American Foreign policy 1897-1939

Primarily the United States entered the world political spectrum following its comprehensive victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War (1895-1898) and it was to prove the forbearer of American foreign policy for the foreseeable future. An aggressive imperialistic dictum immediately followed the victory as America sought control of Latin America and the Caribbean. This successful annexation of her own backyard was followed by a more subdued economic imperialism using a ‘Dollar diplomacy’ instead of a ‘big stick’ ethos, extending her influence across the Pacific and towards Asia. America turned inwards upon herself with a trend of isolationism whilst she continued to build the infrastructure, which would eventually propel her to major world power classification. America continued a predominate isolationist policy, with exception towards beneficial economic ventures, until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, where once again matters were forced upon her.

A new form of imperialism can be accredited to America during the earlier years of the century. A capitalistically driven imperialism focussed primarily on Latin America, t

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Essentially he needed to gain and nurture the support of both the Senate and Congress. Rapidly matching the established industrial nations, the outbreak of World War One gave America the opportunity for overtaking her rivals and reaching a predominate position in world trade, they failed the first attempt. America can rightly be labelled as imperialistic and isolationist, as colonial and internationalist, as morally right and despotically wrong, however behind everything is the capitalist influence, the big business influence on foreign policy during the first half of the century.

After an initial period of imperialism – annexations, government removal and military bullying – America acquired all she needed in so far as land, its own sheer mass of land and peoples, its geographical position and its military strength rendered territory expansion needless. The whole hemisphere will be ours in fact as, by virtue of our superiority of race, it already is ours morally’

When war broke out on mainland Europe in 1914, America immediately distanced herself from it, a nation-wide reaction of neutrality and impartiality to the war enveloped the mass population. Exceptions to this were the Washington Conference on Limitation of Armaments, in 1921.

Coolidge was the President who took America from prosperity to recession in rapid time. Having subsidised the victorious Allies in both wars, America became the world’s banker and policeman with no credible rival to halt the flow of American dollars into the world financial spectrum. Roosevelt displayed an aggressive attitude towards foreign affairs, evident from his ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick’ quote. Roosevelt was instrumental in the orchestration of a revolution in Columbia resulting in the development of a new country, Panama, arguably nothing more than a ‘Puppet Regime’. Pearl Harbour settled in an hour the differences of opinion that had tied Roosevelt’s hands, the nation realized it could ill afford an Allied defeat and still maintain a state of neutrality, thus America became a combatant of the war. Woodrow Wilson, having entered office in 1913, faced a two-way ideological battle, isolationism or internationalism and the impossible task of appeasing everybody, nationalists, progressives, socialists, pacifists, plus the powerful ethnic lobby groups. Brogan argues that there was simply too much spare capital in existence, much of it was invested unwisely abroad, especially in Germany and this contributed significantly to the breakdown of the American Stock Market.

Roosevelt, a distant cousin of Theodore, assumed the presidency and began his radical ‘New Deal’ policies, namely to offset recession massive public spending was the answer as opposed to the restriction demonstrated by European countries. The Munroe Doctrine set down the American foreign policy concerning Central and South America.

Common topics in this essay:
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Approximate Word count = 2111
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

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