7/31/2019 The Hoover-stimson Doctrine

1/5

The hoover-stimson doctrine

While the framers of the Monroe Doctrine and its corollary limited their horizons

to the Western Hemisphere, a later statement of national purpose would extend

that horizon halfway around the globe. The Hoover-Stimson Doctrine, named for

President Herbert Hoover and Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, actually

reiterated earlier pledges regarding American interests in the Far East. In doing

so, it sent a mixed message: that while the United States would not recognize

territorial changes realized by force of arms, it had no interest in coming to the

defense of that principle.

The events precipitating the doctrine's articulation took place in northern China

in September 1931, along a section of track on the South Manchurian Railway,

which had been administered by Japan since the first decade of the century. An

explosion near the railway, subsequently attributed to the Japanese military, was

blamed by Japan on Chinese rebels. Japan used the occasionthereafter known

as the Mukden Incidentas a pretext to pacify ever-larger regions of Manchuria.

Continued Japanese conquest alarmed the international community, prompting

the League of Nations to condemn such aggrandizement. In an effort to

underscore its concern, the league sought to enlist on its behalf support from the

United States and the administration of President Herbert Hoover. On 7 January

1932, Secretary of State Stimson delivered notes to both Japan and China stating

U.S. opposition to the course of events in Manchuria. Stimson's announcement

was twofold: first, that the United States would not recognize any treaty that

compromised the sovereignty or integrity of China; and second, that it would not

recognize any territorial changes achieved through force of arms. It was a

statement of pure principle, made even purer by the disinterest and inability of

the United States to back up those words with deeds. Given the economic,military, and diplomatic constraints ensuing from the Great Depression,

violations of the Hoover-Stimson Doctrine would bring public rebuke by the

United States but little else.

7/31/2019 The Hoover-stimson Doctrine

2/5

Although the Hoover-Stimson Doctrine is often derided as a manifestation of pie-

in-the-sky American idealism, its articulation made great sense to a great many at

the time. Reflecting widespread revulsion at what the Great War had wrought

the enormous loss of life, manifold disruptions of European societies, and an

overwhelming reluctance to repeat the mistakes of the pastthe doctrine sought

to marshal world opinion in the service of peace. Its appeal to universal standards

of conduct reflected the emergence of a new mind-set in world affairsthat there

was, in fact, such a thing as an international community and that certain norms

governed its behavior. No statement was more emblematic of that consciousness

than the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, an agreement signed by thirty-three

nations outlawing the use of force as an instrument of national policy.

The doctrine was also rooted in the history of the region. Western interest in

China stretched back hundreds of years, but the ability to exercise decisive

influence on that country was a more recent phenomenon. Britain's 1842 victory

over China in the first of the Opium Wars established a pattern whereby several

countries, including the United States, were able to demand most-favored-nation

trading status from the Chinese authorities. By the late nineteenth century, the

imperial powers were carving up China into separate spheres of influence. As

China lay prostrate, U.S. Secretary of State John M. Hay proposed that thosenations adopt an Open Door policy for China, an arrangement that would

preserve China's territorial and administrative integrity while maintaining equal

trading rights for all. It was Japan, however, that would mount the greatest

challenge to the Open Door. Having gained a foothold in Manchuria following the

Russo-Japanese War of 19041905, Japan applied increasing pressure on China,

resulting in its Twenty-One Demands of 1915. American remonstrations to Japan

indicated that the United States would not recognize any agreements in violation

of the Open Door, a position it reaffirmed in 1917 and then again in 1922. TheMukden Incident of September 1931 represented the clearest challenge to date of

that long-stated U.S. position.

The Hoover-Stimson Doctrine also was part of the history of U.S. recognition

policy. This policy dated to the early national period when Democratic-

7/31/2019 The Hoover-stimson Doctrine

3/5

Republicans and Federalists, arguing bitterly over a proper response to the

French Revolution, questioned whether the United States was obligated to carry

out agreements signed with the ancien regime, and vice versa. The issue of

diplomatic recognition would reemerge following the War of 1812, as a more

assertive United States questioned the wisdom of establishing formal relations

with a coterie of weak, newly independent Latin American nations; it was this

debate, in fact, that was the backdrop for the Monroe Doctrine. The matter would

demand executive attention once again during the administration of President

Woodrow Wilson. A series of regime changes in Mexicosome of them bloody

led Wilson to withhold recognition of General Victoriano Huerta, reversing the

general principle of conferring legitimacy on whoever could demonstrate de facto

territorial control. The Mukden Incident would reopen the issue of whether, andon what grounds, the United States would recognize the sovereignty of a new

controlling authority.

Despite America's absence from the League of Nations, U.S. officials hoped that

body would act swiftly to resolve the crisis. To prod it into action, the United

States sent an observer to attend its deliberations. This led to the formation of a

commission of inquiry to investigate the dispute and report back to the league

assembly. When in 1932 the commission announced its findings, which blamedJapan for the crisis, the Japanese delegation walked out of the League of Nations.

In the interim, a new Japanese government had assumed power and embarked

on the further conquest of Manchuria. It was this action, undertaken by Japan in

the fall of 1931, that prompted Stimson to issue his policy of nonrecognitiona

policy suggested, in fact, by Hoover himself.

Although Stimson had hoped his approach would garner European support,

formal endorsements were not in the offing. Britain, reversing the role it hadplayed earlier regarding the Monroe Doctrine, let America wave the banner of

nonrecognition, hoping to benefit from that policy without having to tie itself too

closely to the American kite. Ultimately, the League of Nations endorsed

Stimson's pledge, although over the next several years a number of its members

would recognize Japanese suzerainty over Manchuria.

7/31/2019 The Hoover-stimson Doctrine

4/5

By most any measure, the Hoover-Stimson Doctrine failed its first test. Only

three weeks after the secretary of state delivered his diplomatic notes, Japan

attacked the port city of Shanghai, extending its sphere of influence into central

China. The United States refused to take action; Stimson wanted to impose

sanctions on Japan, but Hoover was reluctant to engage the United States in

measures he deemed tantamount to war. Moreover, given the domestic pressures

Hoover was facingincluding staggering unemployment figures, numerous bank

failures, and a massive drop in consumer spendingit was all but impossible to

send ill-prepared military forces around the world. The president hoped that

China's size and culture would help it absorb the Japanese incursion, and that a

dose of moral suasion would help convince the Tokyo leadership to cease and

desist. Neither of these developments came to pass.

Insofar as Hoover dictated the nature of America's response during the

Manchurian crisis, it seems wrong to castigate Stimson exclusively for policies

that came to be associated with his name. Stimson envisioned a series of

measures, increasing in severity, which he hoped would compel a Japanese

change in behavior; the president, on the other hand, took the more isolationist

position. Hoover, in fact, sought to wrestle authorship of the doctrine away from

his secretary of state, a curious move given the manifest impotence of themeasures it advocated. Yet grasping for evidence of leadership during the 1932

presidential campaign, Hoover wanted Stimson to consign its provenance over to

the president. Eventually, Stimson did bestow that honor upon Hoover.

Nevertheless, its principles continue to be associated with Stimson, and any

mention of a doctrine continues to bear his name.

The Hoover-Stimson Doctrine would continue to amass a sorry record during the

1930s as the new political orders in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Albania, andEthiopiathe fruits of German and Italian aggression and intimidationreceived

widespread international recognition. Fascism's ascendance, observers would

argue, took its cue from Japan's earlier behavior in the Far East; reluctance to

confront Japan emboldened Hitler and Mussolini, creating conditions for the

greater horror to come. In this sense, the promulgation of both the Hoover-

7/31/2019 The Hoover-stimson Doctrine

5/5

Stimson Doctrine and the League of Nations judgment might have done more

damage to international peace than the withholding of such statements. The

failure of both the United States and the international community to back up

their words with effective retributive actions thus allowed the Japanese, and

perhaps the Germans and Italians, to call the world's collective bluff, plunging

hundreds of millions into global war.

Scholars have regularly disparaged the Hoover-Stimson Doctrine on those

grounds, describing it as both toothless and dangerous. Some historians, in fact,

have argued that Stimson's approach was even weaker than that of the League of

Nations, for it offered no procedure for mediating the Manchurian dispute.

Others have decried its reliance on "legalism"the reliance on vague notions of

universal norms to influence international behaviorat the expense of more

"hard-headed" approaches to geopolitics. On the other hand, legal theorists have

responded to the doctrine with guarded acclaim, pointing out that its injection of

morality into global politics would help to shape an international consensus in

the postwar era

Read more: The hoover-stimson doctrine - Doctrines

http://www.americanforeignrelations.com/A-D/Doctrines-The-hoover-stimson-

doctrine.html#ixzz20wOfspiJ

http://www.americanforeignrelations.com/A-D/Doctrines-The-hoover-stimson-doctrine.html#ixzz20wOfspiJhttp://www.americanforeignrelations.com/A-D/Doctrines-The-hoover-stimson-doctrine.html#ixzz20wOfspiJhttp://www.americanforeignrelations.com/A-D/Doctrines-The-hoover-stimson-doctrine.html#ixzz20wOfspiJhttp://www.americanforeignrelations.com/A-D/Doctrines-The-hoover-stimson-doctrine.html#ixzz20wOfspiJhttp://www.americanforeignrelations.com/A-D/Doctrines-The-hoover-stimson-doctrine.html#ixzz20wOfspiJhttp://www.americanforeignrelations.com/A-D/Doctrines-The-hoover-stimson-doctrine.html#ixzz20wOfspiJhttp://www.americanforeignrelations.com/A-D/Doctrines-The-hoover-stimson-doctrine.html#ixzz20wOfspiJ