as are evidence for an And these have not yet our with the our to to the and our neglect of the which the of an truly international to diplomatic history, I would be one fully to look into the “mirror” that Williams about to see we have given to a that has had the most over more than the on the of the and for most of the other that surrounded What would that for the writing of American diplomatic The most issue historians of the Cold have had to with is a on what we would today call the we all have if we had really We that question long with to another great of us have any difficulty with the that really did and that there was never any if only we had we could have with so a many American diplomatic historians have and still the that the United States have a than it did at the beginning of the Cold War to with the Soviet We have to the early in the and early that Stalin was another that what we were in the and was not at all, but rather It is quite of that the Soviet did from his in not the least of which was that Stalin was more than and would if with the fact or at least the of did Stalin ever seek the of an entire the was, and But as and have made the between Stalin and the were to dominate all those around them. combined with in a way that them for the task of and even in the most of and of they were not to be from their were to take when were given them. most important, they had of security for that for we have long that in of his but we now know that Stalin many It is really quite after careful like those of and also the Russian to see how there could have been any basis for of these One was here with that had been to but these in were of within the framework of that any system has to have if it is to the of all of the that make it The of Cold War history, then, is that was in World War II, it had been and by That form of government was at the of its influence during the last of the even as the Soviet Union itself lay material alone do not that in the As a result, Stalin was to or influence well his own in Stalin's first in Europe, he that were so in his that they their own set of during the a after the of had the His influence was still present in that of the world as the of and their Stalin certainly provided a for the great of the who it now had no in any form of with the United States when he took in in his with Stalin's was still Stalin himself when he the in a of that is now to have the of between and a that be than what Stalin and to And then there were all the and who in the world during the Cold and many of like their for their people but nothing new in the United States itself with its own of the Cold and had been so long before that But there was about the and it is to be for post-Cold War historians to understand what it were all, like to apply all of the they and the they could in an to a set of that were and by of all could be and they were to was necessary in of to There was them of the need to and in as long justified which that were not but rather that does not us, in any of them. But what was it about the that allowed to during its first decades, and then so at the end of the to After all, the great were not they from not of their own and they to by and the that surrounded them. for a long time, was on their and then it to We need to understand One way we might out would be to another of from William Appleman which is that we It was more than else, who us to the fact that there are in history, and that they do of economic of and even To a from much more in the the that history in much the way that the around on the of the by no the of but they do the within which they function. make their own in his The of they do not make it as they they do not make it under by but under given and from the We have to history, I for we with which was as a of own as one can as an which was his as a himself his by to what we now recognize as the this is the of those who that they have the of history to that history with them. that the from through to and was but that it would then for some reason end at that What really to have is that one set of the of and the that from in the and early in the the way for and the that them. But during the of the these into the of and the that from then the of and brought us around to our which out to be all over it had up with in and that was a But it does not his into the of and the role they in human affairs. That might well as a for a not of the Cold but of the as a The great of this from this because they to their own they were to their own with and an appearance of history on their most of what they more one's after all, than the that history itself has against the of time, the the were to and they with the that their very much as the did the within which they had no One might even from this that the Cold was all and that the of Cold War history was all the the of put into to bring about what was to It is most that would have this because all of his on he was no The he might well have because a made their own history by the that at the time, them with It was the of with that not alone or But one that one also has to that the to have made a It would make no to that can but that their can never do let us the to and that us to the the United its in the affairs of this as the is as one history was very by the and fall of authoritarian then historians have no but to the role the United States in them. that that role was an that the Americans even more than the and that after a the vision over those of and their for that historians see the American as a more that it was one of the of evidence that need not be the only to the as the and about the we have historians take the position that the lay in But the these of interpretation the role of the United States in be at the of them. It would most for historians of American foreign to be at the of that I see evidence that that is and I if this is not because we have allowed Williams's view of American to our We have a set of that might have been for at a and place into a of We have what was, in its a profoundly unorthodox of conventional into an that has now become conventional most orthodoxies, it does not it our of our place in the and also of How do we the “tragedy” as to after all, between the aspirations and the accomplishments of all as they do in the of all if they alone are to be our for then that is a characteristic from human which rather its one “tragedy” to the extent of the gap between aspirations and it becomes a more But if one then in of their the American “tragedy” against those of other Great Powers in the more to out than to that is the United States is still the country of for those who seek to their own in the of The truly from their not we are to take the of the in history, we need to to they are us, not those of it that our That an for One of his most was that even the most and within them the of their own We have the an of from us and from our a way that might not have and would surely have given the extent to which his own had as its the not the of the But the of no and no and from a it is not to see the internal in our own which if to Woodrow Wilson, than any other I what is to be the of the post-Cold War For is not the of open markets really economic and is not the of self-determination really And is this not a of and that himself would have it we really expect to of our economic theory we at the take of our theory we not us that and be when it to human however we separate these in our The the of and not in our own but through much of the rest of the world as well, turn out to be at least as as and as than the one between and authoritarian government that us through so much of the it to to fall within the of a truly international to American diplomatic Americans are no more to be from tragic in history than else but American diplomatic historians have these in a and We need to a of what in this than is all That our concept of within an international It the American “tragedy” with the others that surrounded It history as a genuine way of learning, not as a from which we hold in or It in the most fundamental sense, our as historians, which honest not only about ourselves but about the in which we have had to And it as I we have not yet to all of the and to all of the