Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of American Grand Strategy: How Generals, Weapons Manufacturers, and Foreign Governments Shape American Foreign Policy by Richard Hanania

Author:Richard Hanania [Hanania, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781032121802
Google: n5yazgEACAAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-12-15T12:57:00+00:00

Conclusion

IR scholars have long debated what strategies established powers adopt when responding to potential challengers. Realists tend to be pessimistic, holding that great powers are destined to be rivals and competitors, with war between them being plausible, if not likely, during power shifts. Liberal internationalists put their faith in the pacifying effects of trade and enlightened self-interest. Either way, leaders of the established power make rational decisions in the hopes of attaining long-term objectives. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, there have been two rising powers that threatened American primacy and gave the United States a long enough period of time to form a concerted government response. Luckily for the sake of testing the public choice framework, both of these countries were ideologically hostile to the United States, thus making them “most likely” cases in which a coherent strategy should have emerged.

The Soviet Union was considered a long-term threat to American interests from practically the moment Lenin and his disciples seized power in 1917. The most powerful figures in the American government went about countering this threat at home through censorship and immigration law, and by refusing to officially recognize the revolutionary regime. At the same time, American businesses were allowed to trade with and impart technical knowledge to the Soviet Union, thus making an ideological threat into a potential military one. While we cannot say for certain the extent to which business lobbying was responsible for the American decision to allow US individuals and corporations to financially benefit from relations with the Soviet Union, first-hand accounts indicate that it was a significant factor. More importantly, the semiofficial account given as to why the United States lifted the trade embargo in 1920 – that Soviet trade would never amount to much – is on its face absurd. If American leaders did actually believe this at the time, they had no good reason to, and in seeking an explanation for such a policy we must discard the assumption that it was part of an American grand strategy, or at least one that took into account long-term planning.

American business not only helped increase Soviet power through trade in goods. The technical assistance that the United States provided was key for building up some of the industries most relevant to determining military power: electricity, motor vehicles, and iron and steel production. The contrast between the behavior of American politicians and American businessmen through the 1920s and 1930s is quite jarring, and difficult to reconcile with the unitary actor model. It is not simply the case that certain private interests went against American policy; their actions directly subverted it, and there was little action on the part of the government to stop them. In fact, Republican administrations gave some encouragement to efforts to establish business ties with the Soviet Union, although they refrained from official recognition, which would have been the most important step politically (Siegel and Sibley 1996:62–88).

Upon coming into office, the Roosevelt administration saw recognition of the Soviet Union as necessary to check the rival powers of Germany and Japan.

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