Before World War I an expansionist fever battled its way through the government after the Depression. Tension between idealism and self-interest that had trotted alongside Americas domestic history had also guided its’ foreign policy. When the Europeans came and settled, in what they believed to be India, their motives included greed, glory, and god. Similar to the intentions of the early Europeans, expansionism brought with it reflections of profit, patriotism, piety, and politics. (Nash and Jeffery 604) One of America’s main goals was to create a model society for which others would follow by example. Since the beginning of the 17th century Thomas Jefferson had begun the expansionist movement with the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in the early 1800’s. The goal of expansionism was mainly for soil rich with nutrients for agriculture but also included self-profiteering and natural resources such as coal and oil. Not until the end of the 17th century did America expand beyond Central and South America caused by increasing conflict with Europeans, and the pressure to stop imperialism and communism, took Americans over to Europe in inevitable conflicts that continue today. Despite the depression American factories produced more than enough products and even expanded their businesses so they could make their own products at cheaper rates. By the 1900’s America was number one in world manufacturing and exports tripled and was mainly traded with Europe rather than Asia. As exports increased, inflation of prices decreased, so it was opportune for Americans to increase in trade investments. Naval expansion was also important if Americans wanted to be in control of a peaceful world which coincidentally also led the United States into ... ... middle of paper ... ...c overthrow. In order to defy any invasions it was inevitable that America send troops over to the eastern half of the world to contain communism. America was forced, as a world power, into WWII. The Cold War was the defining feature of American foreign policy for decades until contemporary time. The Soviet Union was believed to be an imperialist threat to the entire world as was expected to spread the atrocity of communism throughout the world. The US and the Western half of the world needed to prevent the USSR from rolling across countries the same way they trampled across Eastern Europe after World War II. At the beginning the Cold War reinforced a sense of paranoia and the ideal that "if we don't do it first they will". The access of nuclear arms during this period had since exaggerated the notion that America was better than all other countries in the world.
Throughout most of the nineteenth century, the United States expanded its territory westward through purchase and annexation. At the end of the century, however, expansion became imperialism, as America acquired several territories overseas. This policy shift from expansionism to imperialism came about as a result of American's experience in the Spanish American War and the Congressional debates that followed the American victory.
At the turn of the century, and after gaining our independence, the United States land mass more than doubled through the use of purchasing, annexing, and war. However, the foreign policy of our government took a predominately isolationist stand. This was a national policy of abstaining from political or economic relations with other countries. General Washington shaped these values by upholding and encouraging the use of these principles by warning to avoid alliances in his farewell speech. The reasoning behind these actions was that the Republic was a new nation. We did not have the resources or the means to worry about other countries and foreign affairs; our immediate efforts were internal. Our goals that were of primary importance were setting up a democratic government and jump-starting a nation. The United States foreign policy up to and directly preceding the Civil War was mainly Isolationist. After the war, the government helped bring together a nation torn apart by war, helped improved our industrialization, and helped further populate our continent. We were isolationist in foreign affairs, while expanding domestically into the west and into the north through the purchase of Alaska. However, around 1890 the expansionism that had taken place was a far cry from what was about to happen. Expansionism is the nations practice or policy ...
As the American economy was gradually recovering thanks to the New Deal, Roosevelt decided to increase interaction with neighboring countries. When the Second World War began, Roosevelt saw it as an opportunity to increase production and boost America’s economy. During the 1930 to 1940s, the production of munitions greatly increased. The Second World War significantly increased American economic interaction with South America, Great Britain, and Canada. This lead to greater relations between Latin America and a faster victory as U.S. citizens began to see a shift in economic, political, and social ideals.
From western expansion to foreign imperialism the United States has always been an expansionist country. Early America’s focus was to conquer the natives and obtain western land within North America, but in the latter of America’s history, specifically in the nineteenth and twentieth century, foreign imperialism became the new focus. America’s activity in foreign imperialism was a continuation and departure of the United States’ early expansionism. It was a continuation in terms of manifest destiny, the spread of Christianity, and by the concept of “the city on a hill” and a departure in terms of foreign involvement.
In the year of 1803, America’s territory was expanded by nearly double its original size. Such an acquisition turned out to be very beneficial, but much like a rose, such a feat did come with its thorns. The Louisiana Purchase posed several moral dilemmas for President Thomas Jefferson, but overall the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. The weakened country of Spain returned the Louisiana Purchase back to France, which at this time was led by Napoleon Bonaparte. Purchasing this land would protect the United States’ ability to ensure the ownership and use of the vital port of New Orleans. This buy also proved to be beneficial in that it not only prevented a war between America and France but also eliminated France’s presence as an enemy in North America. The Louisiana Purchase perhaps opened the idea of ‘Manifest Destiny’ to the United States and its citizens. With all of these advantages, the end certainly justifies the means.
The Soviet Union began to view the United States as a threat to communism, and the United States began to view the Soviet Union as a threat to democracy. On March 12, 1947, Truman gave a speech in which he argued that the United States should support nations trying to resist Soviet imperialism. Truman and his advisors created a foreign policy that consisted of giving reconstruction aid to Europe, and preventing Russian expansionism. These foreign policy decisions, as well as his involvement in the usage of the atomic bomb, raise the question of whether or not the Cold War can be blamed on Truman. Supporting the view that Truman was responsible for the Cold War, Arnold Offner argues that Truman’s parochialism and nationalism caused him to make contrary foreign policy decisions without regard to other nations, which caused the intense standoff between the Soviet Union and America that became the Cold War (Offner 291)....
The United States of America has never been content with stagnation. The landmass of the Thirteen Colonies was enough to rival that of the Mother country from which they separated. The forefathers believed that it was the manifest destiny of this nation to eventually claim the expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. By 1890, nearly a hundred years following the original claim of Manifest Destiny, the land that was once open, was now under American control. But no sooner was the Great American Frontier closed, than was the door to East Asian expansion opened with the great gold key of American diplomacy. In a world where imperialism was contagious, and cartographers had to work around the clock to keep up with an ever-changing geopolitical landscape, the United States seized the opportunity to establish herself as a significant world power. With great expansionist minds at her helm, such as Theodore Roosevelt and Howard Taft the United States began to grow beyond her border to claim stake in this wide-open world. This new expansionism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a different institution than its early to mid nineteenth century counterpart. Still, the drive to exercise the sovereignty of the United State and to propel itself over the world’s stage was the same then as it was in the time of Thomas Jefferson. In order to understand this assertion, attention must be given to three levels of analysis. First, the similarities that exist between the drive and purpose of old and new expansion must be taken into account. Second, the differences in the global political scene must be considered. Finally, there exits differences in the means by which expansion occurred.
The major American aspiration during the 1790s through the 1860s was westward expansion. Americans looked to the western lands as an opportunity for large amounts of free land, for growth of industry, and manifest destiny. This hunger for more wealth and property, led Americans conquer lands that were rightfully someone else's. Manifest destiny and westward expansion brought many problematic issues to the Unites States verses the Indians that took the Americans to the Civil War.
Like previous American expansion, American imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was motivated by desire for new economic gains and improvements. However, the social justification, diplomatic and military approach and geographical aspect of imperialist expansionism varied greatly from previous American growth. Therefore, American expansionism underwent more change in this period than continuity. For many years, the American boundaries expanded as people moved, at the governments urging, westward for new economic opportunities and later imperialist expansion was no different. While many factors contributed, economic possibility was a driving factor in the expansionist aspirations.
The Cold War was a period of more than forty years during which relations between the two superpowers were at least tense, and often hostile. A time of threats and military buildup. Foreign affairs are a nation's relationships with other countries. Foreign policy is a group of policies made up of all the stands and actions that a nation takes in every aspect of its relationships with other countries, everything a nation's government says and does in world affairs. Domestic affairs are all matters not directly connected to the realm of foreign affairs. The Cold War was an important influence on almost all aspects of American society. The Cold War affected domestic policy in two ways, socially and economically. Socially, the intensive indoctrination of the American people led to regression of social reforms. Economically, enormous growth spurred by industries felt the greatest impact of the Cold war.
The Cold War was a proxy war that created a lot of tension and distrust. The United States didn’t trust the communists and their regimes and the Russians didn’t trust America and the practices they were partaking in because it looked like imperialism. However, the Soviet Union and their communist regime were responsible for starting the Cold War. Although some of the blame can be put on the United States for a miscommunication, America realized the economically broken countries surrounding the Soviets could be easily captured, thus the United States had started to build naval bases and airports in Europe to protect the territories as they try to rebuild. The goals and the leaders of the Soviet Union also worried America because they threatened democracy, and the things they practiced were worrisome. Both countries had weapons to wipe out the globe, so peace was the only option. This is argued many times by various people, the most prominent being Henry Wallace, but human nature will play its role and restrict the countries from finding actual peace.
It was our Manifest Destiny to expanded our empire. In the United States, settlers across the board believed there were destined to expand across North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific.Our third president predicted that the nations future depended on it westward expansion. Expansionism is in the power of politics and government. In 1830 the Louisiana Purchase took place basically doubling the size of the country with one land purchase. Americans started migrating towards the new land in hopes of being successful and securing land. The Frontier expansion was the key to success for the nation’s health. Western expansion helped shape the United States we know with transformations in the pioneers to conquer new the culture of life in the
The Cold War is the closest the world has ever come to complete destruction. In this period of time, two world super powers were in a stalemate economically and militarily and were constantly competing to be the superior. The Cold War started as result of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union had some differences on their perspectives of the world. United States being the richest country in the world promoted democracy and capitalism in the world. The newly formed Soviet Union thought that communism was a better political system because it transformed their economy and status in the world from nothing but a declining empire to a super power once again. The Cold War was a long series of events in which the communist tried to spread their ideas of government and socialist economy, known as expansionism, and the United States and some of the other Western powers such as Great Britain tried to contain it. Containment, a term introduced by George F. Kennan, was the foreign policy the United States practiced from 1946 to 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. The United States saw the Soviet Union to be a direct threat to the free world. During president Truman and Eisenhower’s administration the policy of containment evolved so drastically that American presidents would put anything on the line, including world peace.
At one point and time in history America had attempts to contain any Soviet expansion around the world. One of the biggest moments in history known as the cold war was a very big then to control communism and fight their ideas from spreading. Throughout the United States trying to keep communism at a low was difficult because it could cause controversy within the country and it could have started World War III if it had gotten too out of hand. The Soviet Union was their new biggest threat.
As shown, America’s rapid change as the 19th century came to a close was supported by a various amount of imperialistic beliefs, motives, and incidents that almost jumpstarted the U.S. onto the world stage. Many of these incidents such as the public’s thirst for expansion, the annexation of several faraway lands, and the build-up of U.S. military forces would not have been possible without the Spanish American War. Moreover, the Spanish American war would not have been possible without the American people. Imperialism was a consequence of the American Democratic experiment, giving the people what they want.