Wilsonian

Wilsonism or Wilsonian are words used to describe a certain type of ideological perspectives on foreign policy. The term comes from the ideology of American President Woodrow Wilson, and his famous Fourteen Points that he believed would help create world peace if implemented.

Common principles that are often described as "Wilsonian" include:

• Advocacy of self-determination by ethnic groups
• Advocacy of the spread of democracy
• Anti-isolationism, in favor of intervention to help create peace and / or spread freedom

Overall, Wilsonian principles are often characterized as being motivated by benevolence and ideology, rather than strict self-interest and fear.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once described the making of US foreign policy as an ongoing conflict between Wilsonians and Jacksonites; the latter being isolationist followers of the ideology of former President Andrew Jackson.

Critics of the concept of "Wilsonian Idealism" say that Wilson only wanted ethnic self-determination and democracy in European countries which were under the control of rivals of America. Elsewhere such principles were ignored. For example, a young Vietnamese nationalist named Nguyen Tat Thanh attempted to ask Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference to apply the Fourteen Points to his own country, then under French imperial domination. Thanh was denied an audience with Wilson, and America supported France holding its grip on Vietnam, resulting in the Vietnam War and millions of dead. (Thanh is better known under his nom de guerre of Ho Chi Minh).