"If ever we come to nothing as a nation"
Naval Power, The Spanish-American War Of 1898 And Isolationism; What Is America To Do?
When in 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, addressing the importance of naval dominance in the course of the Great Powers throughout the ages, no one, and certainly not even he, could have predicted the extent to which that book would have affected his nation and indeed the world. It was obvious that his work was quickly becoming popular as it captured the thoughts and minds of many great men of the time; the Kaiser of Germany and Theodore Roosevelt being the first among them. Mahan’s study on naval power and strategy defined the naval doctrine of the United States, the Japanese policy towards sea strategy, as well as roadmapped the redefinition of English and French approaches to long established naval traditions of Empire.
The United States at the time was, like it usually finds itself in, at a crossroads. The last battle against the Indians fought on American soil at Wounded Knee Creek in 1890 completed the struggle for the Frontier at least in practical terms, and major land battles in America proper seemed to be a thing of the past. The road forward lay open for the young state. However the Frontier had been definitive of US foreign and military policy for quite some time, indeed since perhaps the founding of the United States as a solid, non-revolutionary entity, and its Independence. Without the Frontier and the guardians of that tradition of policy and direction, a great question of priorities emerged in American political and intellectual circles. Does one look within or does one look to the world? Great men of influence, power and intellect collided over where American greatness could be found and cultivated next. “Across the Seas", seemed to be a reasonable answer for many. Mahan’s ingenuity and brainchild gave the American intellectuals and statesmen: it’s jingoists and isolationists, grounds to fight over and glories to dream about.
Naval power was -and still remains- in essence representative of one thing; control. Mahan revealed that command over trade, communication, flexing of military power and national interest, as well as the transportation of goods was only possible through the command of the seas. The United States having secured its immediate territorial concerns, was interrogated thus with a question of redefinition both in terms of national interest and of a national presence. Both of those questions were addressable only through the navy if the future of the United States was to be with the world. Having established a level of domestic peace, the time had come for the United States to make a decision regarding the direction of its national momentum towards an international standing and a consencus of its interests. There were those who having resolved the Indian question at least satisfactorily for the moment, would look to advance “American destiny” to foreign shores. The pristine Pacific and the sizzling shores of the Caribbean were rather appealing choices. The prospects of a great American navy to match His Majesty’s Royal Navy-build to serve as Mahan’s machine of history- was quite possibly the ideal tool through which an achievement of American expansion, and a realization of the aforementioned concerns could be executed.
Conducive to these thoughts a perfect storm was raging abroad. Not only had an American mind birthed naval dominance as a concept and a strategy for the 20th century’s Great Powers to adapt to, but the Spanish possessions in Cuba and the domestic situation in the old European empire had grown ripe for the taking. Antonio Canovas del Castillo, perhaps the only man capable of maintaining the Cuban possessions and the Conservative front in the Spanish government alive and well under Spanish dominion was assassinated by an anarchist in 1897. Cuba was under the flames of revolt and seeking freedom. The American position never seemed more favorable to further entrench the Monroe Doctrine in the Caribbean. From there, the prospects for American power in Latin America and the Pacific through what would soon be the Panama canal; an example of American ingenuity and power, were evident.
In the Pacific front, a different kind of storm was brewing. Japan defeated China in the first Sino-Japanese War of 1895, and was quickly rising as an important power not just in Asia but in the Pacific theater at large. Industrially developed, militarilly sophisticated, and navally geared for greatness, Japan demonstrated all the marks of a Great Power in the making. The Chinese and Japanese markets, as well as the colonial holdings of the Europeans in Southern Asia looked rather appealing to the hungry American jingo. The United States annexed, under President McKinley, the Hawaiian islands officially in 1898, and it was evident that naval dominance would decide Pacific rule in favor of only one power, the US or Japan. The Americans; policymakers, intellectuals and businessmen alike, naturally saw a possibility for clashes of interest with the Asian powerhouse over the Pacific. The Spanish possessions in the Philippines were representative of a stronger foothold for the Americans in Asia, both as an entry point in the Chinese markets and against the Japanese strategic expansion which at that point was still being decided, either to descend South or climb to the North of Asia. Conveniently, it seemed that the downfall of Spain benefited the US in almost all its strategic endeavors. American dominance in the Carribean through Cuba, American presence in Asia through the Phillipines and the toppling of old-world tyrrany; all aligned with Spanish collapse. War against Spain not only enabled Latin American expansion, protection of interests in the Western Hemisphere and the destruction of a “European tyrant” of the Old World, but also of securing American economic and strategic interests in the Pacific and Asia.
There was naturally the camp favoring isolationism, or a variation thereof, which both doctrinally, principally and practically believed that the future of the United States could and should be found within and not in foreign conquests and wars of aggression. Thomas Brackett Reed, the great American orator and twice Speaker of the House was, writes Tuchman (The Proud Tower, 157); “unalterably opposed to expansion and all it implied. He believed that American greatness lay at home and was to be achieved by improving living conditions and raising political intelligence among Americans rather that by extending American rule over half-civilized peoples difficult to assimilate.” This describes perfectly a feeling that several American thinkers of the time shared; the American legacy of Jefferson was theirs to inherrit and pass on. As he once wrote: “If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest,” and this was clearly a duty that the isolationists saw as distinctly defining their goals. An America in which political education was lacking and the lack thereof was considered barbarity, where all sorts of domestic issues concerning living standards, ideology and threats to the American state were writhing in the nooks and crannies of the New World- in such an America there could be no space for jingoism.
Of course there were those that felt quite differently, and in this camp there were many. Theodore Roosevelt and the magnate of the press William R. Hearst were two among the Jingoes who certainly played a big role in moving the nation to war and a policy that would honor “the fighting spirit of their race,” as Roosevelt himself had once proclaimed. Expanding into Cuba, projecting power through the Panama Canal and making sure that America finds itself and its destiny through combat was not at all unpopular among the masses and the populists, both in the Republican and Democrat camps. The Yellow Press under the vast influence of Hearst played a significant role in the formation and disseminaiton of that opinion. Now that America stood united and strong enough as one nation, the narrative went, for the glories of the future and the great potential of its inherrent strength no one should stand against it and halt its advance. War with Spain was not just desirable. It was innevitable. Parenthetically, this belicosity and the view of war as inherrent to the healthy life of strong nations was not something that was contained to American political thinking at the time. Darwinian theories applied to human societies and the increased studying and theorizing of ideas of racial supremacy which were becoming quite popular in the end of the 19th century led many, including Mahan himself and therefore the majority of his supporters and readers exposed to the idea, of war as being necessary for the progress and advancement of superior peoples and nations; the strong conquering and establishing themselves over the weak. Germany was a bright example of the nation whose duty and destiny was war.
The great professor and scholar, Charles Eliot Norton wrote, “I fear that America is beginning on a long course of error and wrong and is likely to become more and more a power for disturbance and barbarism.” Dissilusioned with the spirit of democracy that America displayed through its policy with Venezuela towards England, as well as the increasing public bellicosity instigated by the yellow press and the populist orators, Norton verbalized the idea that this very paper attempts to analyze. The bifurcation in American statecraft between isolationism and expansion was born at the era of American redefinition, both in terms of looking at itself as a Republic -therefore politically- but also looking at itself as an actor in international politics -therefore strategically. It was also born in an era were already the philosophers of Liberalism had begun to lose faith in democracy, where the political intelligence of man was revealed to be nothing more than a hunger for panem et circenses, where the yellow press and the games were king. It has forever since affected the way in which American politics have been conducted, and the spirit of the American public has been soaked in this debate.
The late American participation in World War I and World War II were subjects clearly -though arguably partly- affected by the doctrine of isolation. The expansionary policy of containment against Communism and the Soviet Union during the Cold War as well as the New American Century after the turn of the millenium; the War on Terror, as well as NATO’s strong links to the EU-defense planning and Asian-Pacific entanglements with Japan, Korea and Taiwan are also products of this larger debate. Naval power is always present and perhaps in a prophetic way, Mahan predicted that naval dominance would allow and do more for the maintanance of an international presence for the US than any other factor. Naval power has and still enables the debate between isolationism and interventionism to continue so passionately. Without it there is no guarantee of security from foreign enemies as there is nothing to guard the home seas. That security fosters American thinking to consider these options freely. Without the navy there is also no power with which to protect and guarantee foreign holdings and interests abroad. Throughout the 20th century, the Great White Fleet and its descendants allowed the US to stand at the top of the international political and military stage, largely unchallenged. The Spanish-American War of 1898 set that in course.
The Ideological Context
The question to ask is why the American political and cultural mind bifurcates so much between these two directions of undisturbed neutrality and oppositely of interventionism. Consistently, from the 1890s -or one might even say from the era of the American Revolution- until today, American foreign policy has been held captive by its own choices. I believe that the debate between these choices has directly affected and in many cases challenged the very idea of what American democracy represents and what exactly its Republic stands for. The question lies both in the realm of ethics and of American political philosophy, both of which in the context of this discussion find themselves rooted in the conflicting visions of the Founding Fathers. Jacksonian, Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian models of governance but predominantly of ethics and values define an American political and philosophical legacy that prevents the finding of a definitive answer to the bifurcation at hand.
Isolationism grew out of Jefferson’s ideals never to wage war of conquest, to liberalize government, and to be a force for progress and political education for the common man. Many opposed these ideas, thinking that they set back the fighting spirit, and that great ability of the American people to wage war, as T. Roosevelt saw it. To stop it and hinder it in favor of peaceful isolation, non-interventionism and passivity, would be a direct insult to the potential of the American destiny and certainly the final blow that would kill any prospect for a greater America. These two ideas took different forms throughout the years and have never been constrained by one political party on any political position across the spectrum.
To be clear, this fighting spirit must not be interpreted only in the expansionary sense but also in a sense of liberation and spreading of international principles of liberty and democracy. Foreign intervention, similarly to isolation had different camps under its umbrella. Some were in favor of intervention to actualize an American Empire. Others desired foreign intervention for the sake of protecting Liberty and liberating the oppressed peoples of the world, making itself a paragon for the way of life that it stood against; the Imperialism of the Old World and its tyrannical oppresion. In any case it cannot all be misconstrued as a singular ideology, neither can they be backed behind one Founding Father’s ideas or another’s. It is noteworthy that democracy requires two things to function, a political system conducive to its dynamics and at the same time a properly thinking and educated voting populace. Without one or the other democracy cannot function. In its crusades for the entrenchment of democracy both at home and abroad, the United States have ironically only been able and willing to champion only one of the two at any given time.
Before moving on to making parallels with modern America, one must understand the reason why the Spanish-American War was so important in the discussion at hand. America had been by the 1900s part of several wars, but the Spanish-American War was the first that America fought in foreign soil and for reasons of conquest not pertaining to its sovereignty or from a defensive position. Effectively, this war was the first war that asked the American public the question of what its future relation to the world would be. Many put up resistance against the Spanish-American war because they thought that by engaging in it, America would break its promise of being a force for modern civilization against the ways of the old world; conquest, oppression, brutality and tyranny. They believed that these would shatter the legacy of its Founding Fathers to defend Liberty and the Rights of Man, that those Fathers and their compatriots fought for in the days of the Revolution. As Charles Eliot Norton wrote in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, encapsulating the feeling behind these thoughts elegantly, “Never had a nation such an opportunity; she was the hope of the world. Never again will any nation have her chance to raise the standard of civilization.”
One must then examine how modern American politics seem to reflect this division in classical American thought. Mainstreem Republican thought nowadays would much rather that the American state and common force focus on matters of the interior. The reclamation of the industrial, financial and agricultural economies, the mending of the social scars that have wounded its very fabric over the past 4 years as well as the very necessary improvement of infrastructure, education and the domestic market in a storm of external global crises should be, according to them, American priorities. The aftermath of the COVID epidemic, Chinese expansion, the Russian-Ukrainian war and an imminent economic collapse over energy and supplies are not reasons to support an intervention, but examples of America’s own flaws which it needs to work on at home. On the other hand, the policies of the Democrat government have demonstrated a behavior of increased gravity dedicated to US foreign commitments in Europe, the fostering of Ukrainian defensive efforts, meddling with Chinese assets and an increasingly non-protectionist set of economic policies. The Presidency as an institution largely affects where these shifts go over the years, but in the past decade at least, there is a general level of consistency in the respective leanings of each government.
The modern American Right favors isolationism whereas the Left favors interventionism. This is a paradoxical conundrum. The cult of the superiority of democratic liberal government and culture embodied in the Centre’s increasing usurpation by the Left finds expression in the need to share these valuable American treasures with all the peoples of the Earth. This is an evolved version of the “exportation of Liberty”-argument discussed above, where America needs to step in and through intervention safeguard democracy abroad, as the nation that has been gifted the political and nigh-Divine legacy and duty to do so. The paradox seems strange, but there is nothing new about it. To understand this we must learn the lessons that the Spanish-American War has to teach.
The American Conquest and the First Incarnation of the Division
Incidents leading up to the declaration of war in 1898 were affected by a variety of factors. The Yellow Press; Hearst and his populists predominantly, played an immense role in the shaping of public opinion on war and the dreams of an American Empire. The Progressives, as the supporters of this side were called, though themselves radically opposed to large standing armies and navies, as well as being against aggressive expansion and a policy of intervention, at the same time saw their duty being to avail the people of Cuba and the Philippines in a war against the European tyrants and a struggle for liberty. There were of course those, who in the same league as the Progressives thought radically differently; who supported the war because they wanted, like Albert Beveridge -US senator and historian- to truly see an American Empire, actualizing the virillity of the Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon races under the Flag of the Republic and making true the potential of the hot-boiling American blood and sweat. Beveridge according to Tuchman (The Proud Tower, 170);
“We are a conquering race,” he proclaimed in Boston in April, even before the victory of Manila Bay. We must obey our blood and occupy new markets and if necessary new lands [….] In the Almighty’s infinite plan […] debased civilizations and decaying races” were to disappear “before the higher civilization of the nobler and more virile types of man.”
Naturally, there was fervent opposition. The Anti-Imperialist League as it came to be known, supported by many intellectuals and men of high standing, believed that the war was without righteous cause, and that there could be found no reasoning behind American actions as pertaining to the Spanish holdings either in the Caribbean or in the Pacific. The Anti-Imperialists proved too weak to stand against the mighty rising tide of the Progressives. After the war was won and questions of what to do next emerged, the fighting between the two sides grew fiercer. The Anti-Imperialists not only saw the need to focus on the interior in a matter of direction within American policy, but also believed that the Americans had no reason to introduce more half civilized peoples in their dominion which, like the Blacks of the South might prove a thorn on their side and on the feeble body of the evolution of the American nation. The integration of the Indians too was an issue that bloomed still on the blood stained soil of the Western Frontier, and the economic instability as well as the lack of political education among White Americans all troubled the Anti-Imperialists considerably more than a war that would eventually bring more problems to the nation. These sentiments Tuchman again(The Proud Tower, 169) describes well;
On the side of the Anti-Imperialists was a strong sentiment growing out of the troubes with the Negroes after the Civil War, of reluctance to take on new colored populations. Nothing but more trouble would accrue, said Godkin […] from “dependencies inhabited by ignorant and inferior races” with whomAmericans “had no union other than would be necessary for purposes of carpet-beggary and corruption.” Carl Schurz used the same argument against the Canal saying that “once fairly started on a career of aggrandizement” the imperialists would insist that the Canal be bordered on both sides by American territory and would want to annex countries “with a population of 13,000,000 Spanish-Americans mixed with Indian blood” who would flood Congress with twenty Senators and fifty or sixty Representatives. Hawaii, where Orientals greatly outnumbered the whites, posed the same threat.
In the midst of the battle between these ongoing political ideologies which knew no party allegiance at first, the War was won for the United States and the question of annexation or liberation of Cuba and the Philippines arose in the peace conferrences that ensued. Cuba was set up effectively as a protectorate of the Americans but the war against Philippino guerillas contintued in the Pacific, even after the annexation of the Philippine archipelago. Reed stepped down as Speaker, as the Republican party evidently desired greatly to continue their unrelenting struggle against Aguinaldo’s guerillas in the hot jungles of the Phillipine Islands, whereas as the Democracts, and freedom fighters of the newly annexed territories placed their hopes on a new face emerging in the following elections of 1900. However, McKinley and Roosevelt won and with their victory the dreams of the anti-imperialists were effectively shattered. The matter was seemingly solved, but the scar was far from healing.
The Russo-Ukrainian conflict presents the people and polilty of the United States with a very similar situation to that of the war they found themselves engaged in more than a century ago. The question of increased and continued intervention versus swift and serene isolation that has been put before them time and time again in the past century provides them once more with restless political ecstasy. Ideologically, the tables have turned for the parties representing each, and though the burdens of annexation and patronage are not the same as they were before, the symbol of division in the American Dream and the American direction forward is identical.
What is America then to do? How does America decide what is right for its own people and destiny? How is the dillema solved when moving forward with very real and very binding, long-standing American commitments abroad? These are all questions that the political regime and the American citizen must struggle with moving forward. The road cannot be an easy one.