Zusammenfassung der Ressource
objectives of foreign
policy from 1890
- those responsible for a major
impact to foreign policy
- Theodore Roosevelt
- an expansionist, Roosevelt came to
prominence by his well-publicised
actions in the Spanish American War of 1898
- became a president
who followed ambitious
and interventionist
policies abroad
- William Jennings Brian
- pacifist
- spent much of his time criticising people
like Roosevelt for being immoral and for
betraying the ideals of George
Washington and the Founding Fathers
- before 1890s, the USA was far from being a world power
- foreign policy stance essentially
defensive
- fought to keep the New
World of the Americans free
of wars and diplomatic
tangles
- most Americans
were hostile to
imperialist ideas and
wanted to steer clear
of international
alliences
- However, events of the 1890 pushed
the USA into rapid naval expansion
- a war against Spain
and the annexation of
territories in the
Pacific Ocean, far
from the USA
- several motives in shift of foreign
policy were openly expansionist
- rapid growth of US economy
seemed to prove that the USA
needed to control new markets
overseas
- this idea increased the influence of the theorists and
politicians who believed in the importance of sea
power and in the need for the size and strength of the
new American nation to be reflected by greater
prestige and influence in the world
- 1890s- great age of European imperialism
- many American were influenced by the
imperialist ideologies of the time
- including the notions of
racial and cultural superiority
and the need for the USA to
accept its 'civilising mission'
to raise non-white societies
from their 'backwardness'
- key individuals that were influential in
promoting expansionism and a more
'forward' American foreign policy based
on modern sea power
- Senator Henry Cabot
Lodge of
Massachusettes
- Theodore Roosevelt
- naval theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan
- however, many politicians had ideas on
American foreign policy that were more
traditional and defensive
- one of these defensive impulses was the Monroe
Doctrine and the traditional American hostility of
European 'interference'
- Monroe Doctrine had been formulated in 1823
when the USA was much smaller and weaker
country
- though based on a defensive mind set, it
had always carried with it the presumption
that the republics of Latin America would be
receptive to US influence, if not domination
- it is no accident that the first move of the USA towards an
expansionist foreign policy was promoted by concerns
about Cuba, a Spanish colony situated only 145 km (90
miles) away from the American mainland
- another key factor was American perception of
events on the other side of the Pacific Ocean
- instability in China led to greater
American involvement in the Far East
- both for commercial
and strategic reasons
- Japans fast modernisation after
1868 was seen as a threat to
American interests in the Pacific
- these worries about Asia and the
'Yellow Peril' were intensified by growing
social tensions in the western states in
the 1890s caused by fears of the extent
of Chinese and Japanese immigration
- All of these factors helped to explain why the
USA adopted a more active foreign policy after
1890
- first Cuba after 1895
- war against Spain 1898
- American annexation of Hawaii, Guam and
the Philippines
- American participation in the international
armed intervention in China in 1900
- slowly, almost by accident, the USA
began its rise to world power
- this rise wasn't straightforward and wouldn't
completed until after 1945- after reluctant
involvement in two world wars