MODULE FIVE: AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

MODULE 5: The American Foreign Policy

Table of Contents

(A) Module Objectives

(B) Module Overview

(C) Additional Readings

(D) Recommended Websites

(E) Students Assessment

(1) Prologue

(2) Introduction

(3) American Interventionism: The Spanish-American War  

         (4) The Rise of America as a World Power

(5) Conclusion

       

Module Objectives

   

At the conclusion of the module, students should be able to:

1.      Explain the backdrop and factors shaping American foreign policy.

2.      Identify the issues in American foreign policy and the nation’s response.

3.      Understand the link between the historical, political, cultural and socio-economic determinants of American nation-building and the subsequent developments in its foreign policy.

4.      Identify the factors that led to the eventual end to American pretension of non-interventionism.

5.      Discern the impact of American foreign policy in international relations and world affairs.

Module Overview

‘American Foreign Policy’ presents to students of history in relation to the United States of America (USA) the origins, development and factors shaping the external affairs of that nation under the succession of presidents as the head of state and government. It also chronicles the responses of the USA to the external challenges and pressures abroad as it gradually sought to carve a place in the global arena as an imperial power. Like the rest of ‘Western’ nations (including Japan), the USA (as a subject) was and remains determined to spread its ideals beyond its borders (where the objects of the ‘civilising mission’ are) on the basis of both diplomacy and military force. This module begins with an introduction outlining the important historical events that shaped American foreign policy. Subsequently, section two focuses on the factors and events that marked American interventionism followed by section three which details other expansionist activities that led to the rise of America as a global superpower. Section Four concludes.

Introduction

The United States of America (USA) is the world’s undisputed superpower today. In other words, it is the most powerful nation on earth. Even at the height of the Cold War when in the aftermath of the Second World War, both the USA and Soviet Union representing the free market democracies versus Communism respectively competed to dominate the world, the USA never lost its technological and industrial edge, although the ideological battle which were result in military consequences such as the eventual downfall of South Vietnam in 1975.[1] This position of global eminence and supremacy was achieved gradually in the development of American foreign policy. From Independence to the Civil War, the USA was preoccupied with domestic expansion, grounded in the belief of a ‘civilising mission’.[2] Intriguingly, the USA did not (yet) extent its ‘civilising mission’ outside its borders. In what is known as the ‘Monroe Doctrine’, the USA proclaimed that European powers no longer ought to colonise or interfere with the affairs of the new nations of the American continent. The ‘Monroe Doctrine’ was articulated by President James Monroe during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to Congress on 2 December 1823 declaring a line of separation between the “Old World” (Europe) and the “New World” (America). The USA is to adopt a neutral position in the wars between European powers and former colonies on the American continent.

The three main concepts of the Doctrine are the separate spheres of influence for the Americas and Europe, non-colonization, and non-intervention. Interestingly, the USA reserved to itself the right to interpret the application of the Doctrine. The main motivation of the Monroe Doctrine is to divide the Western Hemisphere (US and Latin America) and the European nations. This is to avoid further colonisation by the Europeans on Latin America (or South America) consisting of countries such as Argentina, Chile, Peru, Columbia and Mexico. The ‘Monroe Doctrine’ has been expressed by two aspects: Interventionism and Non-Interventionism. The four basic points of the Doctrine were:

1)      The United States would not interfere in the internal affairs of the wars between European powers; (In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded, or seriously menaced, that we resent injuries, or make preparations for our defence.)

2)      The United States recognised and would not interfere with existing colonies and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere; (With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere.)

3)      The Western Hemisphere was closed to future colonisation (that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation by any European powers….)

4)      Any attempt by a European power to oppress or control any nation in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States (But with the governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration, and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling, in any other manner, their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States.) [3]

(a) Interventionism

On 2 December 1845, President James Polk announced to Congress that the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced in both its spirit and letter, and that is not meant to limit the vision of Manifest Destiny, which was to be an incipient principle beyond the established borders of the USA. Hence, instead of the Monroe Doctrine acting as the ‘limiting principle’ on ‘Manifest Destiny, it is the other way round, Manifest Destiny expands the scope of the Monroe Doctrine in the self-interests of the USA.

Already in 1852, some politicians used the principle of the Monroe Doctrine to argue for forcibly removing the Spanish from Cuba which happened in 1898 following the Spanish-American War. The USA obtained Puerto Rico from Spain and began an occupation of Cuba that lasted until 1902.

In 1863, French forces under Napoleon III invaded Mexico and set up a French puppet regime headed by Emperor Maximilian. The USA denounced this as a violation of ‘Monroe Doctrine’ but was unable to intervene due to its preoccupation with the Civil War (1861-1865). However, after the war the USA pressured Napoleon to withdraw his troops which took place in 1867.

President Ulysses S. Grant extended the Monroe Doctrine by declaring that the USA would not tolerate a colony in the American continent being transferred from one European country to another. President Grover Cleveland appealed to the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ when he threatened to take strong action against the United Kingdom in 1895 if the British would not arbitrate their dispute with Venezuela. His Secretary of State, Richard Olney extended the Monroe Doctrine to give the United States the authority to mediate border disputes in South America. This is known as the ‘Olney Declaration.’[4]

The ‘Drago Doctrine’ was announced on 29 December 1902 by the Foreign Minister of Argentina, Luis Maria Drago. Extending the Monroe Doctrine, it set forth the policy that no European power could use force against an American nation to collect debt. Two years later, President Theodore Roosevelt added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted the right of the USA to intervene in Latin America. This was the most significant amendment to the original doctrine that was meant to block European influence in the American continent while the Corollary much more directly asserted American hegemony. 

(b) Non-Intervention

And yet the USA despite expanding its ‘internal’ borders including the purchase of Alaska in 1867 (see Module One) actually embarked on a policy of ‘non-interventionism’.[5] It would therefore be more reasonable to assume that non-interventionism as represented by the Monroe Doctrine was the pragmatic approach of extending the vision of Manifest Destiny.

It is true that the United States appeared isolationist between the two World Wars, and American non-interventionism received its most acute expression in President Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy during the interwar period.

After the Second World War broke out 1 on September 1939, Americans such as Charles Lindbergh, Gerald P. Nye, and Rush D. Holt prominently advocated American neutrality. Groups like the America First Committee tapped into the overwhelming desire of the American people to remain out of the Second World War. The Second World War and subsequent Cold War would put to rest so-called American non-interventionism. The rise of anti-American sentiments as part of the broader anti-imperialistic discourse would have its roots in American interference in Congo culminating in the murder of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961, in Iran resulting in the overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddeqh in 1953, involvement in Indochina, thus precipitating the Vietnam War (1965-1975), etc.

American Interventionism: The Spanish-American War 1898

The origins of an upsurge in American interventionism could be traced to the administration of President William McKinley (1843-1901). He aspired to make the USA dominant in the world markets. And so his administration had aggressively promoted the annexation of Hawaii to serve as a naval base and launching pad for American interests in the Pacific Ocean. During this period too, the ideas of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan on the importance of sea power influenced American geo-strategic considerations, and helped prompt naval buildups before World War I.[6]  In the Philippines, McKinley wanted a place that would give the USA a foothold in Asian affairs.

In the prelude to the Spanish-American War (1898), Spain repeatedly promised new reforms in Cuba then constantly postponed them. American public opinion against Spain became heated, and created a demand for war coming mostly from Democrats and the sensationalist yellow journalism of William Randolph Hearst's newspapers which published reports of Spanish brutality and atrocity. Initially, McKinley and the business community opposed the growing public demand for war.

However, as a matter of protection for American interests around Havana (capital of Cuba), a new warship, the USS Maine, was dispatched to the port harbour. On 15 February 1898, it mysteriously exploded and sank causing the deaths of 260 men. Public opinion became inflamed and a greater pressure for war ensued. Congress voted for war and gave Spain an ultimatum for an armistice and a permanent peace. The naval war in Cuba and The Philippines was a success, the easiest and most profitable war in American history. After 113 days, Spain agreed to peace terms at the Treaty of Paris in July, 1898. As a result, the USA gained ownership of Guam, The Philippines, and Puerto Rico, and temporary control over Cuba.

The USA also occupied Islands of Samoa which was strategically located between Southeast Asia and Australasia, and Hawaii in the Pacific gateway. The Germans were also interested in the islands and so there was a three-power rivalry including the British also. In 1899, the three imperialist nations came to the negotiating table to divide the Islands. The Americans obtained Tutuila where the port of Pago-Pago was situated plus other islands whereas the Germans obtained Upolu and Savari. The British took possession of Tonga and the Solomon Islands.[7]

By the mid-1890s, the Hawaii issue was fore-fronted into the American national political arena. The Republican Party by 1896 supported the idea of colonising Hawaii and this claim was to be taken up by McKinley when he became President in 1897 (see Module One). On 16 June 1897, Secretary of State John Sherman signed the document for colonisation and President McKinley sent it to the Senate. Congress has been concerned with Japanese interests in Hawaii and wanted to pre-empt their presence there. American imperialistic ambitions were not just focused in the direction of the Pacific Ocean, but also the central and south of the Western Hemisphere.[8] The USA intervened in the border dispute between British Guyana and Venezuela which had dragged on for some fifty years. President McKinley’s predecessor, Grover Cleveland had tried to mediate between the two parties by referring the case to the Hague Tribunal. In July 1895, Secretary of State Richard Olney sent a letter to London stating that the refusal of Britain in seeking resolution at the Tribunal was a violation of the ‘Monroe Doctrine’. Following this, President Cleveland asked Congress to empower the appointment of a dispute resolution official. Although initially rejected by Britain, this stance was to be reversed when she became bogged down with problems in South Africa.

The Rise of America as a World Power

The Spanish-American War (1898) which took place during the administration of President William McKinley intensified American involvement in external affairs and defined its imperialistic ambitions. By then, Cuba's economy had already become even more closely linked with that of the United States than it had been earlier in the century. Due to a sharp drop of sugar prices that took place from early 1884, the old Cuban ‘sugar nobility,’ unable to mechanise and cut costs, began to disintegrate and lose its dominant role in the island's economy and society. This facilitated American penetration of the Cuban economy. Sugar estates and mining interests passed from Spanish and Cuban to American hands and it was American capital, machinery and technicians that helped to save the sugar mills that remained competitive with European beet sugar. Furthermore, as the dependence of Cuban sugar on the U.S. market increased, the Cuban sugar producers were more and more at the mercy of the U.S. refiners to whom they sold their raw sugar. In 1894 nearly 90 percent of Cuba's exports went to the USA, which in turn provided Cuba with 38 percent of its imports. That same year Spain took only 6 percent of Cuba's exports, providing it with just 35 percent of its imports. Clearly, Spain had ceased to be Cuba's economic metropolis.

McKinley’s successor, Theodore Roosevelt continued the policy imperialistic expansion. President Roosevelt was in fact an ardent imperialist who believed in the superiority of the Caucasian whom he termed as the ‘dominant races’. Nonetheless, he was instrumental in improving the socio-economic conditions in Cuba, The Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone. Roosevelt used the Army's medical service, under Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas, to eliminate the yellow fever menace and install a new regime of public health. The Roosevelt administration used the army to build railways, telegraph and telephone lines, and upgrade roads and port facilities.

Roosevelt dramatically increased the size of the navy, forming the Great White Fleet, which toured the world in 1907. This display was designed to impress the Japanese who was experiencing impressive development along Western lines. Yet, the ships were almost forced to return because of the inadequacy of American ports in the Pacific. Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States could intervene in Latin American affairs when corruption of governments made it necessary.

Roosevelt gained international praise for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt later arbitrated a dispute between France and Germany over the division of Morocco. Roosevelt's most famous foreign policy initiative, following the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty[9], was the construction of the Panama Canal, which upon its completion shortened the route of freighters between San Francisco, California and New York City by 8000 miles (13000 km).

Colombia first proposed the canal in their country as opposed to rival Nicaragua, and Colombia signed a treaty for an agreed-upon sum. At the time, Panama was a province of Colombia. According to the treaty, in 1902, the U.S. was to buy out the equipment and excavations from France, which had been attempting to build a canal since 1881. While the Colombian negotiating team had signed the treaty, ratification by the Colombian Senate became problematic. The Colombian Senate balked at the price and asked for ten million dollars over the original agreed upon price. When the U.S. refused to re-negotiate the price, the Colombian politicians proposed cutting the original French company that started the project out of the deal and giving that difference to Colombia.

The original deal stipulated the French company was to be reasonably compensated. Realising the Colombian Senate was no longer bargaining in good faith, Roosevelt tired of these last-minute attempts by the Colombians to cheat the French out of their entire investment, and ultimately decided, with the encouragement of Panamanian business interests, to help Panama declare independence from Colombia in 1903. A brief Panamanian revolution of only a few hours followed the declaration, as Colombian soldiers were bribed USD50 each to lay down their arms. On 3 November 1903, the Republic of Panama was created, with its constitution written in advance by the USA. Shortly thereafter, the USA signed a protection treaty with Panama. And after the signing of the treaty, Nathan Johnson Forest assisted Panama with the initial planning phases for the canal. The USA then paid USD10 million to secure rights to build on, and control, the Canal Zone. Construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.

American intervention in Haiti was aroused by the concern about German influence and its growing military presence. When Haitian President Guillaume Sam was publicly dismembered by an enraged crowd, the USA invaded and occupied Haiti in 1915 upon the orders of President Woodrow Wilson. The USA imposed a constitution written by future president Franklin D. Roosevelt, and applied an old system of compulsory corvée labour to everyone. Previously this system had been applied only to members of the poor black majority rather than the mulatto minority.[10]

American occupation had many long-lasting positive effects on the country. The USA forces built schools, roads and hospitals, and launched health campaigns that eradicated yellow fever from the island. The vast network of roads, bridges, and clean water systems drastically reshaped Haiti's infrastructure. Unfortunately, the sum of the structural changes to Haiti's systems was not enough to enable any degree of indigenous progress. The Americans established the Forbes Commission to investigate the lack of progress, and the Commission concluded, amongst other things, that ‘the social forces that created (the social instability) still remain - poverty, ignorance, and the lack of a tradition or desire for orderly free government.’ Order and freedom could not be imposed by force of will.

Nationalist rebels waged a persistent guerilla warfare headed by Charlemagne Péralte and Dominique Batraville. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was disenchanted with the burden and negative social aspects of attempting to impose American influence on the population and proceeded to implement an earlier disengagement agreement, thereby ending the American occupation in 1934.

In respect of Mexico, when Victoriano Huerta established a military dictatorship, US President Woodrow Wilson recalled ambassador

Henry Lane Wilson

, and demanded Huerta step aside for democratic elections. When Huerta refused, and with the situation further exacerbated by the Tampico Affair[11], President Wilson landed American troops to occupy Mexico's most important seaport, Veracruz. American involvement in Mexico was also caused by Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa was disappointed when the Americans siding and gave its official recognition to the Venustiano Carranza government which replaced the Huerta military regime. Villa ordered his men to attack Columbus, New Mexico. The most serious incident occurred in January 1916, when 17 American employees of the ASARCO company were removed from a train at Santa Isabel Chihuahua, and summarily stripped and executed, although one escaped by faking his death. Villa kept his men south of the border to avoid a direct confrontation with the Americans.

On 19 March 1916, on orders from President Wilson, General John J. Pershing led an invasion force of 10000 men into Mexico to capture Villa. The newly adopted airplane, Curtiss JN-2, was used by the 1st Provisional Aero Squadron to conduct aerial reconnaissance. Villa had already had more than a week to disperse and conceal his forces before the punitive expedition tried to seek them out in unmapped, foreign terrain.

In July, American forces including elements of the 7th Cavalry and the African-American U.S. 10th Cavalry Regiment attacked Mexican Federal army troops in an engagement in the Battle of Carrizal, Chihuahua, resulting in many cavalry troops becoming prisoners of the Federals, and effectively ending the 10th Cavalry's usefulness in the Villa campaign. Another skirmish with Federals took place north of Parral, Chihuahua on April 12. Carranza sent General Jacinto Treviño to warn Pershing of armed Federal resistance to any further advances of Pershing's forces into other areas, and that troop movements in the direction north to the border would be the only movements acceptable to the Carranza government. The expedition bogged down due to its lack of success, tension with Mexican officials and citizens, and the attraction of liquor that was provided by cantinas that remained open all night to provide service to the thirsty soldiers.

While the expedition did make contact with Villa’s formations and killed two of his generals, it failed in its major objectives, neither stopping border raids (which continued while the expedition was in Mexico, although both National Guard troops and Texas Rangers were stationed on the border) nor capturing Villa. However, between the date of the American withdrawal and Villa's retirement in 1920, Villa's troops were no longer an effective fighting force, being hemmed in by American and Mexican federal troops and money and arms blockades on both sides of the border. The bulk of American forces were withdrawn in January 1917. Pershing publicly claimed the expedition was a failure, although privately he complained to family that President Wilson had imposed too many restrictions, which made it impossible for him to fulfill his mission.

Conclusion

By 1898, a year after President McKinley took office, the USA ejected the last colonial power (Spain) from the Americas while shifting from a regional to global power with the acquisition of The Philippines and Guam. The acquisition of the Philippines did not, as expected, bring any added advantages to the US in terms of trade rivalries in the East. Instead:

McKinley’s America would quickly learn, as would later generations, that high hopes and brave projects inspired by war could quickly go bad, and a stake in Asia assumed with confidence and popular support could easily become a source of public discord and a thorn in the side of policymakers.[12]

The 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, proclaiming a right for the United States to intervene to stabilise weak states in the region further weakened European influence in Latin America and confirmed American regional hegemony.[13]

Despite its reluctance to involve itself in continental European affairs, the USA entered World War I after making substantial loans to the Allies and after attacks by German U-boats substantially interfered with American shipping. In the peace conference at Versailles, American attempts to shift international relations to an idealist model became bogged down in the secret agreements made during the war and geopolitical horse-trading. American politics also turned against idealist, international policies and the country returned to a more isolationist stance. The USA benefited from its expanded role in international commerce but did not participate in international institutions like the League of Nations.

The USA entered World War II in 1941, again on the Allied side, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. [14] Similarly to World War I, the USA made significant loans to the Allies and its domestic industries boomed to produce war materials. After the war and devastation of its European rivals, the USA completed its transition from regional to global hegemony alongside the Soviet Union. The USA was a major player in the establishment of the United Nations and became one of five permanent members of the Security Council.

From around 1947 until 1991, American foreign policy was characterised by the Cold War. Seeking an alternative to its so-called non-interventionist policies after World War I, the USA defined itself against the spread of Soviet communism in a policy called ‘containment’. [15] The Cold War was characterised by a lack of global wars but a persistence of regional wars, often fought between client states of the USA and Soviet Union. During the Cold War, American foreign policy objectives seeking to limit Soviet influence involved the United States and its allies in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the overthrow of the Iranian government, and diplomatic actions like the opening of China and establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). It also sought to fill the vacuum left by the decline of Britain as a global power, leading international economic organizations such as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Americans had military and economic interests in every region of the globe. [16] The year of 1991 marked both the collapse of the Soviet Union and the initiation of the Gulf War against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. During the 1990s, the USA mostly scaled back its foreign policy budget while focusing on its domestic economic prosperity. The United States also participated in United Nations peacekeeping missions in the former Yugoslavia.

After the 911 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and Pentagon in Washington, D.C., the USA declared a ‘war on terrorism’, defining itself against terrorism similarly to how it had defined itself against communism in the Cold War. Since then, the United States had unilaterally decalred wars against Afghanistan and Iraq (Second Gulf War) while pursuing Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations on a global level. Currently, the USA still has forces in Afghanistan and Iraq despite unfavorable domestic public opinion, especially concerning Iraq. “The perceived need for preventive wars is linked to the fundamental unilateralism of the Bush Doctrine because it is hard to get a consensus for such strong action” and these pursuit of unilateralism “draws on long standing American political traditions”. [17]

(C) Additional Readings

John Baker, Effects of the Press on Spanish-American Relations in 1898, http://www.humboldt.edu/~jcb10/spanwar.shtml#anchor335707

Ethnic minorities, war and the press

Even in times of national emergency, the press couldn't ignore the then-rampant anti-Asian racism in California and the nation as a whole. On March 4, 1898, the Humboldt Times reprinted a New York Press story saying that "Japs are Excluded" from serving in "our" U.S. Navy.

In view of the fact that there were several Japanese on board the Maine when it was blown up, it is interesting to learn the government has adopted a method that will keep them out of our navy.

The story goes on saying the Japanese sailors, in performing menial tasks for the Americans and joining the Navy using their "industry and intelligence" would learn skills which later would serve the Japanese navy.

When some of them were killed on the Maine, valuable men and useful information which were to have been used for Japan's benefit were destroyed.

It will be about her last chance to get either indemnity or info by way of our navy. The government has passed a rule that men admitted to the navy must be more than 5 feet, 4 inches tall. Navy officers say that will exclude the Japs.

 Outside the mainstream, the war and its buildup were also covered extensively by smaller local and special audience papers. Although Congress certainly wasn't influenced as much by minorities as it was by the mainstream white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant readership of the yellow press, ethnic newspapers still played key roles in presenting -- and directing -- non-white opinion.

The Washington, D.C., Bee -- a black newspaper -- called for caution in assigning blame after the explosion of the Maine and urged the government to show restraint, yet pointed out that the consequences for the Spanish would be severe if the Iberian nation was found responsible. On Feb. 19, 1898, it wrote:

The serious catastrophe which took place near Havana on Tuesday, by which hundreds of valiant seamen and millions of property in the shape of one of the best gunboats in the Navy were destroyed, calls for a most searching scrutiny on the part of the American government. The circumstances under which the explosion took place, while they do not point directly to an overt act of violence on the part of the Spanish authorities, yet considering the hostile feeling in Spain to America, this country ought to be certain that Spain completely exonerates herself. In case Spain is responsible... full indemnity for lives lost and property destroyed as well as something more for her smartness [can be demanded], although, in our opinion, Mr. McKinley would be little less than inclined to insist upon thrashing Spain and in addition demanding the necessary indemnity. The President, however, is not to be inveigled into war by the Jingoism so freely indulged in by some blustering Americans. He will be sure that he is right and will then act accordingly. There will be a hot time if Spain did it.

 On the same day in Cleveland, the Gazette -- another black paper -- encouraged African-Americans to fight for the United States. The Gazette hoped that blacks, by showing they were willing to fight for white America, would be further accepted into society by white Americans. At the same time, the Gazette seemed to echo more mainstream papers in its jingoism:

The destruction of the Maine was a crime against this nation not yet fully realized; but gradually the civilized world is being awakened to a sense of the appalling deed. No foreign power can justly sympathize with Spain in its base and cowardly treachery. None of the European nations can regard the act with mitigating allowance without compromising its own national honor. Spain has wickedly sinned against Christian civilization and must atone for its offending. Two hundred and twenty-five white Americans and thirty-three Afro-Americans have been wantonly murdered. The colored men of America have immense interests at stake. As a citizen and patriot, let him make common cause with the people and again prove himself an element of strength and power in vindicating the honor and claims of his country in the hour of the nation's peril. The cause of this government is our cause. If die we must, let us die defending a just cause.

Of course, there were dissenters. Then, as now, some thought problems at home should be solved before getting involved in problems overseas. On Feb. 24, 1898, the Kansas City American Citizen criticized some legislators for looking outside the United States when the American Citizen thought they should look inward:

Let this government see that all laws are obeyed by our fire-eating southerners before going to war with Spain or any other country ...

The southern statesmen who plead for Cuba could learn a valuable lesson by looking around their own bloodcurdling confines of butchery. The Constitution of the United States declares that each state shall be guaranteed a republican form of government, etc. There is about as much respect for the Constitution of the United States in the southern states as there is for the Bible in Hades.

 The Bee, on Feb. 26, however, not only called for war as strongly as the "yellow papers" if Spain was discovered to have blown up the Maine, but like the Gazette called upon blacks to volunteer:

Indications point to treachery of the most malignant type in the case of the destruction of the Maine. In case Spanish duplicity has gone so far as to blow up the Maine there is nothing to do but declare war, whip the rascals and make Spain pay for all of the trouble she has caused. Spanish threats can do nothing to bluff this country and it matters but little what speculators may do or say, there will be a hot time if Spain did it. The thousands of patriotic Americans of Caucasian blood who are willing to go to war will be supplemented by thousands of colored men who will vie with them in patriotism and bravely on the field of battle. If he is given but a fair show, the colored volunteer will put up as bold and solid a front, work up to the approved tactics and capture as many flags, positions and men as a given number of his white compatriots will dare do. Let President McKinley and Congress say the word and recruiting will be a land-office business.

 Abraham Cahan (1860-1951), who for more than 40 years served as editor of the New York Yiddish-language newspaper Jewish Daily Forward (Yiddish title Forverts), wrote stories for the New York Commercial Advertiser during the war. Cahan gave the Commercial Advertisers' readers information on the opinions of newly-arrived immigrants who lived on New York's east side. In this excerpt from Feb. 22, Cahan notes that some people were noticing the media's intense effect on public opinion:

The Maine disaster is the all-absorbing topic of conversation on the East Side. At several cafés the talk at most of the marble tables turned upon the national calamity and the question of war with Spain. Some of the remarks were characteristic.

A large table at one of the cafés frequented by the better class of Germans was occupied by half a dozen well-dressed young men intently following the strictures of a heavily-bearded, spectacled old gentleman.

"The American people are all right," he was saying, sawing the air with his long-stemmed German pipe, "but they give some of their papers too much license. If this country is to have war, let us have it, by all means... But these things must be decided by the elected representatives of the people, and not by a self-constituted authority in the form of a sensational press.

"The Yankee strikes me as a fighter par excellence. He is used to fight, and to win, and nothing seems easier than to precipitate war upon this nation. Why, look at my boys. They are Germans by parentage, but they were born here, and yet they are full of fight, and ever since the Maine catastrophe was reported they have restlessly talked of nothing but war and of their inclination to join the Navy. All you want is to fan this feeling, to stimulate it by foolish war cries, such as some of the papers have been shouting to raise their circulation."

In a story -- headlined "The God of Israel is Getting Even With Them" -- published on May 14, 1898, soon after the outbreak of war, Cahan wrote about the buildup of war hysteria in the New York Jewish ghetto. One observer claimed the war was revenge for the Spanish Inquisition:

The ghetto never does things by halves, and its war feeling manifests itself with an oriental exuberance which keeps the neighborhood in a constant effervescence of excitement. The crowds in front of the bulletin boards of the four Yiddish dailies in this world within a world are not quite so large, perhaps, as the throngs on Park Row, but this numerical inferiority is more than made up in violence of gesticulation and vehemence of verbal expression. The Jews are glad to see Spain defeated. They have a double reason for it. Apart from considering themselves Americans and loving their adopted country... the unhappy children of Israel find out that they have an old account to settle with the Spaniards.

"Serve them right! Serve them right!" said a patriarchal old tailor, upon hearing of Manila. 'They tortured the Jews and banished them from their homes and now the God of Israel is getting even with them. It is an old story, more than four hundred years old, but the High One never forgets, you know...

"(T)he Lord could have smashed them long ago, and even now He could have made some other power the messenger of Spain's ruin. Why should it fall to the lot of the United States to settle her? You don't know? I will tell you. Who should avenge the blood of Israel? Russia, which is as bad to the Jews as Spain was? Germany, Austria or any other country which is as eaten up with anti-Semitism as a bad apple is with worms? England is not a bad country, but what good does she do our people? The United States is the only land that has been a real mother to us. So God thought he might give the Americans the job. The friends of Israel getting square on His enemies, see?'"

To understand what is “yellow journalism” and its role in the Spanish-American War please visit:

a)      http://alt.tnt.tv/movies/tntoriginals/roughriders/jour.home.html

b)     See also, Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War,

http://www.pbs.org/crucible/frames/_journalism.html

The United States and the Philippines, Vietnam and Iraq

There were several scholarly literatures that drew a parallel between the Philippine-American War and the Vietnam War.  See for example:

a)      Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against the Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898-1900, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1968;

b)     Richard E. Welch, Jr., Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine-American War, 1899-1902, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1979;

c)      Brian McAllister Linn, The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippines War, 1899-1902, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989; and

d)     Warren I. Cohen (ed.), Pacific Passage: The Study of American-East Asian Relations on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Today, scholars tend to draw a parallel between the Iraq War and the two earlier US wars with the Philippines and Vietnam. Read the article below and outline the similarities and distinctive characters of the three wars.

Volume 54, Number 2 · February 15, 2007

Manifest Destiny: A New Direction for America

By William Pfaff

George W. Bush

President George Bush has decided to disregard both the political message of the 2006 midterm election and congressional pressure for an early end to America's Iraq involvement, as well as the Baker-Hamilton proposals. These decisions are meeting much opposition, which is likely to fail. Bush's opponents have been unable to propose a course of withdrawal that is not a politically prohibited concession of American defeat and that does not risk still more destructive consequences in Iraq and probably the region—even though the result of delayed withdrawal could be worse in all respects. Most of Bush's critics in Congress, in the press and television, and in the foreign policy community are hostage to past support of his policy and to their failure to question the political and ideological assumptions upon which it was built.

This followed from a larger intellectual failure. For years there has been little or no critical reexamination of how and why the limited, specific, and ultimately successful postwar American policy of "patient but firm and vigilant containment of Soviet expansionist tendencies...and pressure against the free institutions of the Western world" (as George Kennan formulated it at the time) has over six decades turned into a vast project for "ending tyranny in the world."^[1]

The Bush administration defends its pursuit of this unlikely goal by means of internationally illegal, unilateralist, and preemptive attacks on other countries, accompanied by arbitrary imprisonments and the practice of torture, and by making the claim that the United States possesses an exceptional status among nations that confers upon it special international responsibilities, and exceptional privileges in meeting those responsibilities.

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This is where the problem lies. Other American leaders before George Bush have made the same claim in matters of less moment. It is something like a national heresy to suggest that the United States does not have a unique moral status and role to play in the history of nations, and therefore in the affairs of the contemporary world. In fact it does not.

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Source: The New York Review of Books

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19879 (Accessed 8 January 2008)

(D) Recommended Websites

(a)     Motion Picture Camera Goes to War: The Spanish-American War and the Philippine Revolution

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sawhtml/sawsp1.html

Just one of the excellent links from the American Memory project, this site gives an historical account of the Spanish-American War including an account of the war in Cuba and the Philippines.

(b)    Anti-Imperialism in the United States

http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/index.html

Created by Jum Zwick at Syracuse University, this site contains articles and links to primary sources and other Internet sources on anti-imperialism in the US during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. There are pages on the Philippine American War and also on the political and cultural impact of the Philippine Revolution.

(E) Students Assessment

·         What do you understand by the backdrop and factors shaping American foreign policy? Can you identify a common unifying factor which behind American foreign policy?

·         What were the issues in American foreign policy and how did the nation response in the form of its foreign policy?

·         Please outline the link between the historical, political, cultural and socio-economic determinants of American nation-building and the subsequent developments in its foreign policy.

·         Explain the factors that led to the eventual end to American pretension of non-interventionism. Do you think that the USA ever had a real policy of non-interventionism? If so, why?

·         Define yellow journalism. Evaluate its impact on the Spanish-American War 1898.

·         Outline the impact of American foreign policy in international relations and world affairs.

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[1] Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam, fell on 28 April 1975 to the North Vietnamese forces. Reunification took place a year later.

[2] The term Manifest Destiny may have fell out of modern-day by the 20th century, but a ‘messianic’ belief in promoting, defending abroad, and spreading the virtues of democracy and freedom continues to heavily influence American foreign policy.

[3] Text in italics is the actual Monroe Doctrine. Website Address: http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democracy/50.htm (accessed 3 January 2008)

[4] The ‘Olney Declaration’ claims that the Monroe Doctrine gave the USA the prerogative to mediate border disputes in the American continent. Olney extended the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine, which had previously stated merely that the Western Hemisphere was closed to European colonisation.

‘Today the [USA] is practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition ..., its infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it master of the situation and practically invulnerable as against any or all other powers.’  Richard Olney (1895)

[5] It could be argued that American non-interventionism has often been confused with isolationism. Strictly speaking, isolationism combines a non-interventionist foreign policy with protectionism (a form of economic nationalism) and strict border controls to prevent movement of migrants and other forms of exchanges. The modern-day example would be the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) with its xenophobic official foreign policy especially towards the USA and philosophy of juche (self-reliance).

[6] The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1660-1783) was published in 1890 and The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future was published in 1897.

[7] After Germany lost in the First World War, her concessions were taken over by New Zealand according to the mandate of the League of Nations.

[8] ‘Western Hemisphere’ here is used specifically to refer to the entire American continent.

[9] Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was signed in 1901 by the USA and the United Kingdom. This agreement nullified the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 and gave the USA the right to create and control a canal across Central America, connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. The British, recognising their diminishing influence in the region and cultivating friendship with the USA as a counterweight to Germany, stepped aside in the treaty to permit a solely American-run canal. This occurred under President Theodore Roosevelt. The treaty was negotiated under the table by Secretary of State John Hay, and the British Ambassador to the United States, Lord Pauncefote. This treaty, though it handed all canal-building power over to the USA provided that all nations will be allowed to freely use and access the canal and that the canal should never be taken by force.

[10] A ‘mulatto’ is a person with both African and European ancestry.

[11] The Tampico Affair started off as a minor incident involving American sailors and Mexican land forces loyal to General Victoriano Huerta during the tense period of the Mexican Revolution. The misunderstanding occurred on 9 April 1914, but would fully transpire into the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two countries, and the occupation of the Mexican port city of Veracruz for over six months. In midst of the Mexican Revolution, de facto head of state Victoriano Huerta struggled to hold his power and territory intact from the challenges of Emiliano Zapata in the south and the fast advance of the opposition Constitutionalist of Venustiano Carranza in the north. By 26 March 1914, Carranza's forces were ten miles (15 km) from the prosperous oil town of Tampico, Tamaulipas. There was a considerable concentration of American citizens in the area due to the immense investment of American firms in the local oil industry. Several American warships commanded by Rear Admiral Henry T. Mayo settled in the area with the expectation of protecting American citizens and property.

[12] Michael H. Hunt, “1898: The Onset of America’s Troubled Asian Century”, OAH Magazine of History 12, Spring 1998, pgs. 30-6.

[13] W. Allan Wilbur, The Monroe Doctrine, 1967, Atlanta: Dc Heath & Co., 1967, pg. 2

[14] For further readings on US-Japan relations and the attack on Pearl Harbor, see, G.W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbour, New York: McGraw Hill, 1981, pg. 5; R. H. Spector, Eagle Against The Sun: The American War With Japan, New York: The Free Press, 1969, pg. 84; Shakila Yacob, “Hiroshima dan Nagasaki: Mangsa Keadaan” (Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Victim of Circumstances), Sejarah, No.5, 1997, pgs. 117-146.

[15] Judith S. Jeffery, Ambiguous Commitments and Uncertain Policies: The Truman Doctrine in Greece, 1947-1952, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2000, pg. 2

[16] Benjamin F. Fisher (ed.), At Cold War’s End: US Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 1989-1991, Reston, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1999.

[17] Robert Jervis, American Foreign Policy in a New Era, New York: Routledge, 2005, pgs. 86-7.