in the Asia-Pacific, it became apparent that the possibility of retaining Cuba as an American territory would compromise the reason for the United States’ involvement in the Spanish-American War: forcing Spain to grant Cuba its independence as promised through the Teller Amendment.118 The occupation of Cuba by the United States following the Spanish-American War dragged on because the United States had significant economic investments and trade with the island. American occupational forces became part of the island life with the intent of maintaining peace and order for the newly established Cuban government. In addition, military forces were kept in place for the geopolitical purpose of keeping Cuba under American control.
Senator Orville Platt introduced the Platt Amendment for congressional approval for the specific purpose of outlining the role of the United States in Cuba and the Caribbean. The amendment established boundaries for Cuba’s conduct of foreign policy and commercial relations, creating in essence a satellite state of the United States and putting the island nation at a diplomatic and economic disadvantage.119 The continued presence of American troops, as well as the United States’ control over the daily administration and maintenance of the island, became continued sources of pressure for the Cuban government as it debated whether or not to accept this American amendment into the drafting of the Cuban Constitution as it prepared for eventual self-government. Additionally, the amendment created a Cuba that would also allow the establishment of American military bases to forward deploy naval and ground forces in the Caribbean to protect newly acquired Puerto Rico as well as its growing interests in Central America and South America.
The annexation of Puerto Rico and turning Cuba into a U.S. protectorate positioned the American republic to begin looking at Central and South America as core interests to U.S. national security in the Western Hemisphere. With American ground and naval forces readily positioned in the middle of the Caribbean, the United States continued to involve itself in Central America with special attention to Nicaragua and Panama. American economic and political interests were heavily invested in these areas based on significant American investments because both countries were seen as potential routes for a cross-ocean canal that would connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. In addition, Nicaragua had a particularly special economic interest for the American republic because it had significant control of the production and exportation of fruits to the continental United States. In other words, these two nations were economically vital to the prosperity of the United States and had the potential to be the site for a future American Canal Zone linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans together. This canal would not only shorten the maritime movement of people and commerce between the east and west coasts of the United States, but also allow American naval and ground forces to move quickly around the Western Hemisphere. Ivan Musicant points out, “The sea trade was lucrative, and Panama, by accident of geography, provided the crucial linchpin in the chain of Manifest Destiny.”120
While the United States now had the power projection capabilities to reach South American countries that had previously tried to bully or embarrass the American republic (as in the case of Chile), it could also prevent the European powers from getting too involved in the affairs of those countries, as would soon be the case with Great Britain and Germany in response to Venezuela’s financial woes. According to Edmund Morris, “The massive [American military] deployment [to Venezuela] appealed to [Theodore] Roosevelt as diplomacy, as preventive strategy, as technical training, and as a sheer pageant of power…. He had private information that neither British nor German naval authorities believed he could do it.”121 However, America’s new influence and involvement in the region required continued American ground and naval involvement when American authority or interests were challenged. In what became known as the “Banana Wars,” the United States was engaged, just as in the Philippines, in a series of open-ended military operations in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Mexico. The various missions required the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to work together in occupations, police actions, and interventions.122
With small wars raging throughout the Caribbean, Central America, and other parts of the world, the American, as well as European, military leadership used these campaigns as a virtual testing ground for new weapons, equipment, and tactics.123 In addition, naval patrols and police actions in the Caribbean required having to land American ground forces ashore again, forcing ad hoc amphibious assaults on hostile beaches. The conditions of these operations resulted in forced innovation and experimentation in fighting not just small wars, but large ones as well. However, just as in the Philippines, the American military and political leadership faced continued hardship and frustrations.
Interestingly, the long-term implications of America’s relationship with the major powers in the international system were a result of the Spanish-American War. The United States’ success in that conflict essentially defined the diplomatic relationships with the other major powers and hardened its geopolitical strategy for the first half of the twentieth century. In Howard Jones’ assessment of the United States during that period, he argues that the United States’ demeanor dramatically changed as it became involved in the Caribbean, Pacific, and Asia in a surge of a new Manifest Destiny. While the United States grew in political, economic, and military strength, it used its surplus of energy toward expanding its “Empire of Liberty” and therefore spread American influence and domination to distant shores. Through this context, expansion was inevitable and relentless for the American republic.124
While relations with France and Great Britain dramatically improved and established growing cooperation, the United States found itself at cross-purposes with Germany and Japan. Both nations were frustrated with America’s almost bloodless victory against Spain and desperately sought an opportunity to possibly capitalize on it by snatching away a few Spanish colonial possessions in the ensuing collapse of its colonial authority. Unfortunately for Germany and Japan, America’s rudimentary amphibious capabilities were able to beat both expansionistic empires in their Spanish territorial land grab in the Asia-Pacific Region.
Germany and Japan wanted to possess a global empire just like the British and the French, but were late arrivals in the new wave of imperialism that swept the major powers in the late nineteenth century. To make matters worse, Germany was also intruding in the Caribbean and other parts of the world in a race to gather colonies and construct military bases in order to secure access to markets and resources. Germany’s actions therefore stood as a potential threat to the American canal zone and its interests in the region, thereby creating tensions and influencing American political and military leaders to seek closer relations with Great Britain. According to Otto Pflanze, since the late nineteenth century, Germany’s chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, sought to protect his country’s overseas trade: “During the following decades of Germany’s industrialization, the search for markets and materials, the expansion of overseas trade, and the exodus of German emigrants to foreign lands gave weight…. For nearly two decades the foreign office received a steady flow of proposals for colonial ventures in various parts of the world.”125
Meanwhile, the United States faced tensions with Japan. The United States’ expansion across the Pacific with the Alaskan Purchase, as well as the annexation of Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines, put American power and influence into the heart of the Asia-Pacific Region. Not only did the United States deprive the Japanese of these Pacific possessions, but it also put itself in a geopolitical position to become embroiled in Japan’s relationship with China. Japan’s victory over China during the First Sino-Japanese War, when they took control of the Liaodong Peninsula, Taiwan, and the Penghu Islands, and the Chinese government recognized that Korea now belonged under the Japanese sphere of influence, made it apparent that the Japanese had territorial ambitions in the Asia-Pacific.126 In addition, Japanese warships off the Philippines during the Spanish-American War also hinted to the United States that, like Germany, Japan also had territorial ambitions to seize control of part or all of the islands for its own colonial empire.
To mitigate potential friction with Japan, the United States worked an agreement in which, in exchange for the Japanese government recognizing the American occupation of the Philippines, the United States
