The End of Isolationism
...al idea was that Americans could make their best contributions by staying out of Europe’s troubles and strengthening democracy at home. President Roosevelt was aware of the consequences to the United States of the breakdown in international system in Europe and Asia (Link, 356). His administration may have enacted a different strategy, including international commitment and collective defense, if the determination of the American people to avoid war had not been so vocal. In 1935 with the threat of war posed by Hitler’s announcement of rearmament and the results of Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, congressional isolationists pushed for a neutrality resolution, which would define American conduct in the event of a European war (Leuchtenburg, 218). The measure provided for an embargo of implements of war to belligerents, prohibited American vessels from carrying munitions to nations at war and empowered the President to withhold protection from U.S. citizens traveling on belligerent vessels (Leuchtenburg, 219). One provision withheld from the neutrality resolution was the discretionary power of the President to decide whether an embargo should be applied, and if applied, to which nation. Congress opposed this measure because it smacked too much of good and bad nations, which it thought had led the United States into the first world war (Leuchtenburg, 219). During the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War and the Japanese invasion of China, the United States maintained a strict policy of non-intervention. Even after the Japanese bombed and sank the USS PANAY and three Standard Oil tankers, the chief reaction of the United States was the withdrawal of all forces (Link, 360). In 1939 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier met with Hitler and Mussolini in Munich to agree to the cession of Sudetenland and extract promises to respect Czech sovereignty and settle all future disputes by peaceful negotiation (Link, 361). This was the turning point for President Roosevelt who began to organize support for international foreign policy. He further increased military spending above the 1 billion dollars Congress had approved after the Japanese denounce the Five Power Naval Treaty of 1934 (Link, 361). Public opinion was favorable, because a build-up didn’t mean involvement. Roosevelt shored up hemispheric defense system with the Declaration of Lima in 1938. It called for solidarity and reaffirmed the twenty-one American republics determination to jointly resist any Fascist or Nazi threat to peace and security of the hemisphere (Link, 362). After Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939 Presid...