In 1908, Roosevelt acquiesced to the Japanese occupation of Korea because, to his way of thinking, Japanese-Korean relations had to be determined by the relative power of each country, not by the provisions of a treaty or by international law:
“Korea is absolutely Japan’s. To be sure, by treaty it was solemnly covenanted that Korea should remain independent. But Korea was itself helpless to enforce the treaty, and it was out of the question to suppose that any other nation… would attempt to do for the Koreans what they were utterly unable to do for themselves.”
With Roosevelt holding such European-style views, it was not surprising that he approached the global balance of power with a sophistication matched by no other American president and approached only by Richard Nixon. Roosevelt at first saw no need to engage America in the specifics of the European balance of power because he considered it more or less self-regulating. But he left little doubt that, if such a judgment were to prove wrong, he would urge America to engage itself to re-establish the equilibrium. Roosevelt gradually came to see Germany as a threat to the European balance and began to identify America’s national interest with those of Great Britain and France.
This was demonstrated in 1906, during the Algeciras Conference, the purpose of which was to settle the future of Morocco. Germany, which insisted on an “open door” to forestall French domination, urged the inclusion of an American representative, because it believed America to have significant trading interests there. In the event, the Americans were represented in Morocco by their ambassador to Italy, but the role he played disappointed the Germans. Roosevelt subordinated America’s commercial interests—which in any event were not large—to his geopolitical view. These were expressed by Henry Cabot Lodge in a letter to Roosevelt at the height of the Moroccan crisis: “France,” he said, “ought to be with us and England—in our zone and our combination. It is the sound arrangement economically and politically.”
Whereas in Europe, Roosevelt considered Germany the principal threat, in Asia he was concerned with Russian aspirations and thus favored Japan, Russia’s principal rival. “There is no nation in the world which, more than Russia, holds in its hands the fate of the coming years,” Roosevelt declared. In 1904, Japan, protected by an alliance with Great Britain, attacked Russia. Though Roosevelt proclaimed American neutrality, he leaned toward Japan. A Russian victory, he argued, would be “a blow to civilization.” And when Japan destroyed the Russian fleet, he rejoiced: “I was thoroughly pleased with the Japanese victory, for Japan is playing our game.”
He wanted Russia to be weakened rather than altogether eliminated from the balance of power—for, according to the maxims of balance-of-power diplomacy, an excessive weakening of Russia would have merely substituted a Japanese for the Russian threat. Roosevelt perceived that the outcome which served America best would be one in which Russia “should be left face to face with Japan so that each may have a moderate action on the other.”
On the basis of geopolitical realism rather than high-minded altruism, Roosevelt invited the two belligerents to send representatives to his Oyster Bay home to work out a peace treaty, which was ultimately concluded at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that limited the Japanese victory and preserved equilibrium in the Far East. As a result, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for producing a settlement based on maxims like balance of power and spheres of influence which, after his successor, Wilson, would appear quite un-American.
In 1914, Roosevelt initially took a relatively clinical view of Germany’s invasion of Belgium and Luxembourg, though it was in flagrant violation of treaties which had established the neutrality of these two countries:
“I am not taking sides one way or the other as concerns the violation or disregard of these treaties. When giants are engaged in a death wrestle, as they reel to and fro they are certain to trample on whoever gets in the way of either of the huge, straining combatants, unless it is dangerous to do so.”
A few months after the outbreak of war in Europe, Roosevelt reversed his initial judgment about the violation of Belgian neutrality, though, characteristically, it was not the illegality of the German invasion that concerned him but the threat it posed to the balance of power:
“… do you not believe that if Germany won in this war, smashed the English Fleet and destroyed the British Empire, within a year or two she would insist upon taking the dominant position in South and Central America…?”
He urged massive rearmament so that America might throw its weight behind the Triple Entente. He regarded a German victory as both possible and dangerous for the United States. A victory for the Central Powers would have forfeited the protection of the British Royal Navy, permitting German imperialism to assert itself in the Western Hemisphere.