Foreign Affairs Washington’s Declaration of Foreign Policy Independence As we celebrate America 250, Washington’s Farewell Address is as relevant as ever. The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is upon us. And despite the celebratory mood inside the country, much about the world outside our borders seems grim and uncertain. This is particularly true in the Middle East, where, despite laudable efforts at peacemaking, the possibility of renewed war still looms. What makes this situation more frustrating is the fact that our own government has conceded this involvement occurred at the behest of a foreign country—one whose boosters seek to integrate it ever more closely into the machinery of American statecraft. Although this seems strange, it is not without precedent. During the early years of our republic, a similar situation prevailed with respect to France. Then, as now, a country with strong claims on Americans’ affections sought to influence our politics for its own ends, becoming in the process a lightning rod for partisan disagreement. During the Revolutionary War, France had played a pivotal role in securing our independence. After news of the American victory at Saratoga reached Europe in 1778, the French decided to intervene directly, seeing an opportunity to strike a major blow against their age-old rival England. Their involvement was a major factor in the war’s successful outcome. But it came with serious costs for the Bourbon monarchy, which—partly owing to debts incurred helping the American rebels—soon fell to a revolution of its own. At first, this development was greeted with jubilation across the Atlantic. The cause of democracy had been vindicated abroad, and now a closely-aligned great power was following America down the path of self-government. But as France embarked on a series of wars for the survival and expansion of its own revolutionary experiment, it began aggressively lobbying the United States to get involved, particularly by serving as a base for privateering and other forms of economic warfare against Great Britain. For the United States, it was an inconvenient time for a dust-up with the Brits. America was embroiled in difficult negotiations over Britain’s continuing occupation of forts in the Great Lakes, as well as its de facto sanctions regime on American traders in the Caribbean. The young U.S. was weak and unstable; another war with Britain could threaten its very viability as a state.  Doing whatever it took to avoid conflict, the Washington Administration both issued a Proclamation of Neutrality and successfully concluded the Jay Treaty of 1795, ensuring a lasting peace with Great Britain. The aim was strategic rather than ideological: despite the continuing solidarity of many Americans with their old ally, America’s national interests demanded non-involvement with Europe and peace with Britain. The Jay Treaty, in particular, was extremely controversial and helped create the nation’s first partisan political system, with Federalists lining up behind the Treaty and nascent Democratic-Republicans opposing it. The feelings stirred up were intense. John Jay, the primary American negotiator, was burned in effigy across the nation, and Alexander Hamilton was struck by a stone while speaking in favor of the treaty. It was during this period of diplomatic crisis that George Washington’s second term came to an end. Refusing to run again, he instead opted to publish a valedictory statement, which would rapidly become known as his Farewell Address. It is a testament that is, in some ways, as radical and vital as the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, in the field of diplomacy, it could well be seen as a kind of second Declaration. Washington, who had been a land surveyor before the Revolution, had a spatial, rather than ideological, conception of geopolitics and saw the success of the American experiment as dependent upon leveraging its geographical advantages to ensure its national security. Distant as we were from the capitals of Europe, this meant staying out of that continent’s wars and preserving our freedom of action to the maximum extent possible. America’s society and economy needed peace. This meant not just avoiding unnecessary enemies, but also staying away from entangling alliances. Friends, no less than adversaries, can threaten national sovereignty and strategic decision-making. As the Farewell Address put it: So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter. Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests. The genius of this statement was its application, not just to the America of the 1790s, but to American foreign policy for decades and centuries to come. It would effectively serve as a roadmap for the future, its wisdom justified by the unprecedented development the country would go on to see. The French, of course, were outraged at what they saw as a betrayal. Desperate for money to finance their ever-lengthening list of wars, Paris’ revolutionary Directory unleashed the privateers that were now denied the ability to operate out of American harbors onto American shipping. The primary challenge facing the new Adams Administration was therefore to create a deterrent that would stop these attacks. The newly-born U.S. Navy put to its first major test—not to fight the original British enemy, but to defend against our former ally France. The Navy did its job, and a kind of deterrence was restored. The rise of Napoleon and an attendant sea change in French foreign policy finally ended the threat for good, with France formally recognizing American neutrality by 1800. This part of our history, so often overlooked, is of critical import to us today. Too often Americans have preferred to see foreign policy as a black and white affair, a theater in which unalloyed good confronts pure moral evil. But as we commemorate our republic’s 250th anniversary, the Farewell Address reminds us that the truth is more difficult and more complicated. We have preserved our sovereignty and independence over two and a half centuries by pursuing strategic self-determination. If we would flourish for another 250 years, we will need to maintain this same course, avoiding the entanglements of both permanent enemies and permanent allies.  For, as George Washington presciently noted in a letter to Alexander Hamilton: “If we are to be told by a foreign power what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, & have contended hitherto for very little.” The post Washington’s Declaration of Foreign Policy Independence appeared first on The American Conservative.