The American Century: America’s Rise to Power

My History final paper essay.
U.S History 122 Class 
Prof. Paul Byrd
April 22, 2013

Introduction

  

Over the past 200 years, the United States of America has grown from a group of liberated former British colonies to become the modern world’s premiere superpower. Though it is still a relatively young country, its rise to power has only come about within approximately the last century. America’s rise to power can be attributed to many different factors, including economic, military, and foreign policy. This paper will examine several of the most important factors leading to America’s role of global superpower, and will argue that not only is the US the power it once was, but in fact even more powerful than at any point in its history.

The 19^th Century: America’s Expansion:

The events of the 20^th century which marked America’s rise to global power were preceded by several occurrences during the 19^th century. Prior to the American Civil War, the country was rapidly expanding westward under the doctrine known as “Manifest Destiny”. With the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican-American War, the US acquired territories from Louisiana to California. The expanse of the North American continent provided a new wealth of natural resources to the growing nation. After the Civil War, the union was strengthened—both politically with the defeat of the separatist south in 1865, as well as economically and logistically with the completion of America’s transcontinental railroad in 1869.[1] Following these developments, America was primed to be the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere.

            During the majority of the 19^th century, the United States maintained a non-interventionist foreign policy. While it had fought wars such as the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War, the country’s foreign policy focus was mostly in its own interests and its areas of direct influence. By the end of the 19^th century however, the United States had exhibited its willingness to extend its influence abroad when it once again fought a war, this time with Spain. With America’s defeat of the Spanish came the new territories of Guam and the Philippines in the Pacific while also forcing the Spanish to cede their control of Cuba. Thus began the United States first venture into a more proactive, international policy in its international relations.

The 20^th Century: America’s Growing Global Influence:

By the turn of the century and at the height of the industrial revolution, the United States was becoming recognized an emerging Western power. In 1901 one particularly famous veteran of the Spanish-American war was elected president. Theodore Roosevelt was had made a name for himself through his many exploits in state level and national politics as well as being a war hero from his time commanding his 1^st Volunteer Cavalry Regiment in the war. Roosevelt forged America’s budding international influence into the makings of an emerging powerhouse. Internationally, Roosevelt’s foreign policy was summed up by a famous saying that he ascribed as a West African proverb: “Speak softly and carry a big stick”. What this meant was that the US would not seek openly seek to domineer its will on the global stage, while simultaneously displaying a willingness to enforce its might when its interests were threatened. Through Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” doctrine of international relations, America was able to take expand its influence in several ways.

One of the most obvious displays of “Big Stick” foreign policy was America’s acquisition of the Panama Canal. The US had been interested in Panama (which was a part of Colombia) since the end of the Spanish-American War. Colombia and their patron France had already had a plan for a proposed canal across the Isthmus of Panama, which would be a vital sea route for shipping goods and resources. In order to dissuade US interest in Panama and the canal project, Colombia and France had raised the cost of the project, to which the US responded by staging the Panamanian Revolution. In doing so, Colombia lost both Panama while the US obtained rights to the Canal.[2]

Despite President Roosevelt’s affinity for expansionism, or at least an assertive American stance on foreign policy, the US inched slightly back to its non-interventionist stance during the Taft and Wilson administrations. This would be short-lived however, as World War I would soon break out in Europe. Despite Wilson’s efforts to keep the US out of the war,[3] German provocations forced the US to join sides with France, Great Britain, and Russia. Although the United States had only been actively involved in the war effort for just over one year out of World War I’s four year span, it was able to contribute greatly to the Allied Victory in 1918. President Wilson was instrumental in bringing the war to an end; his most famous legacy is perhaps the League of Nations, founded in 1919. The League of Nations was a precursor organization to the United Nations, established to promote peace between member-states and ensure that another devastating world war would not be waged. And although Wilson spent the majority of the war trying to keep the US neutral, his foreign policy held the position that United States should work to promote liberalism and democracy throughout the world, which would become a recurring or even perpetual theme—in words if not deeds—in US foreign policy throughout the rest of the 20^th century and into the new millennium.

Despite Wilson’s zeal for his innovation, the League of Nations, it was never a popular idea at home. US membership into the League was denied by a majority Republican congress, and the US’s non-interventionism gave way to what has been called a period of isolationism. Americans may have wanted to leave the world to its own problems, but being completely isolationist was out of the question, given America’s vast reserves of resources and its growing industrial sector. The US’s “Roaring Twenties” came to a crash along with the stock market in 1929, causing The Great Depression, which had a global impact. During the 30s, Germany had yet again become increasingly belligerent toward its European neighbors, and World War II broke out 1939. By this time, under the leadership of a new Roosevelt—Theodore’s relative Franklin—American non-involvement in the war was not popular with the public, and the US entered the war in 1942 after being attacked by Japan.

World War II and the Cold War:

World War II is often seen as the point in which the US made the leap from power to superpower, but as demonstrated above the upgrade had been a century in the making. During World War II, the US demonstrated its military power by fighting on two fronts in Europe and in the Pacific. Despite dedicating its entire economy to the war effort, America was able to mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops, thousands of tanks and planes, and dozens of naval vessels. It was during World War II that the US had also made the most important scientific discovery of the 20^th century: the discovery of nuclear technology. Unfortunately, this incredible technology was also being used to build the most devastating weapons in the history of Japan. In 1945, the United States became the world’s first nuclear power and resorted to dropping two Atomic bombs on Japan. The Japanese promptly surrendered and the war ended.

Wilson’s League of Nations—failing in its task to prevent war—was dismantled and a new organization called the United Nations was created in its place. The five winners of World War II were given permanent seats on the UN Security Council, the UN’s most powerful branch. With the old European colonial powers of France and Great Britain devastated by the war, the two dominant players on the world stage would be the US and the Soviet Union. Despite being allied together during the war, the US and the newly nuclear USSR would spend the next five decades locked in a bitter power struggle known as the Cold War. Ideologically, the US and USSR were complete opposites. The US, with its democratic principles and staunch capitalist stance would spend the next half of the 20^th century vehemently opposing the spread of communism, which the USSR promoted until its fall in 1991.

The Cold War was probably the most significant, longest running factor in shaping the United States’ global position. From the end of World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US had fought large, unpopular conventional wars such as those in Korea and Vietnam under the guise of “containment” of communism. The world had come closer than it ever had to the threat of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In contrast to the Wilsonian doctrine of promoting democracy, the US had supported numerous autocratic, military, and dictatorial regimes rather than allow the spread of communism. In the 1980s, US forces waged covert wars and proxy wars from South America to the Middle East for the same reason. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 would change the global balance of power for the following two decades.

Conclusion: America in the 21^st Century:

The 1990s saw the emergence of the US as the world’s premier superpower. The 90s came to be a Pax Americana until the new threat of terrorism emerged with the attacks of September 11, 2001. As of now, the US has spent new millennium engaging in an effort to secure its interests in the face of violent extremism. America has now been at war for over a decade against non-state actors such as Al-Qaida and the Taliban, and against states like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The US in the post-9/11 world is in a constantly-changing, global conflict that reaches every continent. Despite the great recession of 2008, the US has been able to secure its interests with a capability unseen at any time in its history, despite missteps and bouts of incompetence. While much has been said about the 21^st century becoming “the Chinese Century”[4], and America’s economic recovery seeming sluggish to take hold, the fact is that at the current time, the United States is more powerful than it ever has been before.

Works Cited

Kwoka, Jr., John E. and White, Lawrence J., “Manifest Destiny? The Union Pacific-Southern Pacific Merger” (October 1997). New York University, Center for Law and Business,Working Paper No. 98-012. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=164496 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.164496

Morris, Edmund. Colonel Roosevelt. New York: Random House, 2010. Print.

Tuchman, Barbara Wertheim. The Guns of August. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Print.

Fishman, Ted C. "The Chinese Century." The New York Times 04 July 2004. Print.

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[1] Kwoka, Jr., John E. and White, Lawrence J., Manifest Destiny? The Union Pacific-Southern Pacific Merger (October 1997). New York University

[2] Morris, Edmund, Colonel Roosevelt. Random House. 133-135.

[3] Tuchman, Barbara Wertheim. The Guns of August. Macmillan. 374.

[4] Fishman, Ted C. "The Chinese Century." The New York Times 04 July 2004: n. pag. Print.