( This is a summary of Chapter 27. I think that it will help to discuss this in class on Monday. It is sort of complicated and deserves discusssion.)
I. The Diplomacy of the New Era
        A. Not isolationism, but involved in a more active role in world affairs in the 1920’s than it had at any previous time.
        B. Replacing the League
                1. American membership in the League of Nations by the time Harding took office inn 1921 was not happening.
                2. Senator Charles Evan Hughes wanted to find a substitute  to guarantee world peace and stability.
                3. Washington Conference of 1921
                        a. an attempt to prevent a destablizating naval armaments race among the United States, Britain and Japan
                        b. proposal to reduce the naval fleets in all three nations and ten-year moratorium on the construction of larger  warships.
                        c. Established the Five Power Pact of February 1922
                        d.  This established limits for the total naval tonnage and a ratio of armaments among the signatories.
                        e. For every 5 tons of American and British warships, Japan would maintain 3 and France and Italy 1.75 each.
                        f. Washington Conference began the New Era effort to protect world peace and the (economic interests of the US) without accepting international obligation
                4. Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928
                        a. proposed instead of siding with France against Germany, a multilateral treaty outlawing war as an instrument of national policy.
                        b. Fourteen nations signed the agreement in Paris, Aug, 1928 amid great solemnity and international acclaim. 48 other nations later joined the pact, there was no way to enforce the Pact.
        C. Debts and Diplomacy
                1. First responsibility of diplomacy-ensure that American overseas trade faced no obstacles
                        a. IN order to make that happen: reduce war and decrease the production of armaments
                        b. Also needed new financial arrangements to deal with international debt.
                        c. Allied powers struggling to pay $11 billion in loans they had contracted with the United States during and shortly after the war.
                        d. Germany was trying to pay the reparations to the Allies.
                        e. United States got involved to help with a solution.
            2. The Dawes Plan
                        a. an agreement in 1924 with France, Britain, Germany and the United States
                        b. American banks would provide enormous loans to the Germans, enabling them to meet their reparation payment
                        c. In Return, France and Britain would agree to reduce the amount of those payments
                        d. DANGEROUS circular pattern in international finance.
                        e. US would lend money to Germany, they would use that money to pay France and Britain (as well as large loans they themselves were receiving from American Banks) to repay war debts to the United States.
                        f. Some felt the US to dependent on the European economy. The Depression shattered the system.
            3. Latin America
                        a. US helped economically in Latin America
                        b. American military forces maintained a presence in Nicaragua, Panama and several other countries of the nation
                        c. US doubled their investments—American banks offering large loans to Latin American government, just as they were in Europe
                        d. Like Europe, the Latin Americans could not earn the money to repay them in the face of the formidable United States tariff barrier.
        D. Hoover and the World Crisis
                1. Diplomatic challenges faced by Hoover
                        a. World financial crisis that begun in 1929, worse in 1931 produced dangerous nationalism in Europe, toppling some existing political leaders and replacing them with powerful, belligerent governments committed to the expansion as a solution to their economic problems.
                        b. Government in Japan- expansionistic also-problems in Asia.
                        c. Latin America- Hoover tried to fix previous tensions. He tried to stay out of their internal business, and wanted to remove troops from Nicaragua and Haiti. Economic distress led to the collapse of several regimes, Hoover announced a new policy
                                1) America would grant diplomatic recognition to any sitting government in the region without questioning the means it had used to get power.
                                2) Repudiated the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine by refusing to permit American intervention when several Latin American countries defaulted on debt obligations to US in October 1931.
                        d. Europe—Hoover proposed a moratorium on debts (not supported and did not produce financial stability)
Economists proposed that he cancel all war debts to the United States—he refused. Several European nations went into default. German and Japan building armaments and France and Britain worried. NO turning back.
                        e. New governments in Europe
                                1) Italy- Benito Mussolini’s Facist Party-more nationalistic and militaristic
                                2) National Socialist Party, Nazi in Germany—Adolph Hitler took power in 1933. Favored genetic superiority of the Aryan (German) people and expansion. Militaristic and anti-Semitism.
                        f. Crisis in Asia
                                1) Japanese suffering economic depression of their own-concerned about the increasing power of the Soviet Union and of Chiang Kai-Shek’s nationalist China. Worried about Chiang’s insistence on expanding his government power in Manchuria, which was officially part of China but Japan maintained an informal economic control since 1905
                                2) 1933-Japan military leaders staged what was, a coup and took control of the government in Tokyo. Later launched an invasion of northern Manchuria-conquered the region
                                3) US Secretary of State, Henry Stimson issued stern warnings to the Japanese but was not allowed to cooperating with the League of Nations to impose economic sanctions against them.
                                4) Japan expanded into China and attacked the City of Shanghai, killing thousands of citizens.
                        g. Early in 1933, Hoover left office the international system collapsed. The system based on voluntary cooperation among nations and on an American refusal to commit itself to any collective obligations did not work.
                        h. US had to face a choice in dealing with foreign policy
                                1) More energetic form of internationalism and enter into firmer and more meaningful associations with other nations
                                2) Resort to nationalism and try to deal with international problems alone
                                3) Ignore global problems all together.

II. Isolationism and Internationalism
        A. Overview
                1. When FDR took over he faced economic and international problems…related because the Depression caused the political chaos.
        B. Depression Diplomacy
1. Hoover had argued that by resolving the question of the war debts and reinforcing the gold standard would promote economic recovery.
2. Hoover agreed to participate in the World Economic Conference to be held in June 1933 in London to attempt to resolve these issues.
3. FDR was convinced that the gold value of the dollar had to be allowed to fall in order for American goods to be able to compete in the world markets. He did not agree with most of the delegates and rejected any agreement on currency stabilization---no agreement made.
4. FDR abandoned the committements of the Hoover administration to settle the issue of war debts through international agreements.
a. April 1934 signed a bill that prohibited American banks from making loans to any nation in default on its debts.
b. Ended the circular system by which debt payments continued only by virtue of increasing American loans, within months, war debt payments from every nation except Finland stopped for good.
5. Russia—US and Russia viewed each other with mistrust and hostility since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The American government still did not recognize the Soviet regime in 1933
a. Americans urging for this to change because it appeared that Russia could be a source of trade
b. Russia hoping for American cooperation in order to contain Japan.
c. November 1933, Russia and United States agreed to open formal diplomatic relations.
C. The Good Neighbor Policy
1. U.S. succeeded in the 1930’s in increasing both its exports to and its imports from Latin America by over 100%.
2. U.S. taking a new approach to Latin America—Good Neighbor Policy
a. expanded the changes of the Hoover administration.
b. Declared no state has the right to intervene in the external or internal affairs of another.
c. Repudiated military intervention, eased the tensions.
d. Did little to stop the growing American domination of the Latin American economy.
D. The Rise of Isolationism
1. The U.S. faced a choice between more active efforts to stabilize the world or more energetic attempts to isolate itself from it.
2. Support for isolationism was growing.
a. Wilsonian internationalists had grown disallusioned with the League of Nations and its inability to stop Japanese aggression in Asia
b. Some Americans believed that Wall Street, munition makers and others tricked the US in getting involved in WWI. Investigation showed that profiteering and tax evasion by many corporations during the war,suggested that bankers had pressured Wilson to intervene in the war so as to protect their loans abroad.  (not really true but they believed it)
c. FDR sympathetic to some of the isolationist views but he continued to see modest involvement from US in order to insure World Peace. Tried to establish a treaty to make US part of the World Court—voted down.
3. Italy—Summer of 1935, Mussolini’s Italy was preparing to invade Ethiopia. Fearing the invasion would provoke new European war, American legislators began to design legal safeguards to prevent the United States being dragged into it.
a. Neutrality Act of 1935, followed by additional acts in 1936, 1937
b. Established a mandatory arms embargo against both sides in any military conflict and directed the president to warn American citizens against travelling on the ships of warring nations. (protecting of neutral rights could not become an excuse for American involvement)
c. 1937 added that belligerents could only purchase non military goods from the US and could only pay cash and had to ship the purchases themselves.
4. Civil War in Spain—the falangists of General Francisco Franco, like the Italian Facists, revolted against the existing republican government
a. Hitler and Mussolini supported Franco both with supplies and vocally
b. Some individual Americans went to Spain to help fight the republican cause.
c. US joined with Britain and France and offered no assistance.
5. FDR slowly convinced that the America needed to be more forceful. Especially due to the problems in Asia
a. Summer 1937, Japan intensified its six year old assault on Manchuria and attacked China’s five northern provinces
b. Roosevelt responded in a speech in Chicago in October 1937. Warning of the dangers of Japanese actions and argued that the agressors should be quarantined by the international community to prevent the contagion of war to spread.
c. Public was hostile, FDR drew back
d. December 12, 1937 Japanese aviators bombed and sank the United States gunboat, PANAY, deliberate as it sailed in the Yangtze River in China
e. FDR reluctant to get the isolationist upset seized on Japanese claims that the bombing was an accident, accepted Japanese apologies and overlooked the attack.
E. The Failure of Munich
1. 1936 Hitler had moved the revived German army into the Rhineland, rearming an area that France had, in effect, controlled since WWI.
2. March 1938, German forces marched into Austria and Hitler proclaimed a union between Austria, his native land and Germany, his adopted one.
a. Not much opposition in Europe or US.
b. Austrian invasion, created another crisis
3. Germany now occupied the territory surrounding the three sides of western Czechoslovakia, a region Hitler wanted to take.
4. Demanded in 1938, he demanded the Sudetenland, an area of ethnic Germans.
5. Czech ready to fight but needed the assistance from other nations.
6. Most western governments willing to do anything but fight, settle peacefully.
7. September 29, 1938 Hitler met with leaders of France and Britain at Munich in an effort to resolve the crisis.
a. The French and British agreed to accept the German demands in Czechoslovakia in return for Hitler’s promise not to expand further.
b. Munich agreement, supported by FDR at the time, APPEASEMENT policy. FAILED
c. March 1939, Hitler occupied the remaining areas of Czechoslovakia and violated the Munich agreement.
d. April 1939- looked toward Poland.
8. Britain and France gave assurances to the Polish government that they would help if Hitler invades, they even tried to draw the Soviet Union into a mutual defense agreement.
a. Too late—Stalin, not invited to the Munich Conference already decided that he could expect no protection from the West.
b. Signed a non-agression pact with Hitler in August 1939, freeing the Germans for the moment from the danger of a two-front war.
c. Hitler then staged an incident on the Polish border to allow him to claim that Germany was attacked and on Sept 1, 1939 he invaded Poland.
d. France and Britain declared war on Germany two days later; WORLD WAR II BEGINS.
III. From Neutrality to Intervention
A. Overview
1. “This nation will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in though as well.”
2. Favored Britain and France and other Allied nations in the contest but how would they assist and by how much?
B. Neutrality Tested
1. FDR believed that US should make armaments available to the Allied armies to help them counter the military advantage the large German munitions industry gave Hitler.
2. Sept. 1939- FRD asked Congress to revise the Neutrality Acts and lift the arms embargo against any nation engaged in war. Isolationist opposition forced Congress to maintain the prohibition on American ships entering war zones.
3. 1939 law did permit belligerents to purchase arms on the same cash and carry basis that the earlier Neutrality Acts had established for the sale of non-military materials.
4. After German armies subdued Poland, not much happening in the war, through the winter and spring-a phony war.
a. Russia overran the small Baltic republics of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and then established control over Finland.
b. US response-an ineffective moral embargo on the shipment of arms to Russia.
5. Spring 1940- Germany launched an invasion on the west, attacking Denmark and Norway, sweeping across the Netherlands and Belgium and going into deep into France
6. Allied efforts did nothing to stop Hitler.
7. June 10, Mussolini invaded France from the South as Hitler was attacking from the North. June 22, France fell and Nazi troops marched into Paris.
a. A new collaborationist French regime assembled in Vichy and in all Europe only shattered British and French armies, rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk remained.
8. FDR asked Congress for an additional $1 billion for defense and received it quickly.
a. Winston Churchill, the new British prime minister, sent a wish list of armaments to FDR the day before. He stressed that without the help, England could not survive.
b. Most felt it was too late, that Britain was doomed to fail
c. President determined to make war materials available to Britian—gave 50 American destroyers in return for the right to build American bases on the British territory in the Western Hemisphere- he also returned to the factories a number of new planes purchased by the American government so the British could buy them instead.
9. FDR took these steps because American opinion was shifting
a. July 1940-more than 66 percent of the public believed that Germany posed a direct threat to the United States.
b. Congress more willing to permit expanded American assistance to the Allies.
c. Congress was also becoming more concerned about the need for internal prep for war-Burke-Wadsworth Act, inaugurating the first peacetime military draft in American history.
10. Isolationist still present. American First Committee Election of 1940- FDR accepts the nomination and wins. His third term.
C. Neutrality Abandoned
1. FDR make subtle but profound changes in the American role of war.
a. Great Britain was bankrupt and could no longer meet the cash-and-carry requirements imposed by the Neutrality Acts
b. “Lend-lease”-allow the government not only to sell but to lend or lease armaments to any nation deemed pivotal to the defense of the United States. US give weapons to Britain to get them back after the War.
2. German submarines attacked making shipping lanes in the Atlantic dangerous.
a. British losing ships more rapidly than it could replace them and difficult to transport materials across the Atlantic.
b. United States should convoy the vessels to England, but FDR was more limited- he argued that the Atlantic was a neutral zone and the responsibility of the the American nation-1941- American ships patrolled the Atlantic.
3. Germany did little to challenge these obviously hostile actions at first. Change in 1941
a. Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union in June of that year.
b. Soviets did not surrender, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to “lend-lease” to Russia.
c. American industry helping Hitler’s enemies on two sides, and the American navy was protecting the flow of those goods to Europe.
d. Nazi submarines began a campaign against American vessels. FDR ordered American ships to fire on subs “on sight”
e. Nazi submarines hit two American destroyers, and sank one of them, Reuben James, killing many sailors.
f. Congress now voted to allow the US to arm its merchant vessels and to sail all the way into the belligerent ports.
g. US launched a naval war against Germany in effect.

4. 1941, August. FDR meets with Churchill aboard a British vessel off the coast of Newfoundland.
a. FDR made no military commitments
b. Released Atlantic Charter- in which the two nations set out “Certain common principles on which to base a better future for the world. Called for the final destruction of Nazi tyranny and for a new world order in which every nations controlled its own destiny…a statement of war aims.
D. The Road to Pearl Harbor
1. Japan—taking advantage of events in Europe to extend its empire in the Pacific.
a. Signed the Tripartite Treaty- a loose defensive alliance with Germany and Italy.(in reality, they never developed a very strong relation with Japan.)
b. Imperial troops moved into Indochina and seized the capital of Vietnam, a colony of France.
2. United States, breaking their codes, knew their next target would be the Dutch East Indies and when Tokyo failed to respond to FDR’s firm warning, US froze all Japanese assets in the United States, limiting Japan’s ability to purchase needed American supplies
3. Tokyo had a choice
a. Repair relations with US to restore the flow of supplies
b. OR find supplies elsewhere, most notably by seizing British and Dutch possessions in the Pacific.
c. At first seemed willing to negotiate, but militants forced the prime minister out of office and replaced him with war party, General Hideki Tojo.
4. Tojo government for several weeks maintained a pretense of wanting to continue negotiations—not yield on the question of China, Washington said that needed to be changed.  November, no peaceful settlement.
5. American intelligence decoded Japanese messages that made it clear that an attack was imminent. BUT WHERE?
a. British or Dutch possessions?
b. Overlooked due to confusion and miscalculations threat of American attack
6. December 7, 1941, 7:55 am a wave of Japanese bombers attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Second wave one hour later
a. Loss 8 battleships, 3 cruisers, 4 other vessels, 188 airplanes and several vital shore installations.
b. 2,400 soldiers died and another 1,000 were injured. Japanese suffered little loss.
7. American forces diminished in the Pacific (no aircraft carriers were at Pearl Harbor).
a. American public unified behind war.
b. Senate voted unanimously and House voted 388 to 1 to approve declaration of war against Japan. Three hours later, Germany and Italy, Japan’s European allies, declared war on the United States. United States declared war back to them.