I am reading Steven Kinzer's Overthrow and came across the following passages. I was hoping I could get feedback as to heather anyone agree's/disagrees with the sentiment expressed.
“HISTORIC SHIFTS IN WORLD POLITICS OFTEN HAPPEN SLOWLY AND ARE HARDLY even noticeable until years later. That was not the case with the emergence of the United States as a world power. It happened quite suddenly in the spring and summer of 1898...In 1898 the United States definitively embraced what Senator Henry Cabot Lodge called “the large policy.” Historians have given it various names: expansionism, imperialism, neocolonialism. Whatever it is called, it represents the will of Americans to extend their global reach..."Here, then, is the new realpolitik,” proclaimed the eminent historian Charles Beard. “A free opportunity for expansion in foreign markets is indispensable to the prosperity of American business. Modern diplomacy is commercial. Its chief concern is with the promotion of economic interests abroad."
Is it really a noticeable shift in 1898 that American power became truly global? And is it identifiable as a necessity for expanding markets?
Thanks all! Sorry for the quotation bonanza. I'm on mobile.
Whether American power was truly global before 1898 (or any time for that matter) depends on your definition of what constitutes power. For example, even before any of the direct conflicts abroad like the Spanish-American War, by the 1890s the US was easily the world's largest producer of goods, with an economy that dwarfed its next largest competitors (Britain and Germany). Thirty of forty years earlier the US had lagged behind those same competitors. Does that constitute status as a global power?
Most American historians agree that the US had been practicing imperialism in some form or another for much of the 19th century, long before 1898. The grand shift that most historians ascribe to that year (roughly, the shift took place largely over the entire decade) is that prior to that time US imperialism had not been largely concerned with the acquisition of overseas territories that it would control in a direct colonizer/colonized relationship.
Prior to that year the US was incredibly active in overseas affairs, though the nature of its interactions naturally shifts over time. The two major trends in US imperialism prior to the 1890s center on its expansionism (westward movement, keeping in mind that 1804 (the Louisiana Purchase) and 1848 (the Mexican Cession) and other related years were not simple, one-off acquisitions of land but rather the beginnings of large processes by which those territories were organized and altered for assimilation into the American sphere. These lands were not empty or unorganized, but rather the US had to adopt imperial policies to incorporate them into the fold.
The other primary form of imperialism came through the pursuit of overseas markets. The US was very interested in securing markets overseas for goods made in the US, and this led to flurries of activity regarding Latin America/the Caribbean, Europe of course, and East Asia. The actions involved were not designed to exert direct control over these areas but rather secure favorable trading relationships and economic policies. This wasn't always achieved through direct diplomatic relations but sometimes it involved missionary work, commercial activity, or even violence (look up filibustering). And of course, it was not always successful (look up filibustering again).
Though it predates much of the activities that most would call imperial, the US was internationally engaged before the Constitution was even ratified. The conflicts over piracy and maritime interests that helped lead to the War of 1812 started in the 1780s and saw the US directly involving itself in the European balance of power system that it rebelled to get away from (in part). Though the US was not looking to become like every other European power, figures like Hamilton, Jefferson, etc recognized the necessity of playing the game.
So, to get to the question: Does 1898 constitute the year that American power "became" truly global? I say no, first because there were other factors giving the US very significant international power well before that year, and second because that very question implies that US power hadn't been internationally minded previously, and that's just laughable.
Is there some other watershed year that we could/should point to instead? That's a tricky question because the US's rise in global prominance in a development spread over many decades (during which other powers were themselves developing). This makes it very hard to have a static standard against which to try and measure the US, and it involves attempting to compare very disparate forms of power (it's hard to say whether commercial power is more important or effective as direct imperial control, for example). As a result, I generally tend to think its rather foolish to try and state a single year, before which the US was not a global power, and after which it was.
And as a final side note, I've been reading a lot more late 19th century history lately and find it very amusing how often historians of the era try to get away with pretending their era doesn't have significant roots in the pre-Civil War US, as though no one thought about expanding markets or imperialism before 1898. FFS, the US had already fought a small war over very similar issues as early as 1798!
I think for a power to be truly global, it needs to be far less isolationist that the United States was up until the First World War. In addition, in contrast to the major European powers, the US armed forces remained relatively small, and dare I say, poorly equipped. However, the definitive contribution to the late war ground war, as well as the prestige and influence of Woodrow Wilson on post war settlements, to me signifies the grand entrance to the ball of global power player that Kinzer is suggesting the Spanish American War was. No doubt the Spanish American War made Europe sit up and take notice, but it was WW1 that announced the United States a global power.
In 1898 America wins the Spanish-American war and obtained several colonies. This opened a new way of thinking since the US had generally opposed European-style imperialism previously.