Statecraft and Salvation: Wilsonian Liberal Internationalism as Secularized Eschatology

278 Pages·2013·1.619 MB·English

by  Milan Babik

S S
tatecraft and alvation
Wilsonian Liberal Internationalism as
Secularized Eschatology
Milan Babík
Baylor University Press
“There are in history not only ‘flowers of evil’ but also
evils which are the fruit of too much good will and of
a mistaken Christianity that confounds the fundamen-
tal distinction between redemptive events and profane
happenings.”
—Karl Löwith, Meaning in History (1949)
To the memory of my grandfather
Ervín Bruzda (1920–2011)
© 2013 by Baylor University Press, Waco, Texas 76798-7363
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechan-
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ing of Baylor University Press.
Cover Design by John Barnett, 4 Eyes Design
Cover images ©Shutterstock/Sascha Burkard, Stephen Coburn, and Charles
Knox
Credits: Chapter 2 makes partial use of Milan Babík, “Beyond Totalitarianism:
(Re)Introducing Secularization Theory to Liberal Narratives of Progress,” Poli-
tics, Religion and Ideology 13, no. 3 (2012): 289–306, and chapter 6 draws on
Milan Babík, “George D. Herron and the Eschatological Foundations of Wood-
row Wilson’s Foreign Policy, 1917–1919,” Diplomatic History 35, no. 5 (2011):
837–57. Permission to reprint portions of these essays is hereby acknowledged
with gratitude.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Babík, Milan, 1979–
Statecraft and salvation : Wilsonian liberal internationalism as secularized escha-
tology / Milan Babík.
277 pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60258-743-4 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. United States—Foreign relations—Philosophy. 2. United States—Foreign
relations—20th century. 3. Wilson, Woodrow, 1856–1924—Influence. 4. Wilson,
Woodrow, 1856–1924—Political and social views. 5. Internationalism—Moral
and ethical aspects. 6. International relations—Moral and ethical aspects. 7.
Eschatology—Political aspects—United States. 8. World politics—1900–1945.
I. Title.
JZ1480.B32 2013
327.101—dc23
2012043660
c
ontentS
Preface vii
Introduction 1
The Two Utopianisms: Wilsonian Liberal Internationalism
vs. Secularized Eschatology
1 From Providence to Progress 23
Secularization Theory
2 Secularization and Totalitarian Movements 61
Probing the Limits of the Concept
3 The Eschatological Origins of the American Republic 81
Millennialism in Colonial America
4 “Manifest Destiny” 107
Secularized Eschatology in the Nineteenth-Century
United States
5 The (Not So) Conservative Millennialist 137
Woodrow Wilson and History as Orderly Progress
Toward Liberty
v
vi CONTENTS
6 “To Release Mankind from the Intolerable Things
of the Past” 175
Wilson’s Wartime Statecraft as a Mission
to Redeem the World
Conclusion 209
(Re)Integrating the Two Utopianisms: Wilsonian Liberal
Internationalism as Secularized Eschatology
Bibliography 237
Index 255
P
reface
I was overcome with despair when in early August 2012, shortly after
receiving one of my drafts, my editor responded, “Greetings from the
beach! I am on vacation but reading it here and will comment shortly.”
My first attempt at an academic treatise, I gathered, had been demoted to
beach reading—the league occupied by Bridget Jones’s Diary and other
masterpieces of light comedy. My editor was skimming through it for
laughs during breaks from frolicking in foamy ocean water, piña colada
in hand.
Fortunately, my self-confidence recovered soon enough to spare me
renewed doubts that I was no good at scholarship and that I should have,
after all, pursued the much more hands-on career of an artificial insemi-
nation assistant in livestock agriculture, as my wise and well-traveled
brother had once suggested. Over breakfast the next morning, jubila-
tion promptly replaced the dark terror of the previous day. Boosted by
espresso shots, I grew certain that my editor was reading my manuscript
on the beach precisely because the manuscript was that good: an unsus-
pected masterpiece, an instant game changer, a defining moment in the
history of Western civilization, a gateway to my immortality. Not Bridget
Jones’s Diary, but St. Augustine’s Confessions, still widely read sixteen
centuries after his death, was the proper analogy for what I was about to
publish.
vii
viii PREFACE
And so it was not until day three that I finally came to my senses and
realized what should have been apparent right away: that I had neither a
dud nor a gem of a manuscript, but rather the most dedicated editor out
there. Carey Newman, director of Baylor University Press, thus deserves
my warmest gratitude, and not just for taking my scribbles on his vaca-
tion along with his snorkel and swim trunks. His incisive feedback and
suggestions for further reading enabled me to improve the manuscript
dramatically, and the vivid prose he used to convey them constituted an
educational experience in its own right. Members of his editorial and pro-
duction team, including Jordan Rowan Fannin and Jenny Hunt, were just
as impressive, showering me with undivided personal attention—as if I
were the only author on their list. I am incredibly lucky to have stumbled
upon them all.
Well before they helped me bring the ship to harbor on bookstore and
library shelves, however, many others taught me how to build and sail it
in the first place. The first nebulous ideas that would later coalesce in this
book reach all the way back to my M.Sc. in International Relations at the
London School of Economics & Political Science, specifically to the day
(about three weeks after September 11, 2001) I accidentally walked into
Professor Christopher Coker’s course on strategic aspects of international
affairs. Of all the important moments in my university education, this one
was by far the most transformative, and Chris—with his emphasis on
literature, philosophy, history, and culture as key to understanding mod-
ern violence, war, and statecraft—had provoked it. His extraordinarily
chaotic and inspiring lectures, the closest thing to jazz in IR programs
anywhere, were ably seconded by Chris Brown, Mark Hoffman, and the
late Fred Halliday, my other instructors at LSE. I thank all four of them.
When I moved to Oxford and began drafting my doctoral disserta-
tion, from which this book is carved, Professor Jennifer Welsh felt so
strongly about the project that she agreed to supervise it despite being
overloaded with too many other advisees and, on top of it, finding herself
in between two difficult pregnancies. Karma Nabulsi and Sudhir Haza-
reesingh, her colleagues in the Department of Politics and International
Relations, watched over me as well, reading successive drafts and treating
me to many perceptive comments, cups of coffee, and pleasant conversa-
tions at their home. Meanwhile, the Dulverton Trust cheerfully covered
everything with a massively generous, all-inclusive scholarship award.
Every now and then the English weather forced me to flee, but on those
occasions my parents and grandparents readily provided me with a warm
refuge in my native Šumperk, Czech Republic, as did my parents-in-law,
PREFACE ix
Paul and Linette Gamache, in Maine, for which I remain in debt to them
all. Reading passages from this book will always take me back to my
trusty Kona Paddy Wagon bicycle on the country roads between Oxford
and Brize Norton, to the bakelite desk in my grandfather’s small study,
and to the tall pine tree, no longer standing today, in Paul and Linette’s
backyard: things and places that surrounded me while I was submerged
in thoughts and trying to articulate them.
The stagnant academic job market I entered after completing my
doctorate in September 2009, exactly one year after the fall of Lehman
Brothers, nearly made the entire effort pointless: it almost strangled my
professional career right at the outset and, along with it, buried any pros-
pects of ever seeing the dissertation published. Artificial insemination
increasingly seemed like the better career trajectory. Luckily, Professor
Joe Reisert intervened and kept my hopes alive by offering me at least
a temporary teaching appointment in his capacity as chair of the Gov-
ernment Department at Colby College (Waterville, Maine). His name
therefore deserves to be added to the list of people I wish to thank, as
do the names of Lynn Staley of the Faculty Research Council at Colgate
University (Hamilton, New York), who facilitated the final stages of the
manuscript preparation process with a generous publication grant, and
Carolyn Weaver, who composed the index.
I considered dedicating this book to my wife, Jane, and our children,
Kylián and Matyáš. Born in quick succession just as I was putting final
touches on the dissertation, the boys spent most of their initial days and
months lying in straw baskets next to my desk and observing me peck
away on the keyboard, the one tossing and fussing, the other relaxed
and quiet. Friends often asked with bewilderment how I could possi-
bly work on a doctoral thesis while staying at home with two infants.
The answer is simple: I could do it precisely because I had Kylián and
Matyáš next to me. Whenever the manuscript overwhelmed me, a brief
glance at them was all I needed to understand again that, compared to the
problem of how to raise them without letting my clumsy parenting cause
them any harm, the dissertation was entirely straightforward. Besides,
the discoveries the boys were making and allowing me to witness by their
side—about the flavor of mashed banana in the breakfast bowl, about the
blinding warmth of sunshine suddenly coming into the crib—were far
more profound and compelling than any of the discoveries I had made
during the time spent reading, thinking, and writing about Wilson, reli-
gion, and American liberalism.