The United States has always been keen not to reveal its true intentions unless provoked to do that. Whether the United States was a liberating nation or imperialism between 1890 and 1920 is complex because different scholars may interpret the actions of each administration differently from another. However, the United States has been more concerned about its interests above all others, which has constantly led to conflicts between the United States and other countries. The United States imposed subjugation tactics in the 1890s to further its empire expansion plans and later changed its dominating perspective into an isolation stance from the rest of the world after World War 1.
American intervention has never been intended to help other nations achieve freedom or better conditions of living. The truth is that America is a nation that will always seek ways to develop its interest regardless of whether the rest of the world is burning or not (Fordham, 2017). The naval act of 1890 was the onset of US domination of the island nations of the Caribbean and Latin America. President Roosevelt adopted the Mahal doctrine, which proposed that the United States could only expand through the imposition of naval force. The frontier was long dead, and the United States was at an impasse on what areas to start expanding its influence (Franz, 2018). Roosevelt began naval expansion and immediately adopted a stance of use of naval force to halt any opposition. The United States government determined that an expanding naval force needed bases in Haiti, Hawaii, Nicaragua, and the Philippines.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Roosevelt and his naval force invaded Hawaii in the pretense of quelling the fight between American sugarcane business people and the locals of the island. Effectively, the United States made Hawaii a protectorate and a naval base. Roosevelt further determined that the threat posed by Spain and other western nations such as Germany was too significant to ignore, which led to the establishment of the Roosevelt Corollary in which the president said in the press that the United States would respond with force to prevent western nations from colonizing the Latin Americas and its islands (Franz, 2018). This proclamation led to the Spanish-American war where the United States grabbed the Philippines from the Spanish and declared it a protectorate, and effectively set up naval bases to ensure the dominance of the United States. Cartoons have often depicted President Roosevelt as a tyrant who walks with a big stick on his shoulder to symbolize naval force to push out western interests in the Americas (Fordham, 2017). The Roosevelt administration argued that what was in the best interests of the western hemisphere is the best interest of the United States.
At the onset of the First World War, the United States annexed Haiti and declared it a protectorate in the guise of preventing anarchy. In truth, the united states were scared of the threat of a possible German occupation of the island. The occupation of Haiti was done solely to ensure that the interests of the United States were safeguarded (Franz, 2018). The US forced the people of Haiti to elect a pro-American and would not serve the interests of Haitians. The United States started to assume isolationism by refusing to be drawn into the First World War despite the German submarines' sinking of American merchant ships. Although Congress agreed to Roosevelt's wish to declare war on Germans, the president still chose to stay out of the war regardless of the chaos the Germans were causing (Franz, 2018). Eventually, the United States joined the war and helped defend the allies from the German onslaught. The United States suffered casualties in the thousands that made the Americans regret joining the war. This regret led to the creation of isolationism, where the United States detached and refused to be drawn in international matters until the Second World War in 1945.
The United States may have reverted to indulging in self-preservation. However, this action was inspired by the deaths of over 400,000 Americans in the war, not because the Americans' need for expansion had died.
References
Fordham, B. O. (2017). Protectionist Empire: trade, tariffs, and United States foreign policy, 1890–1914. Studies in American Political Development , 31 (2), 170-192.
Franz, M. (2018). Preparedness Revisited: Civilian Societies and the Campaign for American Defense, 1914–1920. The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , 17 (4), 663-676.
