The United States moves from relative isolation into an international role because it wanted to strengthen its economy through the use of the American Dream to promote American products throughout the world by spreading the ideals of a free market and free trade to other nations to eventually create a more modernized peaceful world. They wanted to become an economic model for other nations to follow. The consequences for U.S. society due to this move are that as they become more involved with international affairs, they created tensions with other nations over territorial disputes and they also increased racial tensions throughout the country.
As the United States continued to grow in population and size and started to have more and more technological advances, the economy as well started to flourish. With the economy booming, many companies in the U.S. looked to foreign nations to expand their market. Foreign policy was being driven by the large American companies that were creating more products than were being consumed by the American people so they had a need to expand their corporations across the world. For the first time the people in the U.S. accumulated a surplus of capital much more than they needed for themselves.[1] Some circumstances that encouraged American companies to expand in other countries were the domestic merger movement and new forms of large scale corporate organization, and the interest in moving closer to raw materials and markets.[2] Having your business in a foreign market, reduced costs from high tariffs and shipping and let you spread your ideas and views into these countries. The U.S. government had a vision of spreading the American Dream throughout the world and with these American companies moving into foreign lands, it was showing what the American Dream was all about. Distinguished historian Walter LaFeber noted that American foreign policy was being driven by corporations to make money and avoid neo-Marxist revolutions in the United States.[3] Having these companies in foreign countries showed them how a free market system can work and showed the importance of owning private property and why it is a big deal and how nice it is to possess.
One of the countries that the U.S. felt they needed to deal with was Cuba because of the strong Spanish presence there. President McKinley felt that having Spain in Cuba was a threat to America’s national security and that the U.S. needed to control Cuba to avoid any trouble from the Spanish or any other countries that may use Cuba to attack the U.S. Spain was not really looking to get in any type of war with the United States but also didn’t want to just give them Cuba. But after American journalists, William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer reported they had pictures of some members of the Spanish military planting mines on the USS Maine, which did actually explode, they pressured President William McKinley to decide to go to war with Spain.[4] The U.S. went in the war with no plans beyond sinking the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay and it took them months after Manila to send troops to Spain but with the Spanish putting up hardly any opposition, the United States was easily able to defeat them and both nations signed the Treaty of Paris and the U.S. acquired Cuba and around the same time acquired the territories of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. This allowed the government to advance its interest in economic prosperity and spread the idea of the American Dream in these lands.[5] Businesses in America mostly opposed the war with Spain at the beginning because they believed that war through free trade into confusion. In the end though, this war spread free enterprise in these countries and helped businesses to expand throughout the world.
The Spanish-American War signaled a much larger commitment to the world for the U.S. By acquiring the Philippines, the U.S. had a much larger presence in East Asia and looked for an Open Door Policy in China which Senator John Hay sent a note to the major powers asking them to not interfere with the free trade and economic policies in China.[6] Although this is commonly believed to be an international agreement with several countries, it was mostly a unilateral U.S. policy. This was an example of the U.S. continuing to expand its international role and expressing its ideals of free trade in foreign countries. Another ideal that the United States had was that they wanted to keep Europe out of the western hemisphere so they could expand the United States’ territory and be more economically profitable in the region by using those countries resources and by being the supreme power on that side of the world. They also wanted to spread the American Dream throughout these countries without interference form other nations. After President McKinley was assassinated by Leon Czolgaz, Teddy Roosevelt took over and gave The Roosevelt Corollary which spoke of keeping European Powers from colonizing in our hemisphere and how we need to take out any Dictatorships that may arise because it is a threat to our interests as a Democratic nation.[7] He talked about how American interests made it necessary to intervene in other countries. These interests were mostly economic ones so the U.S. needed to involve itself throughout the world in order to insure its economic prowess and also show the world how to effectively run a free market system. Roosevelt was also responsible for the construction of the Panama Canal which opened up more effective trading in the Latin America region and further helped the United States’ economic growth.
During Roosevelt’s tenure, the Russo-Japanese war broke out. The Russians occupied the Manchuria territory in China and had it sights on Korea. Japan was not pleased with this as these territories were vital parts in economic trade so they launched a surprise attack on the Russians at Port Arthur. After this war broke out, the Russians started losing very badly and eventually Roosevelt came in to help settle the dispute between the two countries with the Treaty of Portsmouth that both countries signed. The Czar of Russia agreed to cooperate with the Open Door Policy, thus still making it easy for the U.S. to secure its economic interests in East Asia. Teddy Roosevelt left a legacy as the one who ended isolation for the United States and got them more involved in the world.
Roosevelt chose William Taft as his successor for President. Taft wanted to institute Dollar Diplomacy in Latin America and East Asia, which is when U.S. corporations make investments in other countries and the U.S. would interact with these countries furthering their commercial interests as a nation. This policy did not work out the way Taft hoped and some countries used aggression and would revolt against the U.S. being in their land. After Taft, in 1912, Woodrow Wilson won the election and became president of the United States. He gave a speech known as the Fourteen Points of Peace to show the country that peace was needed with Europe after WWI. One of his points was the need for a creation of the League of Nations which was an association of nations throughout the world for the purpose of being able to cooperate with each other and have mutual agreements to assure peace throughout the world.[8] This peace would make America’s foreign policy of economic expansion more feasible and would allow them to have more access to resources in other nations.
After World War I, the U.S. became the world bank. But when the U.S. started to collapse in the early 1930’s, they had no help. This lead to the Great Depression throughout the country. There was extremely high unemployment, banks were failing, and there was low consumption amongst the American people. Many people were living miserable lives with no food or shelter and struggling to survive. This turned into the most severe problem the nation ever faced. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt was elected. FDR needed to stop the downward spiral, provide relief, and spur recovery for a nation that was in a major economic crisis.[9] Under FDR, the administrative state grew greatly. Under his New Deal, FDR redistributed some wealth across the nation and helped create programs and agencies to help America. The New Deal created the modern federal government and solidified the President’s role. FDR had provided the relief and aid to the people unlike Hoover and gave American people hope.
In the early 1940’s, tensions in Europe lead to the start of World War II. WWII ended up being the costliest war in history. Although after the war, many European countries lay in shreds and there was widespread hunger throughout, the United States emerged better off after the war than before. America’s economy took off during this time. Two-thirds of the economy was directly involved in it. Unlike during the depression, women entered the workforce by the masses and each year following the war the GNP grew 20%.[10] The U.S. exited the war being the most powerful nation in the world. After the war, the main threat to the U.S. was the spread of Communism. The Soviet Union was looking to spread Communism and the U.S. wanted to contain it. This created a lot of tension between the two nations known as the Cold War. Communism went against the ideals of a free market and free trade and the U.S. wanted to do everything they could to stop it from spreading throughout the world so it would not threaten their supremacy and economic ambitions. Communism was hindering the view of the American Dream and free enterprise and the U.S. needed to stop it so it could not spread to their own country. Due to the growing concern of Communism, the United States adopted a policy of containment. The U.S. wanted to contain communism and not let it spread throughout other nations. One of the first moves of containment that was done by the U.S. was providing aid to Turkey and Greece for military and political reasons. The U.S. wanted to help these countries fend off the threat of communism. This was addressed in the Truman Doctrine. Truman stated in this doctrine that he believed our help to these countries should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.[11] By stabilizing a free market and economy in other countries, it would help the U.S. economically by having more nations to become trade partners with.
During World War II, Japan was occupying French Indochina and Viet Minh leader, Ho Chi Minh, was leading a campaign to force Japan out of their land. Ho Chi Minh was a communist but due to the United States’ and China’s opposition to Japan, both countries sent aid to the Viet Minh to fight the Japanese. Japan eventually surrendered and the Viet Minh created Vietnam. After they declared this new-found freedom, the French opposed to giving them their freedom and this began the First Indochina War. China was helping the Viet Minh by supplying them with weapons and the Viet Minh eventually defeated the French in 1949 and France agreed to move out of Vietnam. As part of the agreement made at the Geneva Conference in Switzerland, Vietnam was split in to North and South Vietnam until elections were to take place in 1956. The Viet Minh were given North Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh was elected Prime Minister there. Ngo Dinh Diem assumed control of South Vietnam. South Vietnam with the support of the United States and newly elected U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower, however, refused to hold unifying elections because they knew Ho Cho Minh would be elected and they did not want a communist in control.[12] The U.S. was trying to contain communism because it was a threat to their economic expansion. Therefore the United States strongly opposed turning the whole country of Vietnam over to the communists which would have happened had they held the elections.
In 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected to be the next president. Kennedy was determined to stop a communist victory in Vietnam. He increased American troops in Vietnam from 900 to over 16,000. He was highly critical of the Diem regime because of their oppression of Buddhists and he was informed of a coup by the ARVN to overthrow Diem, Kennedy said the U.S. would not interfere. Diem was eventually captured and killed. On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy himself was assassinated. After Kennedy’s death, Lyndon Johnson took over the presidency. During this time, the war really started to escalate. In 1964, Congress issued the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which gave the authority to the U.S. military to retaliate against the North Vietnamese. The U.S. increased air warfare and launched many Search and Destroy missions throughout Vietnam. By the end of LBJ’s presidency, over 30,000 Americans lost their lives. Due to strong opposition of the war from the American people, he was not re-elected and Richard Nixon was elected to office. Nixon began withdrawing troops from Vietnam and started his policy known as Vietnamization which built up the South Vietnam army so they could fight the war by themselves. In early 1973, Nixon ended offensive action against North Vietnam and signed the Paris Peace Accords, ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam.[13]
America went into the Vietnam War with the intentions to contain the spread of communism from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. They were not able to defeat North Vietnam forces and were forced to withdraw from their country and leave South Vietnam to fight for their selves. This eventually led to the collapse of South Vietnam and North Vietnam taking over. So the United States failed in trying to contain North Vietnam communism and possibly hurt their own economy with the amount spent on this war and the fact that they lost a capitalistic partner in East Asia.
After the Vietnam War, the assassination of JFK and The Richard Nixon Watergate scandal, America started to shift to a more conservative country. There was a major cultural change throughout the nation. This conservative cultural movement could be responsible for a change in the way the American economy was run. Due to this conservative change, Ronald Reagan was able to win the presidency of the United States. Ronald Reagan wanted the U.S. economy to expand even more so he cam up with his plan known as “Reaganomics”. This plan’s major ideas were to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce income tax rates, less government regulation of the American economy, and control the money supply to reduce inflation. The Reagan presidency is noted for restoring belief in free enterprise capitalism in a way that shaped the policies of subsequent administrations of whatever party.[14] And by having a restored faith in capitalism, it allows the American economy to grow because the people believe in the system that is producing these goods and service. These new conservative ideals are still present in the United States today.
With the United States expanding more and more throughout the world, they often created tension with other countries and some such as Spain may have used aggression against the U.S. because they decided to take over land that they already conquered. Many countries did not want the U.S. pushing their beliefs and culture on them. Also by being more involved in world affairs, the U.S. saw itself become apart of more wars. They needed to be in these wars to protect their own ideals and did not want countries that they traded with and were allies with to collapse because that would directly affect them and could possibly collapse the U.S. economy. The United States main reason for why they got involved in the world was because they wanted to strengthen their own economy by expanding through other countries and the benefits far outweighed the consequences in their case.
[1] Rosenberg, Emily S. Spreading the American Dream (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), 27.
[2] Rosenberg, Emily S. Spreading the American Dream (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), 23.
[3] Dr. Magee. Week 3 Lecture. IAH 201. February 2009.
[4] Dr. Magee. Week 3 Lecture. IAH 201. February 2009.
[5] Rosenberg, Emily S. Spreading the American Dream (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), 43.
[6] Dr. Magee. Week 4 Lecture. IAH 201. February 2009.
[7]Theodore Roosevelt’s Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. December 6, 1904.
[8] Dr. Magee. Week 4 Lecture. February 2009.
[9] Dr. Magee. Week 6 Lecture. IAH 201.February 2009.
[10] Dr. Magee. Week 7 Lecture. IAH 201. March 2009.
[11] Truman Doctrine. President Harry S. Truman’s Address Before a Joint Session of Congress. March 12, 1947.
[12] Dr. Magee. Week 10 Lecture. IAH 201. April 2009
[13] Dr. Magee. Week 11 Lecture. IAH 201. April 2009
[14] Jenkins, Phillip. Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of the Eighties. (Oxford University Press, 2006). 185.
