The Washington Doctrine of Unstable Alliances, sometimes called the caution against entangling alliances, was an early realistUnited States foreign policy guiding its interaction with other nations. According to the policy, the United States should consider external alliances as temporary measures of convenience and freely abandon them when national interest dictates. It has been cited as a rare example of an explicit policy endorsement of what, in international relations, is known as renversement des alliances : a state abandoning an ally for an alliance with a recent enemy, sometimes against the former ally.
Background
Prelude
By 1796, the end of George Washington's eighth year as president of the United States, the United States' strategic position was dire. Interstate rivalries, violent insurrections, and solidifying opposition to the national government in the form of the Anti-Federalist Party combined with its dependence on trade with Europe to weaken the new nation. During this time, the country's increasingly-brittle government was held together almost entirely by Washington's charismatic authority. Receiving counsel from Alexander Hamilton, who cautioned the president that "we forget how little we can annoy," Washington became convinced that the United States could not further antagonize Great Britain; he feared the possibility of British-imposed commercial isolation, which would precipitate an economic catastrophe that would "overturn the constitution and put into an overwhelming majority the anti-national forces". At the same time, radical government elements led by Thomas Jefferson had all but declared their support for U.S. aid to the beleaguered French First Republic, which was at war with Great Britain. Jefferson mused that Hamilton, who was pro-British, was "panic-struck if we refuse our breach to every kick which Great Britain may choose to give it." In his valedictory Farewell Address, in which Washington announced his decision to step down from the presidency, partly because of his increasing weariness with public life, he included a short passage defending his policy of ignoring French requests for American assistance. In an attempt to keep his remarks apolitical, Washington defended his policy by framing it as generic guidance for the future and avoided mentioning the French by name: with France soon after US independence foreshadowed the doctrine of unstable alliances. However, in private correspondence about his address Washington wrote that the geopolitical situation inspiring his advice would disappear in "not... probably more than twenty years."
Formalization
The rise of Napoleon Bonaparte in France muted the "revolutionary romanticism" of Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party, which won the 1800 elections. Jefferson came to see the war between France and Britain as a battle between the "tyrant of the land" and the "tyrant of the ocean" and perceived the military objective of both as the moral equivalent of the other. Jefferson's developing view of international politics led him to observe that the United States should retreat from intercession in European affairs for which he had been a lukewarm advocate and pursue a more modest and less committed course. He believed that American commercial power would allow it to pursue an independent course unfettered by conventional diplomacy and wrote to a protégé: Outlined by Jefferson in his 1801 inaugural address, the Washington Doctrine of Unstable Alliances asserted that the US should consider its external military alliances temporary arrangements of convenience and freely abandon or reverse them as indicated by the national interest. Citing Washington's Farewell Address as his inspiration, Jefferson described the doctrine as "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none." The results of the policy during Jefferson's presidency have been generally criticized. According to the historian Doron Ben-Atar, "Jefferson gambled commerce could be used as an instrument for forcing the belligerent nations to do America justice and to respect the republic's honor." The Embargo Act of 1807, which virtually sealed the US from the outside world, has been cited as the most dramatic example of the failure of Jefferson's "inflated assessment" of American power. Jefferson never fully grasped the failure, which helped lead the nation into the War of 1812.
Significance
The Washington Doctrine of Unstable Alliances is a rare example of a policy endorsement of what is known in international relations as renversement des alliances : a state abandons an ally for an alliance with a recent enemy, possibly in opposition to the former ally. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany has been cited as an example. Although some argue interpret Washington's advice to apply on in the short-term, the doctrine has endured as a central argument for American non-interventionism. It would be 165 years after the 1778 Treaty of Alliance with France before the U.S. would negotiate the nation's second permanent military alliance, during World War II. In the interim, the United States engaged in transient alliances of convenience. After the U.S. Congress enacted the 1941 Lend-Lease program, Senator Arthur Vandenberg said: "We have torn up 150 years of traditional foreign policy. We have tossed Washington's farewell address into the discard." According to a critical 1898 New York Times editorial, "The policy... suggested by Jefferson in his first inaugural address has been so faithfully maintained during the century which has since intervened that many of our people regard it as a policy as fixed as the stars in their courses". American economist Steven Rosefielde noted the doctrine's influence on current U.S. policy: "Our nation seeks coalitions and alliances with other nations for tactical purposes when at war, and reserves our overall strategy-making to ourselves."
Misattribution
The phrase "entangling alliances," which forms the basis of the Washington Doctrine of Unstable Alliances, has been misattributed in the popular press to Washington rather than Jefferson.
