and railways, and where novel forms of logistics and communications were utilized to support and coordinate the movement and deployment of massive military forces resulting in unprecedented casualties prior to being eclipsed by World Wars I and II.56
While the United States avoided most of the international crises and small wars, American political, economic, and military power continued to grow from its geographical base in North America. While technology from the Second Industrial Revolution dramatically improved economic standards at home, it also introduced new social and political problems that demanded new, unique solutions from the American government. Doris Kearns Goodwin observes, “With this transfiguring mechanization and the development of mass production, however, the gulf between the employed and the employer is growing wider; social contrasts are becoming sharper.”57 In addition, the United States also had to spend increasing amounts of time and energy on American foreign policy, since its diplomatic and commercial ties brought it into contact with almost every part of the world. Although America’s contact with the international system brought economic and cultural benefits that continuously transformed American society, it also left the nation susceptible to the world’s problems and crises.
America’s Expanding Geopolitical Interests in the Nineteenth Century
The United States’ successful fulfillment of the American goal of Manifest Destiny meant that the American nation straddled the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and that the country had direct access to markets in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. The American republic’s position was ideal in the international system because it had access to two of the world’s largest oceans, giving it maritime access to both East and West. In addition, its geographic landmass across the North American continent also gave it access to a variety of environments and natural resources ready for development and exploitation. Finally, the United States bordered only Canada and Mexico, two relatively weak states that no longer posed a significant threat to the United States’ core interests. John J. Mearsheimer’s examination of the United States as a great power is interesting because while he acknowledges that the United States did possess the economic strength to compete with the other major powers in the international system, he points out that the United States was no ordinary great power. Its small military combined with its hesitation to use it to pursue its interests made the American power an unusual state actor throughout the nineteenth century. During this period, the United States instead relied almost exclusively on the use of soft power for its foreign affairs, using a combination of diplomacy and commerce to leverage gains on behalf of the republic.58
While the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans provided geographic protection from more powerful and highly aggressive state actors, the United States was not entirely sheltered from military attacks. The American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 proved that Great Britain could use both Canada and the Royal Navy to inflict harm on the continental United States. In fact, Great Britain proved that it could conduct amphibious operations effectively against the United States when it launched a few major campaigns against the American mainland from the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Piers Mackesy argues that Great Britain’s three main concerns revolved around maintaining maritime security, protecting its overseas empire, and maintaining the European balance of power. In order to maintain these three priorities, Great Britain relied on interventions from time to time to ensure its geopolitical interests were maintained, especially when it had to reduce the British Army to amphibious warfare at a time when it had no secure bases in certain parts of the world to successfully attack an enemy state.59 Great Britain demonstrated this power projection capability with the occupation of major American cities during the American Revolutionary War and the embarrassing defeats it inflicted on the Americans during the War of 1812. These defeats made an impression on the American political and military leadership of that time and set the foundations for what became the basis of American geopolitical strategy: protection of the continental United States. With the rise of the Second Industrial Revolution during the latter half of the nineteenth century, technological advances in transportation, firepower, and logistics now made it possible to vastly improve the power projection distance and lethality of potential state competitors.
The influence of the Second Industrial Revolution on American national security became evident in a series of crises in the Western Hemisphere after the conclusion of the American Civil War. While the Mexican-American War finalized the issue of dominance over the North American continent, the immediate threat of the southern states seceding from the Union and forming the Confederacy forced an immediate reprioritization of American leadership, manpower, and resources. With American foreign policy focused exclusively on discrediting the rebellion and preventing European recognition and intervention in the conflict, much of the Western Hemisphere was left to its own devices, especially Mexico and South America. Bevin Alexander comments, “At the turn of the twentieth century the United States entered into a vast new world [and] had become the preeminent economic power on earth and was separating itself further from the world…. But the United States had so far played only a minor role in world affairs.”60
The end of the American Civil War and the preservation of the Union left the United States for a brief time in possession of one of the largest, most powerful militaries in the world. The implementation of the Anaconda Plan to strangle and destroy the Confederacy during the American Civil War led to the formation of a large army and navy. The defeat of the Confederacy now required the United States to maintain a large military for the occupation, reconstruction, and eventual reintegration of the southern states back into the Union. While the political and military leadership was focused on reconstruction in the South, it also sought to remove any potential threats to the republic, especially along its southern and western frontiers. The destruction and removal of the American Indian tribes was considered essential to the United States’ interests in order to allow American settlement and economic development to proceed unmolested. In addition, American political and military leadership successfully pressured France to withdraw its military support of, and political influence over, Mexico after several years of occupation in trying to support French imperial schemes in Central America.
While the United States focused on reconstruction and closing the western frontier, American political, military, and economic leadership began looking beyond its borders. In a series of foreign policy moves, the United States acquired or secured a series of territories, such as Alaska, the Hawaiian Islands, and Wake Island, that extended its power and influence into the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.61 In addition, the United States also sent warships to various parts of the world to safeguard American commerce and interests, particularly in South America, Africa, and Asia. However, by the end of southern reconstruction and western frontier settlement in the late nineteenth century, the American military was still small and sorely in need of modernization. These problems became apparent when American naval squadrons were embarrassingly unprepared to protect American interests during the War of the Pacific in South America, where Chile’s ground and naval forces were more powerful than those of the United States.62
Although the United States avoided war with Chile and involvement in the War of the Pacific, the United States clearly required more than diplomacy, soft power, and posturing to implement its geopolitical strategy. Based on these recent international incidents, as well as Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, the United States authorized the growth and modernization of its naval forces by decommissioning its old wooden ships of the line from the American Civil War. In their place, the American republic pushed for the rapid construction of modern steel warships that ran on either coal or oil and that were equipped with the latest technology and armed with big, quick-firing cannons.63 In addition, sailors and marines were becoming more professionalized by virtue of increased application in discipline and technical training. In other words, technology was beginning to influence American military capabilities so they could advance the United States’ geopolitical strategy, as well as protect its global interests. According to Doris Kearns Goodwin, “under the elderly Navy secretary, John Davis Long, Theodore Roosevelt did everything in his power to prepare the U.S. Navy for war. During the long summer months when his boss
