Big Stick Imperialism

The year 1898 can be seen as a turning point in American History. 1898 is the year that the United States became an imperial power in the world. The transition of America into an imperial power also meant that it was done with expansionism and moved into imperialism. The 1800 can be characterized by the Americans’ desire for Manifest Destiny, or the expansion of the US into the western part of the US. Imperialism on the other hand, idealizes moral improvement and also saw more movement in foreign lands as the US saw a need for increasing its sphere of influence. Up to the late 19th century, the United States had generally followed the advice given by George Washington to not enter any alliances, and the Monroe Doctrine had pretty much …show more content…
Roosevelt’s foreign policy was "speak softly, and carry a big stick," hence the name “big stick”. The key component of big stick diplomacy was having a large Navy. In the 1890s, naval Captain Alfred T. Mahan did research and published a book about the influence of sea power. He concluded that having a strong navy was the key component to becoming the most power nation on the planet. Roosevelt agreed with this and one of the first things he did was build up the navy. Roosevelt used his “big stick” policy numerous times during his presidency but most notably during the Venezuelan Affair in 1902, and the creation of the Panama Canal. In the early 20th, relations between Venezuela and european countries, mainly the UK and Germany, were not good as there were allegations towards Venezuela. Britain and Germany created a blockade of Venezuela and Roosevelt denounced the blockade. This is when the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine was created. America, having a new found interest in Latin America, needed a way to protect it and the Roosevelt Corollary was the solution. It basically extended the Monroe Doctrine to include the protection Latin American countries from European interference. The second place where big stick diplomacy was used was during “Canal diplomacy”. The …show more content…
Again like the previous presidents, Wilson had a foreign policy that aimed to spread the American sphere of influence throughout the globe. However, unlike the previous presidents, Wilson was determined to base his foreign policies on moral principles rather than the materialism that he had believed plagued his predecessors ideals. One of the diplomacies that Wilson used was called Moral Diplomacy. The goal of moral diplomacy was to support nations that had moral beliefs that were analogous to that of the United States. This form of diplomacy promoted the growth of the nation's ideals and damaged nations with different ideologies. Wilson used this ideology to support democratic governments. One of his goals was to increase the number of democratic nations in Latin America. Moral diplomacy played an important role in the problems Wilson had with Mexico and their revolution. When World War I broke out, Wilson kept the United States neutral. While the United States was technically neutral until 1917, that never really the case as there was a tremendous increase in the trade between the US and the allied countries in Europe. In addition, Wilson refused to cut ties with France and Britain when the Germans demanded that he did. This shows that Wilson had underlying alliance with with the allies. Since Wilson's main goal of the war to put an end of militarism and make the world “safe for democracy”, it is