Thom M Armstrong. Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy. Editor: Richard Dean Burns, et al., 2nd Edition, Volume 2, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2002.
The term “neutrality” is generally used to designate the legal status under international law of a sovereign state that seeks to avoid involvement in an armed conflict between belligerent states, protect its rights, and exercise its responsibilities as a neutral. Consequently, a neutral state under international law or practice asserts that it has the right to remain at peace and prohibit sovereign acts by belligerents within its jurisdiction, and also a responsibility to treat belligerents impartially. Customary international law, treaties, and relevant domestic legislation confirm such rights and responsibilities. A nation’s sovereignty extends to its territory, its ships on the high seas, and the air space above its territory. These principles were, for the most part, reconfirmed in the late twentieth century by the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) from 1972 to 1982. After reviewing the entire historical body of law related to maritime issues, the conference produced the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Among other things, the convention established the breadth of territorial seas and economic zones and guaranteed traditional rights of navigation on the high seas as well as overflight.
Neutral states may engage in all legal international intercourse; therefore, neutrality is not synonymous with isolation, nor should it be confused with neutralism or nonalignment, terms that refer to peacetime foreign policies of nations desiring to remain detached from conflicting interests of other nations or power groups. This concept of neutrality has its origins in western Europe after the rise of independent states following the Peace of Westphalia at the close of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648.
Respect for, and acceptance of, neutrality as having any bearing in international law or practice developed slowly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the time, Europe was in a state of anarchy and neutrals’ rights were limited to what was acceptable to belligerents. The little advancement that did occur was largely the result of rivalry among states for trade and territory in the New World. Spain and Portugal’s attempts to divide the New World between themselves, establish a monopoly of trade and colonization there, and close the seas to other nations was soon challenged by early writers on international law. In 1608 Hugo Grotius advanced the doctrine that since the seas could not be occupied, they could not become the property of any person or nation. Like the air, the seas were therefore the common property of all men. Although Spain and Portugal accepted this doctrine somewhat begrudgingly, it was firmly established by the end of the seventeenth century, and the notion of neutrality started to evolve among nations.
In general, restraints on trade revolved around the laws of blockade, the definition of contraband of war, the principle that free ships make free goods, and the right of neutrals to trade between the ports of belligerents. In all of these situations, the restraints on neutrals resulted from the obvious desire of belligerents to prevent their enemies from receiving war materials or other goods that may be needed in war. The law of blockade was an outgrowth of the law of siege in land warfare. Governments acknowledged the practice that a city or a place effectively besieged could be legally cut off from all outside help. When this principle was applied to ports, a blockade had to be effective in order for it to be legal; however, it was difficult, particularly during the age of sail, to seal a port completely. No precise definition of effectiveness was ever found, although an attempt was made in some commercial treaties to establish that a blockaded port had to be sufficiently guarded so as to render a ship “in imminent danger of capture” if it attempted to run the blockade.
The laws governing contraband of war have a long history. Under a late medieval code, Consolato del Mare, all goods destined for an enemy, in belligerent or other ships, were subject to seizure. Early in the seventeenth century, commercial treaties started to distinguish between contraband and noncontraband. The earliest example of this was the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of Southampton in 1625. Ordinarily, such treaties contained lists of goods under both categories, but uniformity in such lists was difficult, except that obvious materials of war were always considered contraband. The idea that free ships make free goods was associated with the issue of contraband. In essence, the concept meant that a ship’s nationality determined the status of its cargo, and that enemy goods on a neutral ship, excepting contraband, would not be subject to capture on the high seas.
The Eighteenth Century
By the time of the American Revolution, a considerable body of customary law existed relative to the rights of neutrals, derived from European commercial treaties and the writings of jurists. Although the law was quite nebulous because it lacked uniformity in practice or means of enforcement, it nonetheless provided a basis for American policy.
A basic tenet of early American foreign policy was to remain free from European conflicts. Known as the Doctrine of the Two Spheres, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had indirectly asserted it in 1644. There were two aspects to this doctrine. One was that a European nation might restrict the trade of its colonials to the mother country although allowing trade between its metropolitan citizens and other metropolitan areas. The other was that wars in Europe between colonial powers would not extend to their colonials and, conversely, those conflicts between their colonies would not spread to Europe. The doctrine failed, for all practical purposes, under the pressures of colonial wars, but the Doctrine of the Two Spheres (the belief that the United States’ destiny could be separate from Europe’s) was advanced in the Continental Congress’s debates over the question of independence. Clearly, this argument is evident in Thomas Paine’s influential pamphlet Common Sense (1776) Americans saw themselves as victims of British mercantile policy. As long as the colonies were linked to the mother country, they would be drawn inevitably into Britain’s wars, ones in which the colonies had no real interest. If they had been allowed to trade freely without restrictions, they would have flourished.
In June 1776 the Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft a declaration of independence and one to develop a plan of government, while also appointing a third committee, chaired by John Adams, to pen a model treaty for the conduct of foreign relations. The committee that worked on the model treaty studied the commercial treaties of Europe and drew from them the provisions on neutral rights that were most likely to be accepted by European nations in commercial relations with the United States.
The Model Treaty of 1776 represented a liberal interpretation of neutral rights. The list of contraband was restricted and short. The treaty called for free trade between countries at war and acceptance of the principle that free ships make free goods. The subsequent treaty of amity and commerce with France, a companion to the treaty of alliance of 1778, contained provisions that Americans had espoused in the model treaty. The United States then sought to make similar treaties with other European nations. When Catherine the Great of Russia issued a declaration of the rights of neutrals in 1780 and called for the formation of the Armed Neutrality to enforce those rights, Americans were optimistic. Although in principle Spain, Holland, and other neutral nations accepted the tenets of the declaration, Holland was the only other country with whom the United States signed a formal treaty during the Revolutionary War. Following the end of the war, the United States signed treaties of amity and commerce with Sweden in 1783, Prussia in 1785, and Morocco in 1787.
Although the United States signed commercial treaties with several nations following the Treaty of Paris (1783), it did not succeed in concluding similar treaties with Britain or Spain, two major maritime powers. Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, Britain had recognized the independence of the United States, even though she treated the fledgling nation with disdain and did not even fully respect the commercial provisions of the treaty to which she had agreed. Although subjected at times to inconveniences, annoyances, and insults, American trade with Great Britain was nonetheless lucrative. No serious problems arose until the outbreak of war between Britain and France in 1793. The wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon would seriously threaten America’s ability to remain neutral, although the United States sought measures to ensure against becoming involved militarily while at the same time promoting its commercial interests.
The American desire to remain free from European affairs and to stay neutral in European wars was associated with the goal of protecting American neutral rights. One of the reasons for the establishment of a stronger central government under the Constitution of 1787 was a desire to retaliate against British restrictions on American trade. This desire increased as Britain seized enemy goods on American ships and impressed sailors, alleged to be British citizens, serving on American merchant and naval vessels. Both practices violated the principle that free ships make free goods, that a nation’s sovereignty applied also to its ships on the high seas. The official nationality of an impressed seaman was irrelevant. The fact that Congress would most likely retaliate against high-handed British measures in defense of national honor alarmed many who felt that the United States might be drawn into the war on the side of revolutionary France.
The American position during the French revolutionary wars was complicated by the fact that the United States had treaties of commerce and alliance with France dating back to 1778. In a technical sense, these treaties violated the Doctrine of the Two Spheres, as well as the principle of impartial treatment of a neutral toward a belligerent. However, the treaties had been consummated during the desperate days of the American Revolution, when doctrine was expendable if necessary to gain alliances that might help secure independence from Great Britain. Under the treaty of alliance, the United States guaranteed to France its territories in America, a provision that the French might invoke if their possessions were attacked. Under the treaty of commerce, the United States would allow French warships and privateers to enter American ports and sell their prizes, something denied to France’s enemies. From the French perspective, this enabled them to outfit privateers in American ports. Concerned that the terms of the French alliance might drag the fledgling republic into the European conflagration, President George Washington, with the encouragement of his anti-French secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, sought to pursue a neutral course. This was much to the chagrin of the president’s pro-French and anti-British secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson. On 22 April 1793 the president issued his Neutrality Proclamation. In doing so, Washington advised that the United States should “with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers.” Although the federal courts already had jurisdiction under an act of 24 September 1789 to deal with cases involving international law, Congress nonetheless passed the Neutrality Act of 5 June 1794, giving the courts additional authority.
A test of the terms of the Franco-American treaties came in 1793, when “Citizen” Edmond Genêt, minister to the United States of the French Girondin revolutionary government, arrived in the country in April and was warmly received by the American people. Genêt’s activities, however, soon caused the Washington administration considerable consternation. The terms of the 1778 treaty with France, Genêt argued, allowed for the outfitting of French privateers in American ports in order to prey upon British merchant ships. Having arrived in the United States with little money, Genêt also had been instructed to prevail upon the Washington administration for repayment of the American revolutionary war debt owed to France. This money would be used in recruiting American sailors and in funding privateering operations against British shipping. Washington and Hamilton both opposed payment and viewed the outfitting of French privateers as a violation of American neutrality. Even Jefferson, while sympathetic to the French, believed that the United States had to prohibit them from using American ports for hostile purposes.
Ultimately, Genêt’s activities convinced Washington to request his recall, and in February 1794 Genêt’s successor, Joseph Fauchet, arrived in Philadelphia. A change in the French government that brought the Jacobins into power caused Genêt, who would probably have been executed upon his return to France, to request political asylum from Washington, who granted it. Washington’s demand for Genêt’s recall had prompted the French government to ask for the corresponding recall of the American minister to France, Gouverneur Morris, whose involvement in French politics had irritated the French revolutionary government. Washington had sent U.S. Supreme Court chief justice John Jay on a special mission to England, causing the French to fear an Anglo-American rapprochement in spite of the 1778 Franco-American treaty. In an attempt to allay French fears and suspicions, Washington appointed James Monroe of Virginia, a well-known pro-French Jeffersonian, to replace Morris as American minister to France.
In seeking to reduce tensions between the United States and Great Britain, Jay’s mission to London secured a treaty of commerce and navigation. Jay’s Treaty of 19 November 1794 was, in some ways, more remarkable for what it did not contain than what it included. For the first time, Great Britain had signed a commercial treaty, though limited in scope, with an independent United States. Most lacking in the treaty, however, was any reference to the British practice of impressing American seamen. On the principle that free ships make free goods, Jay conceded an important neutral point. When terms of the treaty leaked out, Americans, especially Jeffersonian Republicans, denounced it. To many, including the French, the treaty was viewed as a betrayal of the French alliance and a pro-British move by a Federalist administration. In response, the French renewed their seizure of American merchant vessels, intervened in American politics, and laid the groundwork for the reestablishment of a French empire in North America. Despite the treaty’s limitations, and with mixed feelings, President Washington signed it. One of the indirect consequences of the treaty was a new settlement with Spain in the form of Pinckney’s Treaty of October 1795. Fearing that Jay’s Treaty foreshadowed an Anglo-American alliance that would threaten Spanish territories in North America, Spain acquiesced to most American demands. It agreed to a narrowed list of contraband, the right to trade with belligerents except under conditions of an effective blockade, and acceptance of the principle that free ships make free goods.
Jay’s Treaty not only had a significant impact on American foreign relations; it was also important to American domestic politics. Reaction to the treaty contributed to the development of formal political parties in the United States: Republicans, who were basically pro-French, and Federalists, who were basically pro-British. When details of Jay’s Treaty became known to the French, they were convinced that the Federalist administration was pro-British and was repudiating its obligations to its revolutionary war ally. On 2 July 1796 the French government announced that it would treat neutral powers the way the British treated them; namely, France would renew its seizure of American merchant vessels. When Republican James Monroe, who had replaced Gouverneur Morris as minister to France, suggested that Federalists like Washington and Adams would be thrown out of office in the election of 1796, the president recalled him. The Directory, the new French government, determined that it would not receive another American minister plenipotentiary until its grievances had been resolved.
Efforts to resolve the issues between the two countries produced the notorious XYZ Affair, in which French officials sought to bribe an American delegation for the mere privilege of meeting with them. In response to this perceived insult Congress, during the summer of 1798, declared all treaties with France abrogated. President John Adams, who had succeeded George Washington, was authorized to employ the navy to protect American merchant ships from French spoliation in the Atlantic Ocean. Additionally, American merchant vessels were authorized to arm themselves for defensive purposes and to seize French armed vessels if attacked. On 2 March 1799, Congress created the Department of the Navy.
The Nineteenth Century
The so-called Quasi-War with France lasted until 1801. President Adams wisely took advantage of a change in the French government and negotiated the Convention of 1800, destroying his chances at reelection in 1796. Many Federalists, including Hamilton, who sought a war with France and an Anglo-American rapprochement, felt betrayed by Adams. The convention abrogated the 1778 alliance with France, but retained the commercial provisions and liberal definition of neutral rights characteristic of the earlier commercial treaty. This agreement, together with the Peace of Amiens (1802) that temporarily ended the European war, enabled the United States to pursue a course independent of the European conflict while at the same time maintaining its neutral rights. Under the provisions of the Convention of 1800, the interdiction on American trade pertaining to all countries except Great Britain and France was removed, and the president was authorized to permit trade with the two great powers if they should cease violating the neutral trade of the United States. However, with the resumption of war between Great Britain and France, and its expansion by 1805 with the formation of the Third Coalition against Napoleon, each side sought to gain advantage by shutting off the other’s trade. In this deadly duel between the leading belligerents, neutral rights were once again neither recognized or respected.
In 1805, in the case of the Essex, a British admiralty court ruled that the practice by which American ships carried goods from French colonies to France, with only a brief stop in an American port, did not constitute a broken voyage but, in reality, was a continuous voyage. Thus, French goods were not neutralized and were therefore subject to seizure. Consequently, Britain passed a series of orders in council designed to impose a blockade of all ports controlled by France, thereby forcing American vessels to go first to Great Britain, pay fees, and allow their goods to be subject to search and seizure. France retaliated with its Berlin and Milan Decrees, placing an embargo on all trade with Britain, and ordering the seizure of all ships that had paid the fees demanded by the Orders in Council, arguing that neutral vessels which did so were no longer neutral but British, and thus liable to seizure. Subsequent decrees also allowed for the arrest of American ships in ports controlled by France and the confiscation of their cargoes. These and subsequent acts and other retaliatory measures by both belligerents, although primarily directed toward each other, nonetheless violated American rights and severely threatened American trade with Europe and its colonies. Lacking effective military and naval power to protect its shipping, the United States attempted through negotiations with Britain, and peaceable economic coercion directed at both Britain and France, to force both belligerents to respect American neutral rights. The Monroe-Pinkney Treaty (1806) with Britain failed to achieve guarantees for American neutral rights. In fact, so unsatisfactory was the treaty that President Thomas Jefferson refused even to submit it to the Senate for ratification.
Calculating that American trade was essential to the British, and to a lesser extent to the French, the United States employed coercive measures, beginning with the Non-Importation Act of 1806. This measure prohibited certain British manufactures from being exported to the United States. In 1807 Jefferson imposed the Embargo Act, a measure that prohibited American ships from leaving American ports. Although many American merchant vessels failed to adhere to the embargo, particularly as time elapsed and it failed to achieve its objectives, the embargo still severely restricted American trade, caused a depression, and produced intense political and sectional feelings in the country. In 1809 British minister David Erskine negotiated the Erskine Agreement with the United States, and President Madison prematurely lifted the embargo. When the treaty reached England, it was repudiated by the British government and Madison, somewhat humiliated, was forced to reimpose the embargo.
In 1809, under severe economic and political pressures, the Madison administration replaced the Embargo and the Non-Importation Act with a watered-down version of the embargo known as the Non-Intercourse Act. This measure opened trade to the world, except for Britain, France, and their possessions. In 1810 the Non-Intercourse Act was replaced by Macon’s Bill No. 2, which reopened trade with even Britain and France, but stipulated that if one belligerent rescinded its restrictive measures, the United States would then impose nonintercourse against the other. When Napoleon’s government implied that it was rescinding the Continental Decrees against American commerce, Madison jumped at the promise on face value when, in reality, France continued to seize American ships and cargoes. As Britain refused to rescind its orders in council when evidence confirmed that France had not actually stopped violating American neutral rights, Madison issued a proclamation, backed by the Non-Importation Act of 1811, prohibiting British goods from being imported into the United States.
Although the United States resented both Great Britain and France, the issues with the British were more long-standing and had greater impact. Many factors contributed to the War of 1812 with Britain, but certainly violation of American neutral rights, impressment of American seamen, and defense of national honor were major contributing factors. The war ended with neither belligerent achieving its expressed purposes. However, the establishment of peace and the conclusion of an Anglo-American treaty of commerce, as well as an agreement to limit naval armaments on the Great Lakes and to settle boundary and fisheries disputes, launched a new relationship between the two nations. After the Treaty of Ghent of 1814, which ended the war with Britain, and the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, there were no major maritime wars for the rest of the century. Thus ended an epoch in the American struggle for neutral rights.
A new phase in the American policy of neutrality was brought about by revolutions in the colonies of Spanish America. Officially, the United States did not play a role in these revolutions and was not particularly concerned about them until such time as any had established permanent governments and therefore warranted recognition as independent states. However, when it looked like one or more European powers might assist Spain in restoring its American empire, President James Monroe in 1823 issued a message to Congress, largely written by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, that came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine. In essence, Monroe’s message was a reaffirmation of the Doctrine of the Two Spheres. It also announced that while the United States would refrain from involvement in European affairs, it opposed any further European colonization of the Western Hemisphere, an extension of Europe’s political systems to American states, or efforts to interfere in their internal affairs. Although Congress did not confirm the Monroe Doctrine and there was no occasion that developed immediately to test it, it became a cornerstone of American foreign policy and a justification for future acts that attempted to establish U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere in the decades to follow.
From 1823 until the American Civil War, the United States had no serious problems regarding neutrality. It officially maintained a neutral position during the Texas War for Independence (1835-1836) and the Canadian Uprising of 1837. During the Mexican War (1846-1848) the United States was able to establish an effective, and therefore legal, blockade of Mexican ports. When the Crimean War broke out in 1854, Britain and France agreed to a set of principles that were later codified and proclaimed by the leading European nations as the Declaration of Paris of 1856. This declaration acknowledged the long-standing American position that free ships make free goods, and that a blockade must be effective to be legal. It also contained the principles that noncontraband goods on enemy ships should be free from capture and that privateers should not be commissioned. As the United States was unwilling to surrender its right to commission privateers, and as it hoped to secure an additional agreement that all private property except contraband would be free, it failed to endorse the declaration. Ironically, after the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the United States agreed to adhere to the declaration if its provisions were applied to the Confederacy. This offer was rejected by such nations as Britain and France.
The beginning of the Civil War saw the United States in an anomalous situation regarding its position on neutrality. War was not declared against the Confederacy, nor was belligerent status accorded it. Rather, the administration of Abraham Lincoln considered Union military operations to be a police action against rebellious citizens. Given this view, when Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of Confederate ports on 19 April 1861, it was a domestic action and did not have to be effective in order to be legal. However, when Britain declared neutrality on 13 May 1861, it in effect granted the Confederacy belligerent status that, among other things, meant Britain would consider a blockade of Confederate ports subject to the usual rules of international law. Since the United States did not have sufficient naval power to make the blockade effective until later in the war, the Confederate government, while also pursuing diplomatic recognition, hoped that European nations would challenge the blockade’s legality. This did not occur, however, largely because Great Britain concluded that its long-term interests would be best served by accepting the Union interpretation of a blockade’s effectiveness. Before the end of the war, Confederate trade with Europe was almost completely stifled because of superior Union naval strength and the capture of major Confederate ports.
In addition to its position on blockade, the United States adopted the doctrine of continuous voyage, a principle taken from British prize law: a ship carrying contraband goods for a belligerent could be captured on the high seas in voyage from a neutral port to another neutral port whenever such a port was only a way station and not the ultimate destination of the cargo. The adoption and use of this doctrine by the United States established a precedent in American policy that was useful to Britain and the Allies in their conflict with the Central Powers when the United States was still a neutral state prior to its entry into World War I.
One incident occurred during the Civil War that caused the British to assert their rights as a neutral. This was the Trent affair of 8 November 1861, when an American naval vessel on the high seas stopped a British mail steamer, the Trent. On board were two Confederate diplomats on their way to England. The ship was boarded and the two diplomats were arrested and sent to prison in Boston. News of this violation of British neutral rights produced an immediate response from the British government, which demanded the release of the Confederates and an apology. For a short time there was even talk of war as the British undertook preparations. On the American side, with no desire for war with Britain given its pre-occupation with the challenges of civil war, Secretary of State William H. Seward acquiesced to British demands and conflict was averted.
Aside from the Trent affair, the most significant conflict over neutral rights and duties during the Civil War was the construction and outfitting of warships (designed to be commerce raiders). This was significant primarily in relations between the United States and Britain, whose laws permitted—as did international law—the sale of merchant ships to belligerents, but prohibited the sale of warships. The Confederacy sought to circumvent this prohibition by having vessels built ostensibly as merchant ships, but constructed in such a way so as to be easily converted into warships at sea or in a Confederate port. The most notorious case, albeit not the only one, was the Confederate cruiser Alabama. The United States contended that Great Britain had failed to live up to its obligations as a neutral by allowing the Alabama to leave British waters. The British government asserted that the Alabama was a merchant vessel until it was significantly altered and equipped with naval armament in a Confederate port. This controversy continued throughout the Civil War, and was not resolved until the Treaty of Washington in 1871. In addition to the United States being awarded $15.5 million by an international tribunal, the significance of the treaty was in the concession by Great Britain that a neutral had an obligation to use “due diligence” in preventing a ship from being built “in whole or in part” as a warship for a belligerent. Although only signatories were bound by the treaty, the principle was subsequently incorporated in a convention on the rights and duties of neutrals at the Second Hague Conference (1907), the difference being that the imprecise rule of “due diligence” was changed to the obligation of a neutral to use the “means at its disposal.”
The Twentieth Century
During the years between the American Civil War and the outbreak of World War I, the United States experienced no serious problems connected with its own neutral rights. While promoting its strategic interests, the United States failed in one situation to adhere strictly to its obligations as a neutral nation and to live up to its treaty obligations. During the Panamanian Revolution of 1903, the United States departed from its neutral position by preventing the landing in Panama of Colombian troops attempting to suppress the revolution. In the same action, the United States violated its treaty obligations with Colombia in a 1846 treaty that pledged the United States to guarantee the “rights of sovereignty and property” of Colombia over the Isthmus of Panama. In 1921 the United States compensated Colombia for its loss of Panama.
At the Second Hague Conference, the United States sought to secure an agreement on the rights and duties of neutrals that included the principle that had been advocated by the United States since 1784: that noncontraband neutral private property was exempt from capture. Although the conference adopted a convention on neutral rights, so many significant issues remained unresolved, such as the one of private property, that a separate meeting of the major maritime powers was organized to consider those issues. They met in London in 1908, and the following year issued the Declaration of London. The declaration provided for the most extensive and, as far as neutrals were concerned, the most liberal rules governing neutral trade that had ever been achieved. Although they did not prohibit the capture of private property, they did enumerate an extensive list of free goods and limited the principle of continuous voyage to absolute contraband. Universal acceptance of the declaration would have benefited neutral trade with belligerents, and it would have assisted those belligerents who would have profited from such trade. However, it would have restricted other belligerents in the exercise of rights previously recognized under generally acceptable rules of international law. Consequently, Britain rejected the Declaration of London, and as universal ratification was not achieved, the United States did not ratify the treaty, although the Senate had consented to it.
When World War I began the United States, under President Woodrow Wilson, issued a declaration of neutrality on 4 August 1914. Issues concerning American neutral rights arose most seriously with Britain and Germany. The British did not establish a traditional close blockade of German ports. Rather, it gradually expanded the contraband list to include goods that could be used to manufacture war materials and those that would be of significant value to the German war effort. The British also made extensive use of the doctrine of continuous voyage. The United States protested British maritime practices; however, Britain possessed a basis in international law for its policies. No precise lists of contraband had ever been universally accepted. The idea that some materials on a free list might become contraband had been a feature of treaties since the seventeenth century. During the American Civil War, the United States had added naval stores and “articles of like character with those specifically enumerated” to the contraband list. The doctrine of continuous voyage was also firmly based in international practice and had been sanctioned by the United States during the Civil War. Even under the Declaration of London (1909), in which the principle of continuous voyage was limited to absolute contraband, the legal extension of such contraband was admitted. Although the United States might have protested the extremes to which Britain carried its maritime policies, it had no solid basis in international law to deny their validity, nor did it grant to the Allies rights prohibited to the Central Powers. General American sympathy for the Allied cause, plus ties of culture and economics, precluded the United States from forcefully defending its neutral rights, or engaging in retaliation as it had during the Napoleonic Wars. Furthermore, Germany’s reliance upon the submarine, which caused not only property damage but also the loss of lives, came for most Americans to overshadow any actions by Great Britain.
The conflict between the United States and Germany stemmed largely from German insistence upon the use of unrestricted submarine warfare. The United States did not oppose a German blockade of Allied ports if the blockade were proclaimed and effective, nor did it deny the right of Germany to stop neutral ships on the high seas and to seize both the cargo and the ship if it carried contraband. In an attempt to break the tightening of the British blockade and deny the British supplies from across the Atlantic, Germany—in a proclamation of 4 February 1915—declared a war zone in the waters around Britain, including the English Channel. Germany threatened to sink all merchant vessels, including neutrals, without warning or providing for the safety of passengers and crew. The United States replied on 10 March 1915 that if American ships were so destroyed or American lives lost, this would be “an indefensible violation of neutral rights” and that it would “take any steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard American lives and property.”
Although early attacks on American ships prompted protests from the United States, it was not until the sinking of the British liner Lusitania on 7 May 1915, with the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans, that the American government vehemently protested. In the first Lusitania note from the Wilson government to Germany, the United States insisted that German submarines stop firing on merchant vessels. In a second Lusitania note, the United States threatened direct action if Germany did not stop its unrestricted use of the submarine against merchant vessels. In a conciliatory reply and an offer for compensation, Germany sought to defuse the situation with the United States. However, on 19 August 1915 the British liner Arabic was sunk, claiming two Americans. To stave off possible American retaliation, Germany issued the socalled Arabic Pledge, a promise that submarines would not attack passenger ships without providing warning and making provisions to rescue passengers and crews. In March 1916 a German submarine torpedoed the French liner Sussex, resulting in the injury of two Americans. From the American perspective, this appeared to be a violation of the Arabic Pledge and Wilson threatened to break off diplomatic relations. The German government once again tried to assuage the Americans by reaffirming the Arabic Pledge.
Germany had failed to achieve military victory by the summer of 1916. With serious political and social problems developing at home, and the German high command concerned about the will of the German people to continue the war, a last major all-out offensive on the western front was planned for the spring of 1917. In a desperate gamble designed to deprive the Allies of vital foodstuffs and materials, the German government resumed unrestricted submarine warfare on 1 February 1917, fully aware that this was likely to bring the United States into the war on the side of the Allies. The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. Following the sinking of several U.S. ships by German submarines in March, the United States declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. Several factors contributed to American entry into the war, but preservation of neutral rights was a key one.
By the end of World War I, President Wilson had determined that in the interests of humanity, as well as national security, a new approach to world peace was necessary. He was able to convince most of the major statesmen in the world to accept this need and the Covenant of the League of Nations was the outcome. The signatories to the covenant agreed “to preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League.” If a member of the league resorted to war in disregard of its obligations under the covenant, then members of the league would prohibit all trade and financial relations with the covenant-violating state. Furthermore, nonmembers of the league would also be required to abide by these sanctions. Thus, the traditional rights of neutrals to trade with belligerents would be prohibited. However, when Japan violated the Covenant in 1931 by invading Manchuria, and Italy followed in 1935 with its invasion of Abyssinia, the league failed to impose sanctions at all in the first case, and only partially and ineffectively in the second. The league system of collective security collapsed. The extent to which American refusal to join the league contributed to the failure of the League of Nations failure is debatable.
In the twenty years after World War I, the United States rejected the League of Nations, pursued nationalistic economic policies, promoted naval arms limitations, and signed feeble and useless pacts, such as the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 and the London Naval Treaties of 1930 and 1936. At the same time it focused overwhelmingly on domestic affairs and displayed apparent indifference to the moral and political disintegration of world order. When the specter of another world war arose, the nation naively sought to isolate itself from world affairs and pursued safety in the abandonment of its once-cherished neutral rights, for which it had fought two foreign wars. American neutrality had never meant simply noninvolvement in world affairs. Rather, it meant the determination to support the rights of its people under rules of international law that, in turn, would contribute to the civilized conduct of nations.
This reversal of America’s traditional policy was accomplished through a series of congressional neutrality acts commencing in 1935 and reaching their most comprehensive form in the Neutrality Act of 1937. Believing that American insistence upon its historical defense of neutral rights, along with the greed of bankers and arms merchants, had helped to suck the United States into World War I, Congress passed legislation that in essence repudiated traditional American views of neutral rights. Under these acts, if the president determined that a “state of war” existed among two or more foreign states, American citizens were prohibited from exporting arms, munitions, or implements of war to belligerents or to neutrals for transshipment to belligerents, or to a state where civil strife existed. The selling of securities or making of loans was prohibited, as was travel by American citizens on belligerent ships. American merchant vessels were not to be armed, and they were prohibited from carrying materials of war. Nonprohibited goods could be sold to belligerents, provided the title to them was transferred before being transported abroad. By renouncing its historical interpretation of neutral rights, so the thinking went, the United States could hope to escape being drawn into another foreign war.
Commensurate with this “new neutrality” policy, the United States moved to strengthen relations with Latin American nations. The Neutrality Act of 1937 specifically exempted Latin American states from its application in case of war between one or more of them and a non-American state. In a series of conferences between the United States and Latin America, beginning at Buenos Aires in 1936, the American republics agreed to preserve their neutrality and to act in concert in the event of any threat to their safety or independence. However, when war broke out in Europe and the United States began to alter its neutrality policies, it acted independently of its Latin American neighbors. During World War II some Latin American states that remained neutral referred to their status as “nonbelligerency,” a term without precise meaning in international law, but in reality an extension of commercial rights to the United States not accorded to other belligerents.
The “new neutrality” policy failed for many reasons. In actuality, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt the United States was not about to stand idly by and let the world be dominated by the aggressors who had signed the Tripartite Pact. Presidential acts as well as congressional measures eroded the new policy. President Roosevelt refused to recognize that a state of war existed between Japan and China, or between Russia and Finland. In the destroyers-for-bases deal of 1940, he sold or traded World War I-vintage warships to Great Britain, and extended the Monroe Doctrine to include the mid-Atlantic. In 1939 Congress repealed the arms embargo provisions of the Neutrality Act of 1937, cut trade with Japan, and passed the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, which in effect made the United States an unofficial ally of the nations opposing the Axis. By the end of October 1941, a virtual state of war existed between Germany and the United States, with President Roosevelt convinced that formal war would break out over some incident in the Atlantic between the two countries. However, as Japan was bent upon establishing its “greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere,” Roosevelt—in an effort to pressure the Japanese to relinquish their conquests in China and Southeast Asia—ultimately cut off all exports to Japan. Convinced that the United States meant to strangle Japan, its government in 1941 undertook plans to attack and, if possible, destroy the American Pacific fleet. When the attack on Pearl Harbor came on 7 December 1941, followed in quick succession with an American declaration of war on the Japanese Empire and German and Italian declarations of war on the United States, history witnessed the end of the United States as a neutral nation, at least in a traditional sense.
Prior to the formal conclusion of World War II, the United States reversed its traditional policy for the second time since 1920 by playing the leading role in establishing the United Nations. While the Charter of the United Nations differed significantly from the Covenant of the League of Nations, its impact on the concept of neutrality was basically the same. The Security Council of the United Nations was assigned the primary responsibility for world peace and for taking action against a state deemed to have threatened the peace of the world. Such action could be in the form of economic sanctions, which have had the effect of eroding the historical rights of neutrals.
Because of the preeminent political, economic, and military position of the United States in world affairs since the end of World War II, the nation was involved in numerous armed conflicts, some of which, like Vietnam, were protracted, even though war was never declared. The United States intervened, covertly and overtly, throughout the world where it felt its interests, or its vision of a desirable world order, was threatened, with little regard to concepts of neutral rights. In other situations, such as in the Korean War or the Persian Gulf War, the United States operated under the umbrella of the United Nations. Neutrality, a cornerstone of American foreign policy since before the establishment of the republic, was no longer relevant. Although there were some in the United States who hoped the country could once again return to an independent, neutral position in the world, President Harry S. Truman and other policymakers pursued international economic and military policies that were essential for the promotion of international trade, expansion of democratic ideals, prevention of another postwar depression, and stopping the spread of communism.
The wartime conferences at Yalta and Potsdam, followed by a series of Council of Foreign Ministers’ meetings, were characterized by mutual suspicion and mistrust, and foreshadowed the rivalry that would come to be called the Cold War. Although the Western powers were already skeptical of Soviet intentions in territories they had liberated in Eastern Europe, the issue over Iran gave cause for Western alarm. In late 1945 a communist-orchestrated revolution broke out in the oil-rich region of Azerbaijan in northern Iran, particularly when the Soviets sent troops and arms to assist the revolutionaries. In addition, the Soviets failed to pull out of Iran in March 1946, as they had agreed previously. Although the Soviets withdrew in May after receiving minor concessions from Iran, their actions in the Near East, commensurate with increasing tensions in Eastern Europe, helped convince Truman that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin meant no good. Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech in March 1946, a United States decision against a loan to the Soviets, the termination of German reparations to the USSR from the American occupation zone in Germany, American promotion of the Baruch Plan to control atomic weapons testing and development, and other issues concerning Germany heightened the feelings of mistrust between the Western powers and the Soviets.
The United States was anything but neutral in the Greek civil war and was extremely concerned about Soviet pressure on Turkey. If successful there, the Soviets would gain access to the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean, and the oil-rich Middle East. Western Europe would most likely collapse and the British Mediterranean barrier to Soviet expansion and influence would be breached if Greece and Turkey fell.
Fighting had broken out in Greece in December 1944 between rightists, who tended to support the return of the monarchist government in exile, and communists. Under the terms of an uneasy truce reached at Varkiza in February 1946, an election was to be held to determine the form of government, and then another election was to take place for a constituent assembly. However, in the days before the election the conservative government repressed the opposition to the monarchy. By the time the election was to occur in March, both the British and the Americans had reneged on the procedures agreed to at Varkiza. Although a general election and plebiscite were held, the communists boycotted them. The results seemingly indicated support for the return of the king. These actions set off a civil war that was largely internal in origin. Many Americans, however, assumed it was Soviet coordinated, and by the spring of 1947 the situation seemed critical.
The gravity of the Greek situation, coinciding as it did with Soviet demands on Turkey and the notification by Britain in the fall of 1947 that it could no longer afford to maintain its commitments to Greece and Turkey, compelled President Truman to act. The result was what became known as the Truman Doctrine, the provisions of which were enumerated before a joint session of Congress on 12 March 1947. In addressing Congress, Truman stated “that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” The Truman Doctrine, although initially directed at Greece and Turkey, had as its primary goal the “containment” of communism. The Truman Doctrine represented a watershed in American history. This policy it represented became the justification for American intervention, covertly and overtly, in the internal affairs of nations throughout the world, and it formed the basis for the establishment of regional security treaties that were directed against the Soviet Union and its perceived allies. The United States sought to contain communism in Europe through such measures as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the formation of NATO, and virtually every other part of the world witnessed American interventions calculated to stop communism’s spread.
In Asia the United States’ major concern was China. As World War II came to an end, civil war in China between the nationalist armies under Chiang Kai-shek, and the communists under Mao Zedong, resumed. Each side hoped to secure territory and supplies by accepting the surrender of Japanese troops in China and Manchuria. Although outwardly encouraging talks between the two rival factions, the United States nonetheless moved its troops and transported nationalist soldiers into key eastern and northern Chinese cities in order to accept the Japanese surrender. In northern China and Manchuria, fighting broke out between the two groups. The communists were assisted by the Soviets in Manchuria, and the nationalists were assisted by the Americans. Although American lend-lease assistance to its other allies had ended, it was continued in the case of China. In January 1946 it seemed that there was a glimmer of hope when President Truman sent General George C. Marshall to China as a special envoy to get the two sides to talk. The truce, however, proved illusory as each side maneuvered to gain the upper hand. The resulting civil war was one of the most bitter and devastating in modern history. In the end, Chiang Kaishek could not command the same level of popular support as Mao and the communists proclaimed victory in October 1949, with Chiang fleeing to Taiwan. The “loss” of China subjected the Truman administration to severe political criticism for not doing enough for China. In the final analysis, short of an all-out effort to support the Nationalists, nothing could have been done to prevent their defeat. Also, for Truman the most important foreign policy priority was shoring up Europe against Soviet threats. The thirty-year treaty of alliance negotiated by Mao and the Soviet Union in 1950 was further evidence to many Americans that worldwide communism was being orchestrated by the Soviets. As far as China was concerned, American efforts to contain communism had failed.
For the United States, intervention in Asian affairs would prove extremely frustrating. Under the umbrella of the United Nations, the Cold War suddenly became a hot war with the eruption of the Korean conflict in 1950, and at the beginning of the twenty-first century the peace between North and South Korea remained precarious. In Vietnam, the United States—influenced by the domino theory and convinced of its ability to impose an outcome because of its superior strength—foolishly involved itself in what was essentially a civil war in Vietnam. For two decades the United States was caught up in a quagmire that, in the end, witnessed consolidation of the country by the communists. What the United States had tried so hard to prevent came about anyway.
In the Western Hemisphere, the United States did not hesitate to intervene in the internal affairs of governments closer to its borders than those of Asia, Europe, the Middle East, or Africa. In countries such as Nicaragua, the United States supported right-wing dictators including General Anastasio Somoza. In Chile the Central Intelligence Agency played a significant role in a coup that saw the overthrow and subsequent death of the popularly elected Marxist president Salvador Allende, who was succeeded by the anticommunist and repressive General Augusto Pinochet. The United States openly intervened in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and other countries because of the belief that American interests were greatly threatened by governments that included communists or suspected communists. However, the stakes were never so high as they were in Cuba, first with the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, then with the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, which saw the world come to the brink of nuclear war as the Americans and Soviets stared down each other.
In the last decades of the twentieth century, the United States did not hesitate to continue intervening in the internal affairs of numerous nations around the word. However, there have been occasions where it sought to maintain the outward appearance of neutrality, particularly in the case of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). This war threatened to drag in other nations in a geopolitically sensitive part of the world. Passage through the Persian Gulf was threatened, which in turn posed a serious threat to oil interests. While the Soviet Union shrewdly tried to cater to both sides, the United States claimed it was neutral in the conflict. Clearly there was no love lost with Iran, what with the Iran hostage crisis still fresh in Americans’ minds, and relations with Iraq had only recently improved after the State Department removed Iraq from the official list of nations that sanctioned terrorism. Although publicly opposed to arms sales to Iraq, the United States nonetheless sent a large quantity of arms and supplies to Iraq’s ruler, Saddam Hussein. As the administration of President Ronald Reagan became more involved in the Middle East, its preference for Iraq over Iran became evident. Ironically, in the subsequent Gulf War of 1991, the United States under President George H. W. Bush put together a United Nations coalition of forty-eight countries against Hussein.
It may be premature to suggest that the concept of neutrality has come full circle since the Treaty of Westphalia and that the historical rights of neutrals under international law no longer exist. Conceivably, a war could take place in which the United Nations would not interfere and belligerents and neutrals would assert their traditional rights. However, given the realities of the modern world, particularly since the end of World War II, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, this does not seem to be a likely prospect. In the years since 1941, the traditional concept of American neutrality seems to have been irreversibly transformed.