Posted on 02/26/2017 3:57:02 PM PST by Brad from Tennessee
The end of the Second World War is often considered the defining moment when the United States became a global power. In fact, it was another war forty years earlier, a war that ended with America having an empire of its own stretching thousands of miles beyond its continental borders. The Spanish-American War, which lasted five months, catapulted the United States from provincial to global power.
The Spanish-American War was a classic example of the “Thucydides Trap,” in which tensions between a declining power, Spain, and a rising power, the United States, resulted in war. By the end of the nineteenth century, Spain was clearly in decline, and Madrid’s grasp on its empire was increasingly tenuous. Cuba and the Philippines both experienced anti-Spanish revolts, and Spain’s difficulty in putting them down merely illustrated to the rest of the world how frail the empire actually was.
Meanwhile, in North America, the American doctrine of Manifest Destiny had run its course. The admission of Washington State to the Union in 1890 had consolidated America’s hold on the continent. Americans with an eye toward expanding America’s business interests and even creating an American empire couldn’t help but notice weakly held European colonial possessions in the New World and the Pacific. The march towards war in America was multifaceted: even liberal-minded Americans favored war to liberate Cuba from a brutal military occupation. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
For later
Certainly the US was an SP by the end of WW I? Yes?
Spanish American war may have marked the rise of the USA to level of a super-power, but WWI and the destruction and bankruptcy of Europe made it a reality.
I have written about this in “America’s Victories”—EVERY major European power thought we would lose, as did all the editors.
Even before. That’s why the Spaniards knew their empire was at the end when American ships sailed to Manila Bay built with steel while the Spaniards still had wooden galleons. Surrendered the Philippines at that instant and they knew who was the new boss on the block.
My great grandmother’s second husband was a Fireman 1st Class aboard the USS Boston at the battle of Manila Bay in 1898. The VFW still puts a flag on his grave every Memorial Day. I used to have his metal coffee cup from the ship but donated it to a Veteran’s museum - my mother kept her clothespins in it for 50 years.
In read some histories on WW1 I read where a lot of stuff we used was borrowed from the French. We really didn’t gear up until mid-1918 and by then Germany was on the ropes so to speak even though they had a few offenses that caused the Allies some worry.
I’d have said the War of 1812.
I immediately thought of the Spanish American War but actually by the 30s we were in a decline militarily. That doesn’t tell the whole story tho.
In the words of Yamamoto, we were a “sleeping giant” which just needed to awaken. The attack on Pearl Harbor was the big one but we had already begun to stir before that.
The Spanish -American War marked the the end of the beginning of the destruction of America’s Anglo-Saxon cultural identity.The incorporation of northern Mexican provinces from 1845 thru 1850, the catastrophic genetic losses during the Civil War of the best of America’s endemic population and finally the incorporation of culturally alien territories in Asia and the Caribbean acquired as a result of that war, would forever alter the America of the founders. The transformation continues to the present and is nearly complete.
I disagree. True, the Spanish-American War brought America out of obscurity on the world scene to be sure, WW1 more so, but it was WW2 that sealed the deal.
In Europe, America was instrumental in defeating Hitler and Musso, even so on the eastern front - by sending supplies to support Russia. In the Pacific, America was again instrumental in defeating Japan. Almost single-handed so.
There is no way America’s victory in the Philippines in the Spanish-American war, can compare with America’s victories in the Philippines and throughout the Pacific in WW2. Not to mention Europe.
America emerged a true super power after WW2.
The US became a superpower when it put 3,000,000 men in the field for the Civil War.
It expanded that status with the US Naval victories in the Spanish-American war.
When Pershing won the Battle of Saint-Mihiel on the strength of the US First Army (500,000 men) in 1918, there was no looking back.
In total the US put 2,000,000 combatants in France by 1918. Nobody had ever put that large an Army that far from home before...unless they walked.
You write well...
Started over an accidental coal fire on the USS Maine.
The most amazing power was Japan.
They went from a backward feudal state in the 1850s to a world power by 1905.
And this thread cannot pass without mentioning the USS Olympia that footed the opening shots in Manila Bay. She she sits in Philadelphia now. She’s in beautiful shape and is worth the visit to that filthy city. But she hasn’t had a dry dock in over 50 years and is in danger of rusting through.
She needs 20 million dollars. The navy is considering sinking her as a f#$%ing reef.
The things we piss away 20 million on. And this treasure might get sunk. She also carried home the unknown soldier from WWI.
Agreed. I think the Civil War transformed America to the level of world power. It may not have felt like it at the time but that is the war I would say changed everything. The subsequent wars were the manifestation of the changes the Civil War had wrought.
The US economic output surpassed that of Britain roughly in 1910. Militarily we weren’t ready for WW1 with the exception of our Navy. So I would say we had the complete set by 1920. The US had a very strong say at Versaille, 1919.
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