Chapter 25: The Global Crisis, 1921-1941

• Isolationism 


  a foreign policy where the US minimizes its involvement in international affairs, focusing primarily on domestic issues

  • led by Father Coughlin, William Randolph Hearst, Charles Lindbergh, Senators Gerald Nye, Burton Wheeler
• Interventionists 


  individuals or political groups advocating for the United States to actively involve itself in the affairs of other countries, often through military, political, or economic means
• Washington Conference of 1921

  • purpose: An attempt to prevent a destabilizing naval armaments race among the US, Britain, and Japan
  • outcome: several nations agree to reduce militaries
  • supported by US Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes
• 5 Power Pact


  US, Britain, Japan, France, Italy: 5 tons of ships for US, 3 Japan, 1.75 for France and Italy
• Kellogg-Briand Pact

  an agreement that outlawed war (no enforcement mechanisms)

  • proposed by US Secretary of State Frank Kellogg after French minister Aristide Briand asked US to form an alliance against Germany
• Dawes Plan


  1924 agreement of massive loans to Germany -> Germany would repay reparations to Britain and France -> they would repay war debts to U.S.

  -> circular loans that ultimately end w/ stock market crash of 1929

  • negotiated by Chrales G Dawes VP under Coolidge
• Benito Mussolini --> Fascist Party in Italy
• Adolf Hitler --> National Socialist (Nazi) Party
• Hoover foreign policy:

  • avoided interventionism in Latin America
  • did not enforce the Roosevelt Corollary
• Hitler wanted to extend territory to provide lebensraum/living space for what he believed to be the "master race"
• Japan invades Manchuria in China in 1931 → US Secretary of State Henry Stimson issued stern warnings but ultimately League of Nations does nothing
• FDR's “Good Neighbor Policy”

  American effort to enhance diplomatic and econ relations w/Latin America
• Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act of 1934

  lowered some tariffs
• Nye Committee

  claimed that the US became involved in WWI so businesses could profit and that Wilson was pressured by bankers to protect their loans abroad

  • (flawed idea now but impactful investigation on the time on American standpoints)
  • committee chaired by Senator Gerald Nye from North Dakota
• Neutrality Act of 1935-1937

  • 1935 established a mandatory arms embargo against both sides in any military conflict & warned American citizens from traveling on the ships of warring nations
  • 1937 cash and carry policy
• FDR's Quarantine Speech

  In response to Japanese aggression, encouraged economic sanctions on Japan for their actions -> hostile public reaction
• Munich Conference

  Germany wanted to expand into Czechoslavakia (violation of Treaty of Versailles), nations let Germany if it promised to expand no further to avoid world war
• Policy of “appeasement”

  a diplomatic strategy where European powers, particularly Britain and France, made concessions to aggressive nations like Nazi Germany in the hopes of avoiding war by giving them what they wanted, most notably seen in the lead-up to World War II
• America First Committee

  isolationists
• Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies

  interventionists, favored aid
• “Lend-Lease”

  allowed the U.S. to provide arms to Britain w/out violating the Neutrality Acts
• Atlantic Charter

  Roosevelt and Churchill meet and essentially set war aims
• Tripartite Pact

  a loose defensive alliance w/ Germany, Italy, and Japan (although they never had super close relations)
• December 7, 1941 → air and naval forces attack the U.S. at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii

  Overnight the American people became pro-war → the next day FDR addresses Congress and war is declared