page_title: Washington Doctrine of Unstable Alliances
section_title: Prelude
hierarchical_section_title: Washington Doctrine of Unstable Alliances / Background / Prelude
caption_attribution_description: English: Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, Washington Greeting Lafayette at Mount Vernon, oil painting, early 20th-century, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania
context_page_description: The Washington Doctrine of Unstable Alliances, sometimes called the caution against entangling alliances, was an early realist United 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.
context_section_description: 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 (such as the Whiskey Rebellion), 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:
  The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities... it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements.
  — George Washington's Farewell Address
  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."
caption: George Washington used a passage in his farewell address to defend his foreign policy toward France.
exif: {"Image Model": "EPSON Perfection 4490", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "266", "Image YResolution": "266", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2012:06:20 09:16:25", "Image ExifOffset": "208", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "346", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7619", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1278", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "934"}