Hindsight: A Retrospective on American Foreign Policy from 1865-1912

The creating of narratives is essential to the study of history. They allow for better understanding of cause and effect, filtering out unnecessary details. These narratives fail, however, in their tendency to essentialize movements and processes, none so much, perhaps, as in the history of foreign relations. Rather than adhering exclusively to force or to negotiation, between 1865 and 1912, pragmatic Americans used a combination of both hard and soft power to extend their ideas and institutions. The approaches were not mutually exclusive; many foreign policy objectives were met using not only force and coercion, but also commerce and negotiation. What's more, each decision was the product of power struggles between businesses, interest groups, and even ideologies.

From 1865 to 1896, as the United States attempted to dominate the Western Hemisphere, foreign policy was decidedly mixed in its application. Despite clergyman Josiah Strong's insistence that his "powerful race will move down upon Mexico [1] Several policy decisions, however, stand out in their forcefulness.

Perhaps the greatest of these hard power decisions takes root as far back as Colonial

America. US relations with its indigenous population had never been good, but as the frontier shrunk, policymakers, trying to consolidate the western territories, ceased treating Native American tribes as foreign nations in 1871.[2] Ditching treaties for forced moves onto Government land, resistance was crushed mercilessly as at Wounded Knee. Of the expansion, Theodore Roosevelt would later write that "the man who puts the soil to use must of right dispossess the man who does not".[3]

However, while Roosevelt was publishing his book on the West, more pacifistic and commerce-driven accords were being negotiated between the US and Hawaii. Its eventual annexation still far off, considerable debate surrounded its possible inclusion in the Union. It took eight years, starting in 1867, for Congress to pass a trade reciprocity treaty, ultimately shot down by US Sugar interests in 1885. Eager to reopen the US markets, Hawaiians offered Pearl Harbor. At the time, Captain Alfred Mahan was pressing for colonies as "resting places" for his new navy fleet, and the deal seemed too good to resist.[4]

Unfortunately for Mahan, and for pacifism, soon thereafter Queen Liliuokalani rose to power, blocking US expansionism and necessitating a US-spurred rebellion on the island.[5] Neither pacifism nor hawkishness completely dominated the debate over Hawaii, though. Policymakers resorted to military means only after diplomatic avenues had been shut off. So it was also during the Native American Wars. The two events share the same underlying principles. Behind the entire project, however, were US financial and strategic interests.

In the closing years of the 19^th century, the US had cemented itself as an hemispheric power. It possessed an impressive Navy, and was the world's largest producer of steel, and had been sustaining a favorable balance of trade since 1874, with the exception of 1893-94.[6] Seeking new markets for these exports, businessmen and policymakers turned their eyes towards Cuba and the Philippines.

Factions still dominated the debate, however. On one side stood Henry Cabot Lodge, arguing eloquently for Cuba as "a great market to the United States".[7] With him was fellow Republican Albert Beveridge, arguing more passionately for expansion into "lands of [US] duty and desire".[8] Against the senators stood William Jennings Bryan, alleging that "forced annexation would[...] be criminal aggression."[9] Divided as public opinion was, American interests were clear, especially regarding Cuba, which was two decades into its revolution. Already invested to the tune of $50 million and heavily interested in sugar exports, the US had a vested interested in maintaining its market in Cuba.

As with previous objectives, policymakers first attempted diplomatic negotiations with Spain in 1895 to ensure the protection of US property. Indeed, as late as 1897 President McKinley and scores of businessmen were opposed to military intervention on grounds constitutional and pecuniary, respectively.[10] After the de Lome letter and Maine explosion, however, military force was all but a necessity, due in no small part to the manipulation of public opinion at the hands of yellow journalists such as Hearst and Pulitzer.[11] War came and went, but it was not a certainty from the outset. Public opinion changed many times, and policies ranged in intensity from hawkish to pacifist. Both, however, dove-tailed perfectly into American interests: the preservation of old markets and the creation of new ones.

A pattern emerges: diplomacy before guns and hardly any unanimous consent. Shortly after the war, the planning of the isthmian canal would follow a similar formula. Despite his adherence to "the law of work, the law of strife," President Theodore Roosevelt recognized the diplomatic frailty of the isthmian project.[12] The first step of disentanglement from the half-century old Clayton-Bulwer treaty required manifest finesse. By walking softly around Britain, and offering tacit support during the Boer war through a Boer embargo, British cooperation in the 1901 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was guaranteed without the firing of a single bullet.[13]

By 1902, groundbreaking in Panama became a surety with the passage of the Spoon Amendment, and it would have occurred without bloodshed or coercion had the Colombian legislature approved the treaty.[14] Boisterous as he tended to be, Roosevelt himself acknowledged that the economic interests of the US and its "southern neighbors are in reality identical."[15] Alas, it was not to be. In 1903, the US sponsored a Panamanian revolt and blockaded a Colombian infantry landing, guaranteeing the revolution's success, and with it, the success of the Panama Canal.[16]

With canal construction underway and the Roosevelt Corollary firmly in place, the United States enjoyed a period of relative tranquility in its Hemisphere. Far from "[sitting] huddled within [its] borders and [17]

Not unlike the Spanish-American War, this peaceful outcome was not guaranteed. By 1904, Japanese aggression in China and Korea threatened the open door while anti-Japanese sentiment at home only stoked Japan's ire. Japan had acquired the "big head" that Roosevelt had feared and was entering "into a general career of insolence and aggression".[18] Using the coercion and diplomacy together, Roosevelt at once sent sixteen fearsome battleships on a world tour nearly simultaneously negotiating the Root-Takahira agreement, giving up Southern Manchuria but preserving the open door.[19] Roosevelt demonstrated the same strong-armed finesse at the 1905 Portsmouth talks for which he later won the Nobel Peace Prize, bringing the Russians and Japanese to together to negotiate peace terms in a building overlooking his great white fleet.[20]

As history progressed, President Taft would follow shakily in these same footsteps, attempting at every step to substitute "dollars for bullets."[21] Aside from the 1909 Nicaraguan revolution, Taft's substitution managed to curtail the expenditure of bullets. Unfortunately, his savoir-faire for diplomacy was found lacking, and in the face of an expanding Japan and Russia, dollar substitution met a significant lull.[22] His intentions, however, were at all times the slave to America's economic interests abroad. Taft's efforts to prop open the closing door to China were simply ham-fisted.

Much like Taft's dollar diplomacy, foreign policy in the fifty years following the Civil War was far from cohesive. Each decision was the product of a power struggle between interests in government, business, and civil society. Their combined interests, however, drove an American foreign policy that, rather than hewing exclusively to force or to negotiation, acted pragmatically to extend American ideas and institutions beyond its borders.

Sources Cited

Beveridge, Alfred. "March of the Flag." Modern History Sourcebook. Fordham University. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1898beveridge.html

Brazinsky, Prof. Gregg. Theodore Roosevelt and World Order, February 6, 2007

Bryan, William Jennings. "Jackson Day Speech at Chicago." Speech. Bryan League. Chicago, Ill. January 7, 1899. Blackboard

Lafeber, Walter. The American Age. New York: Norton, 1994.

Lodge, Henry Cabot. "For Intervention in Cuba." Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy. Vincent Ferraro. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/lodge1.htm

Mahan, Alfred Thayer. "On Sea Power." Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy. Vincent Ferraro. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/protected/alfred.htm

Roosevelt, Theodore. Letter to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice (Washington. June 13, 1904). Blackboard. 830.

Roosevelt, Theodore. "The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine." Speech. Message to Congress. Washington, DC. December 6, 1904. Blackboard.

Roosevelt, Theodore. "The Strenuous Life." Speech. Hamilton Club. Chicago, Ill. April 10, 1899. Blackboard.

Strong, Josiah. "On Anglo-Saxon Predominance." Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy. Vincent Ferraro. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/protected/strong.htm

Taft, William Howard. "Dollar Diplomacy." Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy. Vincent Ferraro. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/taft2.htm

[1] Josiah Strong, "On Anglo-Saxon Predominance," Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy, Vincent Ferraro, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/protected/strong.htm

[2] Walter Lafeber, The American Age. (New York: Norton, 1994), 169.

[3] Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West quoted in Walter Lafeber, The American Age. (New York: Norton, 1994), 169.

[4] Alfred Mahan, "On Sea Power," Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy, Vincent Ferraro, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/protected/alfred.htm

[5] Walter Lafeber, The American Age. (New York: Norton, 1994), 179.

[6] Walter Lafeber, The American Age. (New York: Norton, 1994), 157.

[7] Henry Cabot Lodge, "For Intervention in Cuba," Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy, Vincent Ferraro, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/lodge1.htm

[8] Alfred Beveridge, "March of the Flag," Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham University, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1898beveridge.html

[9] William Jennings Bryan. "Jackson Day Speech at Chicago." Speech. Bryan League. Chicago, Ill. January 7, 1899. Blackboard. 3.

[10] Walter Lafeber, The American Age. (New York: Norton, 1994), 198.

[11] ibid, 198.

[12] Theodore Roosevelt. "The Strenuous Life." Speech. Hamilton Club. Chicago, Ill. April 10, 1899. Blackboard. 3

[13] Walter Lafeber, The American Age. (New York: Norton, 1994), 241

[14] ibid. 242

[15] Theodore Roosevelt. "The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine." Speech. Message to Congress. Washington, DC. December 6, 1904. Blackboard. 2.

[16] Walter Lafeber, The American Age. (New York: Norton, 1994), 242

[17] Theodore Roosevelt. "The Strenuous Life." Speech. Hamilton Club. Chicago, Ill. April 10, 1899. Blackboard. 3.

[18] Theodore Roosevelt. Letter to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice (Washington. June 13, 1904). Blackboard. 830.

[19] Walter Lafeber, The American Age. (New York: Norton, 1994), 255

[20] Prof. Gregg Brazinsky, Theodore Roosevelt and World Order, February 6, 2007

[21] William Howard Taft, "Dollar Diplomacy," Resources for the Study of International Relations and Foreign Policy, Vincent Ferraro, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/taft2.htm

[22] Walter Lafeber, The American Age. (New York: Norton, 1994), 256