One hundred and sixteen years ago yesterday, the sinking of a single battleship in a dangerous location, the harbor of Havana, Cuba, led the United States down a path into a war that turned us into an imperial power beyond our own continent. By the end of the war, the United States had control of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico, and Cuba was basically an American protectorate for decades, until the Communist Revolution there. The repercussions of that particular war extended far beyond the rather short work it took to embarrass Spain as a colonial power, which was not all that difficult once both its Pacific and Atlantic fleets were defeated in two spectacular sea battles near Santiago, Cuba and Manilla Bay, as well as the land battles around Santiago, the most notable of which was the Battle of San Juan Hill.
What were some of these consequences? For one, the United States is still dealing with what to do as far as Puerto Rico’s ultimate standing will be within the United States [1], as it is neither a state nor on the course to independence. The Philippines, which had been rebelling against Spain’s imperial rule for a long while, was not particularly inclined to passively accept the imperial rule of the United States, which led to a lengthy and unpleasant war there that has largely been ignored among most students of American history. The conquest of the Philippines also led the United States to have a very vulnerable position with regards to Japan in its imperialistic expansion, which was a major reason for our involvement in World War II in the first place.
One of the effects of the Spanish-American war that I ponder over the most is the effect that the war had on the development of Tampa, Florida. Tampa’s development in this fashion is an accident of history, but an extremely fortuitous one. As it happens, Tampa was one of the most convenient ports for the invasion of Cuba, and as Tampa was the terminus of Henry B. Plant’s railroad, it just so happened that a sleepy town got a major influx of soldiers, many of whom greatly appreciated the area, and the war helped develop the area as a result. Mind you, it was not necessarily a smooth sort of matter, as the Port of Tampa was clearly not prepared for the massive undertaking of the amphibious invasion of Cuba, but in retrospect the skills that the United States gained in transporting its troops probably did help matters in 1917 and 1918 when the United States had to ship many more soldiers to a much more difficult war in the Western front of WWI.
There is one striking aspect of the war that is important and difficult to think about in our times, and that is that the casus belli, the origin of the war, was itself based on an error. The battleship Maine sank almost certainly from internal causes, and even at the time, in the absence of that knowledge (which resulted from forensic studies), the President of the United States was very reluctant to fight what he viewed as a bad cause, but was literally driven to the war through the jingoistic mood of the American people. Fortunately, the war was quick enough that it did not greatly strain the United States, even if it was not one of our nobler moments of foreign involvement. All too often in life, we may be too quick to become involved in quarrels without making sure first that the causes justify our involvement. Remembering the Maine helps us remember that too.
Edge Induced Cohesion 