Cuba would eventually become an independent, sovereign nation, the Philippines was another matter.
Occupation was not the original objective of the American political and military leadership during the Spanish-American War. The Philippines came under the control of the United States as a geopolitical necessity because the archipelago was about to collapse into chaos and become prey to the Germans and Japanese. The landing of American ground forces was merely a stopgap measure until the United States’ political leadership could figure out what to do with the islands. When Spain relinquished control of the Philippines to the United States, congressional members were split on the future of the island chain. Some argued for retaining it as an American territory where it would be pacified and developed to such an extent that it would eventually become a state of the United States. Others did not believe in keeping the Philippines, but instead argued for either immediate or eventual independence. The territorial future of the Philippines was based essentially on the fundamental principles of what the United States stood for in the world and what its relationship should be with future territories that could come under the control of the American republic.
The debate within Congress was exacerbated by the Philippine Insurrection against the American occupation, which began shortly after the Spanish-American War. The Filipinos, under their revolutionary leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, fought against the American forces when it became apparent that the United States had no intention of granting the Philippines its independence and leaving the country. The Philippine-American War soon raged in a series of bloody engagements outside Manila and throughout the main island of Luzon. After Aguinaldo’s forces were crushed and the insurgent leader captured, the insurgency broke apart into small units in order to continue resisting and harassing the American occupation from other smaller, more isolated islands.134 In order to deal with the insurrection, the United States employed more men, weapons, equipment, and money to clear, hold, and build stability in the Philippines in order to win the hearts and minds of the Filipino population.
Despite systematically clearing the Philippines of insurgents from the islands by using its ground, naval, and amphibious capabilities, the American occupation force and the United States had to deal with several political issues. The American republic first had to establish a stable, legitimate government in the Philippines that could provide basic security and services to the Filipino population. In laying the foundation of governmental services and infrastructure for the island, the United States had to recruit thousands of specialists, contractors, servicemen, government workers, and scientists who could perform the groundwork in setting up a viable, legitimate government that the native population could trust. More importantly, in establishing an island government, the United States needed the Filipinos to be willing to participate in the political system. However, political cooperation in the islands was going to be difficult to achieve, because the Philippines’ indigenous population included more than twenty major ethnic groups and countless smaller tribes.135
The language and cultural barrier of an exotic population, combined with the difficult geography and extreme weather of the Philippines, created conditions that tested American political and military leadership. Disease, typhoons, poisonous plants, dangerous animals, and hostile Filipino peoples all combined to take their toll on the occupational force. In doing so, the friction and frustration of handling the overwhelming difficulties and barriers of the Philippine islands inevitably led to abuses and reprisals, therefore creating an “us versus them” relationship. Despite the appointment of progressive governor generals with competent civilian administrative staffs that oversaw the construction of roads, railroads, hospitals, telegraph lines, schools, universities, sewer systems, and police and fire departments, the Filipino population in certain parts of the island chain continued to resist American governance and waged long, often brutal, campaigns against the American military, as seen in Balangiga, Mabitac, Paye, and Samar.136
Despite the development of the Philippines and the use of amphibious operations to secure more islands in the archipelago, the United States’ political and moral authority in the Far East was slowly being eroded away. While the United States struggled to utilize its military to regain control over what was becoming a very unpopular war, the situation in Cuba was not as bloody, but no less difficult. Although Cuba had an organized insurgency and a shadow government that quietly operated behind the scenes during its struggle for independence against Spain, the United States hesitated to turn over the island directly to the Cubans. Part of this hesitation was motivated by American economic interests, especially regarding the island’s sugar production and distribution that could potentially hurt American sugar industries at home. Also, the island was a valuable piece of military real estate that allowed increased power projection in the Caribbean and South America and provided powerful, forward-deployed military units to protect the construction of an isthmian canal in Central America.
The United States’ occupation of Cuba allowed for American political and diplomatic leadership to work out more than the establishment of a sovereign government, but also to define the future relationship between the two countries. The U.S. Congress introduced this new relationship with the Platt Amendment within an army appropriations bill that essentially set seven conditions that Cuba must uphold before American military forces could withdraw from the island. This amendment was tied to the Cuban-American Treaty of Relations, which gave the United States exclusive rights to establish military bases on the island; it directed the Cuban government not to go into excessive debt and to take actions to reduce infectious diseases; and finally, it gave the United States the right to intervene in Cuba for the maintenance of the host nation’s government.137
Despite the controversy the amendment sparked within Congress while passing it for approval, the newly established Cuban government quickly rejected it in the Cuban-American Treaty of Relations.138 However, the continued presence of American ground and naval forces on the island, as well as the occupational force’s full control over Cuba’s administration and infrastructure, finally convinced the Cuban political leadership to accept these conditions and introduce them into Cuba’s constitution.
This American diplomatic victory had mixed political ramifications, both at home and in Cuba. Fred Harvey Harrington argues that the anti-imperialist movement was led by those who opposed the annexation of the Philippines and other islands placed within reach by the American victory over Spain. The anti-imperialist movement was based on an abstract principle. While not opposed to expansion based on commercial, constitutional, religious, or humanitarian grounds, the anti-imperialists were against annexation and administration of underdeveloped regions because it compromised American ideals of self-government and isolation.139
At home, the anti-imperialists were up in arms over the unfairness of the treaty’s conditions that essentially made Cuba an American colony except by name, while Cubans were outraged at how much power and influence the United States had over Cuba’s affairs. By many, the Platt Amendment was looked at as an act just short of betrayal since the United States’ original intentions to free Cuba for purposes of self-determination now resulted in exchanging Spanish colonial chains for American ones. In other words, American political leadership was now going against its original ideals of freedom and democracy in exchange for narrow national security and economic interests. Cuba was merely the beginning of a more aggressive policy to use military force in support of U.S. geopolitical strategy. Once business over Cuba’s future was concluded, Theodore Roosevelt soon became president of the United States and would later authorize the use of the military to use amphibious warfare to safeguard American interests in the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Morocco.140
Social Implications of Amphibious Warfare
America’s use of amphibious warfare during the Spanish-American War also had social implications. Because of the major social issues that were raging within American society, America’s easy victory over the Spanish during the war only exacerbated sensitive, volatile conditions at home. The Second Industrial Revolution brought unprecedented economic development and production in the United States, resulting in America quickly transitioning from an agrarian society to one based on
