a ‘free hand’ to purchase guns, ammunition, and supplies. He generated war plans, scheduled additional gunnery drills, stocked distant supply stations with coal, consulted Captain Alfred Mahan about the need for new battleships, and succeeded in having Admiral George Dewey placed in command of the Asiatic Fleet.”64
With the United States modernizing its military, it also became apparent that America needed to establish and maintain diplomatic relations with numerous states within the international system, particularly in the Asia-Pacific Region. While the State Department maintained diplomatic relations in Europe and South America, the United States sought to establish diplomatic relations with other nations as well, including Japan, Korea, Siam, and China.65 Attempts to do the same with Africa and the Middle East were shut down, since the European powers were already dominant in those regions where many of the independent states became either colonies or protectorates. It was in this international environment that the United States’ foreign policy and commercial interests were focused primarily within the Western Hemisphere and the Asia-Pacific Region, since the imperial preferential trading system in those regions was not as dominant.
In this situation, the United States’ involvement in Central America and the Caribbean became prominent for many reasons. Besides geographic proximity with the continental United States, the United States had political, economic, and military interests in the regions’ natural resources and markets, as well as in their potential ability to serve as refueling stations, port facilities, and, more importantly, in the possibility of constructing a canal to connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. While the United States had the transcontinental railroad for cross-country travel, the geopolitical implications of linking the eastern and western regions of the United States by sea were manifold. Such a canal would shorten maritime commerce and passenger movement by several weeks, and it would allow the American Navy to more easily shift its fleets and squadrons between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Despite the potential economic and military applications of a canal in Central America and in the Caribbean, the entire region was rife with strife and intrastate warfare. The various weaknesses found in the host nation governments of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua made them ripe for American military intervention in order to safeguard the United States’ commercial and diplomatic interests as well as to prevent the possibility of a major power moving in to exert control.66 In addition, some of the Caribbean islands were also fighting for their independence, as in Cuba, where a long, violent insurgency was taking place against the Spanish Empire, leading to news reports of outrageous atrocities and the use of concentration camps. Besides being the largest island in the Caribbean, Cuba had the most extensive commercial ties with the United States and had geostrategic importance, since it was less than one hundred miles from Florida’s southern coast.
While Central America and the Caribbean were practically the “backyard” of the United States, the geographical, political, and military uniqueness of the region presented several obstacles in using American military forces in the region.67 These conditions combined to push America’s military to develop and experiment with new technologies, especially in the realm of amphibious warfare, that later served as the basis for how it would fight wars in the first half of the twentieth century. However, the United States’ military had atrophied while fighting scattered, disorganized American Indian tribes, and its perception of fighting wars overseas was conceptual and based on how it had fought the American Civil War, as well as its limited observations of how the other major powers waged war. When the Spanish-American War began, the United States used whatever practical equipment and weapons it had on hand. To make up for the military shortfalls, Americans had to adapt and overcome the difficulties they faced when fighting against the Spanish. Herbert Sargent points out, “The [American] volunteers had to accept an inferior rifle and use black powder; a number of regiments could obtain no tents; the entire army was short of transportation; and many soldiers had to go to the tropics and fight in winter clothing.”68
Military Mobilization and Adaptation for the Spanish-American War
When the United States entered the Spanish-American War in 1898, the American armed forces were still woefully behind in their organization, professionalism, and technology.69 Despite the United States not having a powerful, modern military that could potentially challenge the larger, more powerful major powers such as Great Britain, France, Russia, or Germany, Theodore Roosevelt anticipated a war with Spain and, as a result, applied his immense energy as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to modernize its power projection capabilities by focusing on building up its naval forces. Roosevelt also issued an extensive memorandum to the Secretary of the Navy about a possible war with Spain and in which he insisted that American cruisers, gunboats, and other warships be concentrated at strategic points for possibly blocking the Spanish in Cuba and the Philippines. In addition, the memorandum also ended with demands for more ammunition, men, and colliers to be ready to support the American fleets if war was declared.70
While the Union victory at the conclusion of the American Civil War restored legitimacy and confidence in the United States and scared off most European encroachments in the Western Hemisphere, the American military declined in power and influence. It spent the latter half of the nineteenth century overseeing reconstruction of the American South while also protecting settlers along the western frontier. During this time, the United States’ recovery seemed miraculous and led to the steady development of its industrial, food, and resource production.71 With the continent secured against potential external enemies, the American military became more of a police force that focused on maintaining law and order. Since the military dealt primarily with hostile American Indians and the occasional group of outlaws or bandits, its capabilities atrophied. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy focused on protecting American commercial vessels from pirates and generally contributing to maintaining security of the global commons.
After an international incident involving American sailors in Santiago, Chile, and avoiding being potentially embarrassed in a naval war by a militarily more advanced and powerful Chile, the United States invested funds to modestly modernize its naval forces.72 In order to encourage continued American political support for naval modernization and military preparation, according to Kenneth Hagan, junior officers within the U.S. Navy, such as Lieutenant Charles Belknap, argued that battles on land and sea should not be left to chance, but instead be recognized as essential for America to achieve dominance. In a potential war, the destruction of the enemy’s fleet, followed by campaigns “involving combined naval and military operations against assailable portions of an enemy’s territory,” was chiefly important.73 In addition, Mahan’s writings on sea power and its impact on geopolitics within the international system further convinced the United States to accelerate its naval modernization program and increase the size of its fleet. In doing so, the American political and military leadership realized that it also needed to increase the size and professionalization of its armed forces. Increased allocation of funds toward growing the education and training of both its ground and naval forces was realized with the establishment of the new Army Command and General Staff College and the Naval War College. These premier military institutions served as the foundations for not just the study of warfare, but also allowed the Army, Navy, and later Marine Corps students to practice and experiment with planning and conducting amphibious operations with units trained and equipped with modern weapons and equipment.
Although these measures helped the American military, they were not enough to initially prepare its military forces for war with Spain. According to Allan R. Millett, the Department of the Navy concluded that the U.S. Navy would be the primary instrument that the American republic would use to end Spanish colonialism. While the Naval War College and the Office of Naval Intelligence drew up a series of war plans for naval action against the Spanish Fleet, the Navy War Board envisioned offensive operations in the Caribbean and Pacific. A defeat in the Caribbean would isolate Cuba and blockade the Spanish ground forces, while a victory in the Pacific would allow the American government to hold the Philippines hostage.74 Despite being a young, large country, the United States had a poor military record of fighting against other major powers.
