USA und Mittelamerika: Die Außenpolitik von William J. Bryan, 1913-1915

Abstract

This study analyzes U.S. Secretary of State William J. Bryan’s Latin America policy from 1913 to 1915, a period in which the Woodrow Wilson administration confronted the Mexican Revolution, as well as civil wars in Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. Influenced by Arthur S. Link, Dietl portrays Bryan as the key architect of the initial “idealist phase” of Wilsonian diplomacy. In contrast to the “Dollar Diplomacy” that preceded this period, Dietl argues, Bryan and Wilson elevated the ideal of fostering representative government in Latin America to a key, although not exclusive, position in the formulation of U.S. policy. According to Dietl, although limited in the quest of this ideal by the perceived strategic imperatives of the Monroe Doctrine, Bryan’s Latin America policy amounted to an international version of Midwestern populism. Rooted in isolationism as well as a deep-seated fear of Eastern financial circles, it sought to limit European influence in Latin America as well as U.S. intervention on behalf of big business. Dietl contends that Bryan’s resignation as Secretary of State in 1915 allowed the Anglophile and pro-business wing of the Democratic Party to prevail. Soon thereafter, Robert Lansing’s Department of State reversed course and embroiled the United States in a series of costly conflicts throughout the globe. In effect, Dietl claims, the Bryan years constituted a hiatus in an era marked by the aggressive defense of U.S. economic interests in Latin America.Dietl begins his argument in four introductory chapters devoted to Bryan’s opposition to the War of 1898, his anti-imperialist candidacy for president, his advocacy of international arbitration of disputes, and his role in the Wilson administration. The following chapters discuss these four case studies of Bryan’s foreign policy in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico. The treatment of the first three of these cases remains brief, while Dietl’s analysis of U.S. intervention in the Mexican Revolution takes up a third of the book. The final chapter focuses on Bryan’s isolationist position toward World War I.This book leaves much to be desired. While Dietl argues persuasively that Bryan attempted to serve as an apostle of peace, his own examples demonstrate that isolationist intentions all too often translated into interventionist actions. It was the Wilson-Bryan tandem that sought to teach Latin Americans “how to elect good men,” and this team was at least as ready to use force as the preceding Taft administration. Not surprisingly, two of the most ignominious example of U.S. imperialism in Latin America— the occupation of Veracruz and the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty that destroyed the Central American treaty system—occurred under Bryan’s watch. Dietl’s argument that these numbers forestalled even more aggressive policies appears a feeble attempt to defend Bryan. Moreover, the book provides an overabundance of background information that proves tedious to the specialist and confusing to the lay reader. Concerned primarily with U.S. diplomacy, it does not yield any new insights on Latin American responses to Bryan’s policies. Finally, a myriad of minor factual and spelling errors concerning Latin American leaders and historical processes create the impression that Dietl did not carefully consider the impact of Bryan’s policies on those most affected by them—the governments and people of the Latin American countries.In sum, this book adds to our understanding of the complexity of the formulation of U.S. foreign policy during the early twentieth century. However, it fails to draw the inevitable conclusion from the material it presents: that Bryan’s Quixotic quest to substitute political principle for dollars and bullets did not slow U.S. interventionism. While this book should prove interesting to historians of Wilsonian diplomacy, it adds little to our understanding of the presence of el coloso del norte in Latin America.