1919 League of Nations Created
1935-1939 Neutrality Acts
- International organization created after WWI
- Designed to resolve international disputes and prevent future wars
- Proposed by Wilson, but U.S never joined
- Congress did not approve because required all members to support each other in war
- Thought it would be too expensive, restrict the U.S. with their own interests
- Laws passed after war between Italy and Ethiopia in 1935 to keep U.S. out of a European war
- Prevented U.S. from giving arms and money to nations at war
- 1937 U.S. citizens not allowed to travel on ships from belligerent nations
- Belligerent ships not allowed to enter U.S. waters
- "Cash and Carry" clause added
- 1939 Lend Lease Act allowed lending of arms to other countries
League of Nations Solution
Analysis & Evaluation of the League of Nations
Analysis & Evaluation of Neutrality Acts
- League viewed internationally as weak and powerless ex: Abyssinia
- U.S. didn't stick to the principles of the Acts
- Shouldn't have passed them
- Didn't prevent us from aiding our allies when WWII started
- Isolationist America thought LON would draw us into more conflicts
- League didn't accomplish what it was set up to do
- Should have joined to prompt other powerful nations to join
- Not joining contributed to isolationism, which was later abandoned
- Each Neutrality Act passed before 1939 by the United States sought to improve our chances of not being brought into another global conflict as tensions rose in both Europe and Asia
- The Neutrality Acts of 1935, 36 and the two passed in 1937 were enforced to maintain our foreign policy of isolationism by restricting any sales of war materials or weapons to nations readying for war
- Only until the Neutrality Act of 1939 did we understand war was inevitable as the Nazi threat to Western countries became more unstable
- With the Neutrality Act of 1939 we allowed the lend-lease act to pass which allowed trading with belligerent nations while we stayed out of war zones
- By finally giving in to helping our western allies under threat of being attacked we gave away the idea of isolationism understanding that in the present world it would no longer work with the world affairs such as the invasion of Poland
- All attempts to keep the United States unaffected by the nationalism fueled conflicts in Europe and Asia had failed as we began recognizing that we would be pulled into another war and that it was only a matter of time
International tradeoffs of failure:
- Another world war
- Formation of successful UN
- Showed that US wasn't ready to be interventionist yet, needed WWII to become one and join UN
Foreign Policy Trends of the Interwar Period
1941
1944
1939
1924
1919
1930
1935
- League of Nations created
- Four freedoms speech
- Lend-lease Act
- Atlantic Charter
- FDR and Churchill's negotiations lead to creation of United Nations
- Pearl Harbor
- US declares war on Japan
- The main focus of the interwar period was staying out of the conflicts of Europe and Asia
- As a country, we were gravely affected by the post war horrors brought by World War I
- We also struggled as a nation to recover from the economic collapse that was the Great Depression and as a whole wanted to focus on recovery efforts that were domestic over any foreign involvement
- As we pushed to stay more and more isolated the world grew more tense causing us to recognize that isolation would ultimately fail
- By not being involved in world affairs such as the League of Nations we gave the axis powers the belief that they were free to do as they pleased because they were able to see the trend that we wanted
- Only until it was too late did we finally accept that nothing could prevent the ever present nationalist hatred that preceded World War I
- Second Washington Naval Conference
1942
1921
1936
1918
1932
1928
1940
1945
- Executive Order 9066
- FDR authorizes the creation of the Manhattan Project
- Japan and Italy withdraw from the League of Nations
- Kellogg-Briand Pact
- The Great Depression begins
- Washington conference
- National quota for immigration
- KKK reemerges
- Roosevelt's speech outlines shift from "neutrality" to "nonbelligerency"
- Atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- Japan surrenders
- FDR dies
- Truman assumes the presidency
- Germany's unconditional surrender