Explain why american support for britain between 1939 41 'stopped Essay

Explain why american support for britain between 1939 41 'stopped short of war' - Essay Example This explains why America and Britain remained so diplomatically cordial up until the war. Isolationism was a very popular political position during the 1930's and is very much to blame for why the United States did little to prevent the gradual slide of the world's major powers into a war that it would inevitably be drawn into as well. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and in retrospect it appears that isolationism might not have been the best political stance for America to take between 1939 and 1941. In Ross Kennedy's publication The Ideology of American Isolationism 1931-1939, he analyzes the ideals inherent in isolationist theory. It is his view that that core belief in isolationism by the people stemmed from a lack of faith in the world power politics of the day (Kennedy, 2002). This basically boiling don't to the fact that the American people along with the American government had premature collective security, and collective security schemes lead to the practicing of power politics. Most Americans felt that to involve their country in this global competition would result in the loss of American Freedoms at home. Power politics are attributed to imperial rivalries, imperialism stemming from territorial trade of raw materials war during 1939. Germany, Italy and Japan were all deemed have-not nations. Secretary of State William Castle explained it as they want colonies as an outlet for their surplus population. They want raw materials (Kennedy, 2002). These have not countries were attempting to commandeer and then colonize France and England in hopes profiting off of their raw materials. This of course had very little to do with the Unites States, so in the tradition of isolationism, America sought to remain neutral. Another aspect of power politics that Americans disapproved of was what they considered to be devious and immoral tactics inherent in the European method. The week Nazi Germany signed its non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, The journal known as the main proponent of isolationism, The New Republic published this statement, European affairs are still full of insincerity, devi ous methods, secrets and surprises, and we should not be taken aback at any treachery or weakness (Kennedy, 2002). It was a common belief among Americans that Europeans were not to be trusted pertaining to their use of power politics. When asked about it Herbert Hoover said, when we talk of using force of any kind, we are playing power politics at the European chess table (Kennedy, 2002). The prime example of this belief in action is the signing of the Versailles treaty, which ended World War I. It can be considered a form of coercion, since it was signed at the end of a gun. Tactics like these have a tradition in America as far back as the American revolutionary war, and they all tend to be driven by monetary gain. In his essay, The U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, Keith Krawczynksi, convinced that men were motivated primarily by economic self-interest and that class conflict pervaded human events, argues that the Founding Fathers carried out a counterrevolution by creating a reactionary document to protect their interests against popularly controlled state governments that passed cheap paper money legislation, debtor laws, and other measures that favored small farmers and artisans at the expense of wealthy creditors (2003). To