In his farewell address, George Washington states, “the great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible” (Kaufman 35). Limited international involvement served as the foundation for America’s early foreign policy. The United States strove to uphold this unilateralist approach in accordance with the sentiments that drove the Revolutionary War as well as to avoid entanglement in European political affairs while America continued to take shape. However, westward expansion coupled with the United States’ desire to establish itself as a formidable competitor on the global stage challenged the nation’s anti-imperialist principles. The period building up to the Spanish-American War reflects the tension between these sentiments through President McKinley’s hesitancy towards war and Roosevelt’s fervor to expand. Marking a turning point in U.S. foreign policy, the Spanish-American War illustrated the influence of the media with the debut of yellow journalism, tested the boundaries set by the Monroe Doctrine, and set the precedent for American foreign policy to employ interventionist approaches in lieu of isolationist ones. All this occurred due to an evolving national interest, fueling the debate between the role of idealism and pragmatism in American foreign policy that remains prevalent today.
In the 1890s, President McKinley tried to continue the basic American principle of anti-imperialism through an avoidance of pursuing war. McKinley’s experience with the devastation of the Civil War made him want to avoid combative military action entirely. Equally important was the evasion of conflict with major European nations, such as Spain, as the United States was still recovering from the divisions of the Civil War. At the same time, the United States, desiring to secure its place on the international stage, sought more control in the Western Hemisphere. The country was also recovering from a financial crisis and, with the West already colonized, the need to expand business and institutions overseas increased (HistoryUnshelved, 2014). More power in the pacific would ensure America’s recognition as a major competitor internationally and allow the nation to pursue future economic interests in Asia (“The Spanish-American War”). Consequently, the national interest mainly encompassed economic expansion, aligning with the unilateralist approach of American foreign policy at that time. However, the locations where the United States sought control required a potentially more interventionist approach. Cuba was of particular interest as many American businesses held investments in the Cuban sugar industry. Unfortunately, Cuba, along with territories in the Pacific, were still under Spanish rule. Regardless, the United States viewed Cuba as within its sphere of influence granted by the Monroe Doctrine, which ensured that the United States would not interfere with European political affairs and, in turn, Europe would not intervene in American affairs or threaten any American territories (Kaufman 37). Thus, the United States’ interest in Cuba appeared justified by the Monroe Doctrine, as the territory was within the American hemisphere. Notably, the national interest still reflected a pragmatic perspective, as any intervention in Cuba would be on economic grounds in the interest of the United States. However, the growing political unrest and oppression in Cuba, exposed to the American public through the media, gave rise to an increasingly idealistic national interest concerned with aiding Cuba in its fight for independence, requiring a greater interventionist approach.
In Cuba, political instability brought on by Spanish economic pressures grew, and Cubans felt an increasing lack of representation within the Spanish government—a feeling of oppression that mirrored American sentiments prior to the Revolutionary War. Ultimately, efforts to win independence were unsuccessful, resulting in major loss of life as well as a depressed sugar industry (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica). As a means of controlling the Cuban uprising in 1895, Spanish colonial governor, Valeriano Weyler, regrouped the Cuban population into towns resembling concentration camps (HistoryUnshelved, 2014). Stories pushed by newspapers, such as William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, depicted images of these horrific camps which served as an embodiment of Spanish rule and oppression in Cuba. Though based on true events, theses journals, particularly Hearst’s newspaper, embellished these and many other stories of Cuban oppression, introducing the incredibly influential media style of yellow journalism. Not only did Hearst seize the American public’s attention with his sensational news stories, but he also unified the country by pointing them to a common European enemy: Spain. As a result, the United States not only had economic interests, but also humanitarian interests in Cuba. The media possessed such a large role in the United States’ entrance into the Spanish-American War that it has been dubbed the “media war” (“Yellow Journalism”). The unknown origin of the 1898 explosion of the Maine battleship in Havana provided Hearst, as well as other newspaper heads, to once again take advantage of ambiguity and immediately blame the Spanish, intensifying the American public’s angst to depart from an isolationist position. Yellow journalism served as a primary actor in America’s evolving national interest, with the public advocating a much more idealistic reason—a peaceful and independent Cuba—for intervention than previously possessed by the United States.
Despite the American public’s fervor toward intervention in Cuba, President McKinley remained adamant about not entering into war with Spain, instead pushing for the use of more peaceful tactics. In contrast, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, strongly advocated war to further establish and maintain the United States as a major imperial power. Roosevelt’s interventionist sentiments persisted into his presidency through the Roosevelt Corollary, which expanded on the Monroe Doctrine and stated that America’s responsibility in protecting its interests in the Western Hemisphere may require interventionist policies (Kaufman 45). These contrasting perspectives illustrate the tension in American foreign policy between implementing pragmatism or idealism and whether this would mean continuing to pursue unilateralist policies without much political or military engagement or employing more of an imperialist approach. McKinley urged Spain to grant Cuba independence, but Spain only offered Cuba “limited autonomy” as Puerto Rico possessed—an offer that the Cubans would not accept. This posed a great conflict to the President as, “McKinley did not want war, but wanted things only war could give him” (HistoryUnshelved, 2014). Under immense pressure, President McKinley asked Congress to approve a war against Spain “on behalf of endangered American interests” (Hendrickson 22). This choice pushed the boundaries of the Monroe Doctrine, as the United States was now intervening in European political affairs through military engagement—a choice that would allow for future U.S. interventionist policies in the name of American national interest.
The Spanish-American war ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1898, by which the United States gained control of Cuba, Guam, and Puerto Rico and purchased the Philippines for $20 million, gaining significant power in the pacific (Kaufman, 2017). Through the war, America had displayed its naval strength and proved to other imperial powers that it could go to war with a major European nation and win, establishing the country as a serious competitor on the global stage. Though Cuba was now an American territory, the United States recognized it as possessing an independent government, an important difference between American and Spanish control of the island. In this way, the Spanish-American War inaugurated the United States as an imperial power whose recent foreign policies reflected a shift from pragmatism to idealism. The question remains, however, whether America’s founding principles of anti-imperialism could exist with the nation’s new identity as an imperial “empire” (Gross, 2017). At the heart of this conflict exists the debate of whether the United States should be pursuing an idealistic or pragmatic foreign policy. The major contributors to this debate that existed during the Spanish-American War and remain prevalent today include the media, the question of America’s role in protecting national interest in its sphere of influence, and the shift from isolationist to interventionist policies.
The yellow journalism style of media is undeniably prevalent in the United States and seems synonymous to today’s “fake news” (Gross, 2017). News outlets sometimes strive for sensational headlines and poignant images rather than thoroughly verifying facts. In this way, the media possesses a significant influence on the public and, as a result, policy. Journalist Stephen Kinzer notes, “Americans are very compassionate people…whenever we [leaders and newspaper editors] want to push a project for intervention somewhere else, the first step is to point out how people are suffering there” (Gross, 2017, para 48). As seen with the Spanish-American War, the media can play an influential role in infusing idealism in the national interest.
After the Spanish-American War, this idealism grew as the United States adopted a perception of itself as responsible for promoting and maintaining international peace by spreading democratic values. With this notion, the United States strayed from the unilateralist ideals of the Monroe Doctrine as the nation pursued interventionist policies outside its agreed upon sphere of influence. These idealist sentiments were evident with President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points near the end of World War I. President Wilson discussed the United States’ national interest of avoiding future war and securing peace in foreign nations by implementing American idealistic policies (History, 2018). Thus, protection of U.S. national interest involved significantly more interventions in the Eastern Hemisphere with a shift towards idealism, rather than pragmatism.
The lasting effects of this shift in policy are evident in America’s interventionist approaches to the Cold War and North Korea, where a primary part of the United States’ interest was in promoting core values of freedom while containing any foreign perspectives that posed a threat. However, the foreign policy of the current administration remains unclear. While President Trump implemented interventionist policies such as recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, he also discussed pulling the United States out of NATO which would be a unilateralist move (Fischer-Baum & Vitkovskaya, 2018). Thus, the tension between isolationist and interventionist principles, both of which influenced the growth of America as a global power, still exists today and challenges U.S. foreign policy to continually adapt to foreign affairs that may require different approaches. As President McKinley realized during the Spanish-American War, the national interest of the United States often requires an involvement in foreign affairs to pursue both idealistic and pragmatic goals, yet the country must exercise caution before embarking upon imperialist interventions so as to not betray the anti-imperialist principles upon which the nation was founded.