A compelling preponderance of evidence suggests that none of these factors – individual rights, national and international law, global stability, or ideology – has been a primary cause for American actions abroad, but that, instead, the pivotal factor in America’s foreign policy decisions, rather, is predominantly economic. Where other explanations fail, this underlying motivation consistently explains American diplomatic initiatives, foreign aid, strategic military interventions, and commitments to war from 1898 until the present day. Furthermore, the impact of U.S. policies throughout the world has varied directly according to the principle of American economic-self interest. Nations and groups have often benefited when their goals align with this principle; overwhelmingly, they have suffered when these goals clash.

This essay explores the correlation between America’s economic interests and its foreign policy, highlighting the ensuing inconsistencies with its other professed goals, by appealing to three case studies. First, America’s policies in Cuba at the turn of the century expanded U.S. markets and defended U.S. business interests while disregarding principles of Cuban independence. Second, the Roosevelt and Truman administrations’ policies in Europe during the Second World War and its immediate aftermath were morally and ideologically inconsistent, but successfully restored the stable political climate necessary for American business to flourish. America played a role in ending the Holocaust while firebombing Dresden, fought alongside communism against fascism, and helped to restore Western Europe’s economy by both sending economic aid and ensuring many ex-Nazis’ safety. Third, from the Truman administration through to the Nixon administration, America’s policy towards Vietnam consistently placed economic interest above humanitarian concerns, favouring French colonialism over Vietnamese self-determination, election-rigging over genuine democracy, and massive bombing of civilian populations over diplomatic concessions. The common factor behind each case is the primacy of American economic concerns.

Howard Zinn argues that American foreign policy at the turn of the twentieth century was driven by an expansionist group of military figures and politicians seeking overseas markets for American goods.1 Irwin Unger agrees that Americans needed markets for their surplus, citing future Senator Albert Beveridge’s 1898 declaration that “the trade of the world must and shall be ours. … Our institutions will follow our flag on the wings of our commerce.”2 Many of these policy-makers believed the use of military force to be an acceptable option for pursuing this goal. Theodore Roosevelt, a prominent and symbolic figure of this group, wrote privately in 1897 that he would “welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.”3 Economic imperialism, to be supported with force as necessary, was thus an undeniable feature of American foreign policy goals.

America’s actions in Cuba at this time fit seamlessly into this mould. Indeed, American statements of economic interest in Cuba were widespread and public. In March of 1898, for example, a New York magazine proclaimed that America’s interest in Cuba was driven by “humanity and love of freedom, and above all, the desire that the commerce and industry of every part of the world shall have full freedom of development.”4 The following month, sparked by an incident in which Spain was (likely speciously) accused of bombing the USS Maine, America entered into a military conflict on the side of Cuban rebels and quickly overthrew Spanish rule.5 After its victory over Spain, America’s motivations – which, up to this point, seemed to have included a genuine desire to secure Cuban independence from foreign rule – became nakedly evident. No Cuban delegate was invited to confer on or to sign the Spanish surrender.6 President William McKinley refused to remove the U.S. military until the Cubans agreed to incorporate the Platt Amendment into their new constitution. This revision gave America the unrestricted right to “intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty,” and, in addition, guaranteed naval stations for exclusive American use.7 Furthermore, key American figures displayed a clear disregard for public opinion and popular aspirations in Cuba. The head of the occupation forces, General Leonard Wood, for example, argued that “[t]he people of Cuba lend themselves readily to all sorts of demonstrations and parades, and little significance should be attached to them.”8 Zinn concludes that, though American policy “looked like an act of generosity,” it was designed with “power and profit in mind,” and included no plans for the genuine independence of the Cuban people.9 Unger, too, notes the economic benefits reaped for American business as a result of American actions in Cuba.10 Clearly, the U.S. government’s concern for Cuba is better understood through the lens of economic self-interest than through American rhetoric about Cuban independence.

America’s foreign policy regarding Europe four decades later, during and after the Second World War, is also most consistently explicable by appeal to the principle of economic interest. To be sure, this explanation is absent from the war’s dominant historical narrative. Popular explanations for America’s involvement in the European conflict, then and now, invoke notions of ideological struggle and human rights. John Bodnar points out that the Office of War Information told Hollywood producers to make films that “reminded audiences that it was “a people”s war,’ which would bring about a future with more social justice and individual freedom.”11 President Franklin Roosevelt, Bodnar notes, “took pains to make democratic promises” to his people in return for their sacrifices.12 There is no doubt that the demise of Nazi Germany represented a victory for democracy and human rights over fascism and racial extermination. For this reason, Unger refers to the Second World War as “the good war,” imploring us to be “grateful” for America’s role in quelling an “evil” regime that had “utter contempt for humanity.”13 Zinn agrees, calling America’s struggle “a war against an enemy of unspeakable evil.”14

However, behind these statements there is an important disconnect: though the war was in many ways a democratic triumph for human rights, it is equally evident that America’s principal motives for involvement had little to do with human rights or political ideology. Zinn argues that America’s devastating aerial bombardments of German cities “destroy” the notion that the Second World War was “fought for humane reasons.”15 If Roosevelt’s description of Germany’s bombing in Holland and England as “inhuman barbarism that has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity” carries any weight, then we are left speechless to describe the massive American bombing that dwarfed the German attacks by comparison.16 Defenders of America’s bombing campaigns often argue that they were necessary sacrifices to combat a greater evil: the Nazis’ twisted extermination policies. But, as Zinn points out, the Holocaust was not a priority for the Roosevelt administration. Aware of the purpose of Nazi concentration camps, Roosevelt “failed to take steps that might have saved thousands of lives [because] he did not see it as a high priority.”17 Henry Feingold agrees, noting that the U.S. government had at hand “confirmed news of the actual implementation of the Final Solution” but was “not overly enthusiastic about making the war into a war to save the Jews.”18 Feingold also points out that America, which was in a superior position to any European nation for absorbing Jewish refugees, nonetheless failed to admit more than a token number.19 Evidently, the Roosevelt administration’s involvement in Europe during the Second World War was not primarilymotivated by human rights concerns.

U.S. involvement in Europe at this time was not motivated by any consistent ideology, either. American policies towards the communist east were hostile at first, then friendly after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, and tense yet again soon after the war ended.20 We may attempt to explain these right-angled ideological turns by appealing to America’s need to befriend the Soviet Union in order to fight a common fascist foe. However, this explanation – though popular – is lacking. Unger points out that “[n]ot all Americans saw fascism-nazism as a serious danger,” referring to many Catholics, conservatives, Italian and German Americans, and some intellectuals who spoke out for the Third Reich.21 This group even included prominent politicians. For example, on June 22nd, 1941 – the day that Germany invaded Russia – future president Harry Truman stated: “If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany.”22 Based entirely on practical concerns, this statement completely ignores any notion that the destruction of fascism should be a primary goal. America’s policies in postwar Germany further betray its lack of concern for eradicating fascism. In his 1948 article, “The Fiasco of Denazification in Germany,” John Hertz observes that “the effect of denazification appears to have been to bar certain persons temporarily from positions of influence rather than to provide for their definitive or long-term elimination.”23 To Hertz, America’s “moral superiority” was not a core element of its policies but, instead, merely an “expendable” asset.24 America’s wartime and postwar policies were not motivated by any consistent ideological goal.

America’s involvement can be most clearly understood by examining its economic concerns. Zinn’s argument that the Roosevelt administration’s “main interest was not stopping Fascism but advancing the imperial interests of the United States” is compelling.25 He points to the crumbling British Empire, suggesting that America “intended to push England aside and move in.”26 Germany was a rival contender for this position, and had to be defeated.27 Contemporary sources from the U.S. State Department, Zinn notes, show a conscious American interest in the oil-rich Middle East, previously dominated by Britain and under threat from Germany.28 Indeed, as cynical as it seems today, this view was common in wartime Britain. Feingold’s account outlines a strong British perception that Washington hoped “to pick up the pieces of the British empire.”29

Even if imperialism were absent from the U.S. government’s conscious motivation, America’s involvement was still economically driven. Unger remarks upon the Roosevelt administration’s “self-interested” desire for “a stable world order” and points out that Germany “clearly threatened the balance of power” in Europe.30 European stability was necessary for trade to occur safely, and Nazi Germany was in the way. Once Germany had been beaten, however, previous members of the Nazi party no longer represented a threat to European stability, to American business interests. This helps to explain Hertz’s assertion that denazification – “in the economic field” – amounted to very little.31 America’s Marshall Plan was also intended to ensure a postwar climate of stability, by channelling economic aid into relief and reconstruction of the Western European nations that chose to accept it. Secretary of State Dean Acheson minced no words when he declared that the Marshall Plan was designed “chiefly as a matter of national self-interest.”32 The contracts secured by this massive aid program, in addition to improving the standard of living in Europe, strengthened the American economy.33 That the motivation for American involvement in Europe in the 1940s stemmed not only from pure generosity but also from economic self-interest need not detract from the overall benefits of many of its policies. However, we cannot ignore the harmful effects of such an approach, either. The firebombing of civilian populations, the lack of direct action to aid European Jewry in its most desperate hour, and the failure of genuine denazification must weigh heavily on America’s conscience.

The economic thrust driving American foreign policy is perhaps most evident in Vietnam. As with the Second World War, the economic motive is often absent from the popular historical memory. Given the conflict’s context in the Cold War, it is easy to interpret America’s involvement in Vietnam as a result of Cold War ideology, as part of a struggle for democracy and freedom against communism and oppression. The first half of this argument is easily refuted by a brief examination of U.S. policy. As early as 1945, America displayed undeniableambivalence concerning the sovereignty, self-determination, or independence of Vietnam.34 Though the popular leader Ho Chi Minh borrowed entire phrases from America’s Declaration of Independence when he issued a Vietnamese declaration of sovereignty, and though he sent eight pleas to the American president stating that “[u]nless great world powers and international relief organizations bring us immediate assistance we face imminent catastrophe,” Truman did nothing.35 A Viet Cong officer recalled this period when talking to an American soldier he had captured: “You were our heroes after the [Second World] war. We read American books and saw American films, and a common phrase in those days was “to be as rich and as wise as an American”. What happened?”36 Instead of supporting freedom and democracy in Vietnam, America allowed France to reoccupy the colony, securing French participation in America’s postwar policies in Europe. This decision led to a decade of struggle and resulted in the French withdrawal in 1954.

America’s actions once France withdrew were equally lacking in respect for democracy or freedom. The Eisenhower administration encouraged Ngo Dinh Diem, head of the South Vietnamese government, not to hold the elections scheduled under the 1954 Geneva Accords.37 Indeed, Eisenhower writes in his memoirs that he and every “knowledgeable” person he talked to unanimously agreed that “possibly 80 percent of the population” would have voted against Diem had free elections been held.38 Exceedingly unpopular with his people, Diem’s government was called “fascistic” by CIA officer Edward Lansdale, the director of America’s paramilitary team in South Vietnam.39 According to the Pentagon Papers, the Vietnamese resistance was, in stark contrast to the Diem regime, the only movement with any “real support and influence on a broad base.”40 Under the watch of three consecutive presidents, America labelled these groups “Viet Cong” and conducted a war against them and the surrounding population for more than a decade that involved American participation in torture, the massacre of civilians, the bombing of neighbouring Laos and Cambodia, the destabilization of the region, the devastation of the Vietnamese economy, and the deaths of millions of people.41

Of course, a loyal student of the Cold War would point out that, however dubious America’s position may have been with respect to independence, democracy, or human rights, sacrifices were necessary to resist communist domination. This approach bears a striking resemblance to the ideological argument for America’s involvement in the Second World War: the importance of fighting fascism necessitated an alliance with communism. However, for Vietnam, the argument is completely inverted: the importance of fighting communism necessitated an alliance with a “fascistic” regime. Such a total ideological reversal in a mere two decades, a paradigm shift of near-Orwellian proportions, may be explained by recognizing that ideology was simply not the primary factor in America’s involvement. As before, economic interests were crucial. Powerful evidence exists to support this thesis. In 1963, while President John F. Kennedy spoke to his fellow-Americans about communism and freedom, his Undersecretary of State Alexis Johnson made a different case for America’s involvement in Indochina: “Why is it desirable, and why is it important? It provides … room to expand [and] rich exportable surpluses.”42 This was no new argument. Ten years earlier, a congressional study mission reported that Indochina was “immensely wealthy in rice, rubber, coal, and iron ore. Its position makes it a strategic key.”43 In 1966 and 1967, while President Lyndon Johnson told Americans the familiar story about resisting communism at every opportunity, America purchased more than $2 million in magnesium from the Soviet Union in order to maintain its aircraft industry.44 America’s actions in the 1960s – including its involvement in Vietnam – were not as anti-communist as its presidents’ speeches suggest. As in Cuba and Western Europe, the U.S. government’s primary concern in Vietnam was largely economic.

Thus, American foreign policy may consistently be understood by examining its economic interests.1 Other explanations – those invoking democracy, human rights, regional stability, or ideology – consistently fail to provide a reliable account of U.S. action. As a result, the effects of American foreign policy have been similarly inconsistent. American actions were largely detrimental to Cubans and Vietnamese, but have arguably benefited more Western Europeans than they have harmed. Notably, some observers today argue that current American foreign policy does not represent a significant departure from the historical trend.45 Indeed, in its ongoing War on Terror, the Bush administration has sacrificed ideological consistency in the pursuit of economic interests, channelling the bulk of its military resources into an oil-rich nation that neither harboured nor financed terrorism, blatantly violating human rights and international treaties, and contributing to instability in the Middle East. If historians can recognize the primacy of economic motivations for American action in the past, then perhaps the rest of us may realize the implications to the present.