Why Did America Cross the Pacific? Reconstructing the Us Decision to Take the Philippines, 1898-99
Zelikow, Philip (November 2017). "Why Did America Cross the Pacific? Reconstructing the Us Decision to Take the Philippines, 1898-99". The Scholar. pp. 36–67.
- Has attachment: File:2T4E88E6.pdf
Abstract: A closer examination of what led President William McKinley to take the Philippines reveals a series of deliberate and thoughtful choices that have often been overlooked or ignored....For McKinley, circumstances had placed the United States into a position of responsibility. To him and many of his contemporaries, abandoning the islands to their fate would not have ended that responsibility. It would merely have shirked it. Was the acquisition of the Philippines good for the United States? The liability side of the ledger is clearest: the horrors of the war and the burdens of occupation. The islands were never great net boons to U.S. trade. Nor was Manila a key to the China trade. The U.S. position in the Philippines did extend American military power across the Pacific in a new and lasting way. In the short run, the United States used this base to help with the multinational intervention during the Boxer crisis of 1900 in China. But later that year, after the immediate crisis had passed, McKinley pulled most U.S. troops out of China, over the bitter objections of Secretary of State Hay. McKinley did not wish to use those troops as chess pieces in the great game over China’s future. There would come a time, though, when the U.S. military presence in the Philippines did change the course of the history of the world. But no one in 1899 could foresee how the American presence in the islands would figure in the analysis of grand strategists in Tokyo, studying their options during 1941.
Extra details:
DOI: 10.15781/T2N29PQ17 MAG: 2802047241 CorpusID: 189400735 OpenAlex: W2802047241
