United States, between the federation and the empire.

The United States of America is a country with little more than two hundred years of existence. Although it is not a very old nation, it has an enigmatic history from beginning to end. A country with an immense mixture of cultures and customs that, in short, provide a wide margin of reference for its analysis and that call into question the reason for its formation and persistence over time.

There is a wide debate about who were the first settlers to set foot on New World lands. On the one hand, history takes the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus as a reference, but few are the historians who inquire about the subsequent immersions by other great travelers such as Sir Walter Raleigh, who in 1587 founded Roanoke, a small island located to the east of present-day North Carolina and which is considered the first British colony in the New World.

However, to understand the subject in question, it is enough to go back to the year 1606, the date on which the first settlers from England settled and founded Virginia under the command of Captain Christopher Newport.

"Land of the free and home of the brave"

English colonization in North America was financed by the Bristol and London companies, which were large burgher communities with a broad interest in the exploitation of resources and the discovery of new trade routes.

For this they agreed to divide the discoveries in North American territory as follows: the London company would occupy the territories to the south of the thirteen colonies, among which were Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas. They would establish great centers of agricultural production and give the metropolis a permanent supply of food.

For its part, the Bristol company, or known in the same way as the Plymouth company, would be in charge of colonizing the territories to the north, among which were New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and later New York, which were They were named New England and would serve as important fishing centers and ports for the English expansion over the Atlantic.

The thirteen colonies. Source: EcuRed

Upon reaching the new territory, the colonists found an environment plagued by hostilities with the native populations, diseases such as malaria and fever, as well as famine, which caused more than half of the English navigators to perish during the first years of colonization. .

However, the spirit and the will of Captain Newport were insatiable, since he had undertaken this trip in order to "create a new home for the unemployed men who swarmed the cities of England" [1] and who did not hold any sense of identity with the English population.

The same formula was replicated with the founding of subsequent colonies, which, despite sharing a common metropolis, were so distant in beliefs and ways of life that it is difficult to imagine how they managed to homogenize and form a single prosperous nation.

Among the fundamental differences of the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies was religion. While in Maryland and some southern territories Catholicism and Protestantism were proclaimed as official religions, in contrast, Massachusetts and the vast majority of New England territories proclaimed Puritanism. A totally different doctrine, with divergent values and ways of living and that was widely criticized for its radicalism with the southern territories.

Similarly, not all settlers came from the metropolis. Although, during the first years, most of the sailors were people from the lowest social stratum of England, during the subsequent years, and with the formation of large cities, migration to the New World began to increase and came from different parts of Europe. Many were the individuals from Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, who along with their customs and traditions reached the thirteen colonies to enrich them and form a multicultural entity.

However, despite divergences in culture, religion and way of life, the thirteen colonies managed to form a sense of identity that led them to become independent from England in 1776 and establish themselves as an independent nation. However, many authors have tried to analyze how the national character that has led the United States to be a prosperous and united nation was developed, and that, despite having suffered a civil war that called into question the values of unity and fraternity, the feeling of belonging has remained intact for more than a hundred years.

The answer to this approach could be based on the Ratzelian conceptions of Raumsinn, translated as the “sense of space”, and Lebensenergie, which translates as “living energy”. For Ratzel, these concepts are closely linked to each other and denote spatial qualities, that is, they explain the existing relationship between population and space.

In the case of the thirteen colonies, despite having a broad multiculturalism, as well as different values and ways of life, the colonists began to acquire a notion of the space in which they developed. They understood that the wide range of cultures with which they were surrounded formed a single entity, different from the European culture and values of which they were not a part.

In the same way, it is considered that the independence process of the thirteen colonies, as well as the creation of national sentiment, could not have been gestated if it were not for the figure of great historical figures, such as the "founding fathers". Illustrious characters with extensive knowledge who managed to unify the great cultural differences of the time.

Such a situation can be justified with the second law of expansion, proposed by Ratzel, which states that "in times of greater intellectual development, community sentiment becomes national consciousness and favors integration and unification". [2]

After the consolidation of independence, the United States began to have greater needs. On the one hand, there was the need to form a representative government away from the influence of the European monarchies and, on the other hand, they found the need to expand their borders to the west and form a nation with a vast territory where the population could develop favorably.

Manifest Destiny and expansion to the West

The need for territorial expansion had been a premise since colonial times, however, this had been diminished by the presence of colonial powers of the time.

On the one hand, Florida belonged to the viceroyalty of New Spain, and on the other, Louisiana was part of France. Leaving the thirteen colonies in a territorial fence that in the same way would be reinforced by means of a royal proclamation that prevented colonial incursions beyond the Appalachian mountains, which served as the natural border between the English and the native peoples.

However, after the culmination of the war of independence, a series of disputes began to arise over the limits established by the colonists. The first of these came from New York, who considered that the current territory of Vermont should be part of her jurisdiction. However, in 1790 New York gave in to their aspirations and on February 18, 1791 Vermont was admitted as the fourteenth state of the Federation.

The need for expansion began to be even greater and in 1796 it was finally possible to access the territories beyond the Appalachian Mountains, where, since 1769, several thousand English settlers had already been converging with the Cherokees of the region. For the same year, Ketucky and Tennessee were admitted into the union.

The most salient characteristic of the emigration to the west was its spontaneity and the intense individualism of its members. No government provided them with adequate means of transportation or protected them during the trip, which faithfully reflects the Ratzelian conception of the “liquid nature of populations”, in which it is argued that “populations are in continuous internal movement. This becomes an external movement, either forwards or backwards, as long as a piece of land is occupied for the first time…” [3]

That said, the political borders drawn by the colonists were decimated and began to transform according to the needs of the North American population, this began to be reflected in the occupation of territories beyond their established borders, as was the case with the annexation of Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, among other territories that formerly belonged to Mexico, although through weapons, as well as through the expansion of culture and population.

The annexation of these territories has been widely criticized for the conditions in which it was carried out. With an army ten times more prepared than the Mexican one, it is considered that this verse of history is a broad image of the exercise of State power, however, it is necessary to consider a series of factors that influenced the easy annexation of these territories.

In the first instance, there is the presence of the North American population in Mexican territory, secondly, the broad neglect of the central government to the northern territories led to the wide compliance with Ratzel's third law, which indicates that "of the mechanical integration of areas of the most varied sizes, populations and cultural levels emerges, thanks to the proximity, communication and mix of its inhabitants, an organic growth”. [4]. Therefore, it is easy to add that the Mexican settlers began to share identity values with the United States, which is why the annexation of said territories was even easier.

In the same way, the importance of the "Manifest Destiny" for the territorial expansion of the United States must be considered. This doctrine explains the way in which this country understands its place in the world and the way in which it relates to other peoples.

Since the emancipation of the thirteen colonies, it was thought that God had chosen the USA to be a political and economic power, as well as a superior nation. Therefore, the foreign policy of the United States has been widely influenced by this idiosyncrasy.

The doctrine of Manifest Destiny was formulated by the American journalist John L. O'Sullivan, who in 1845 wrote an article for the Democratic Review magazine in which he stated that:

The fulfillment of our manifest destiny is to extend ourselves throughout the continent that has been assigned to us by Providence for the development of the great experiment of freedom and self-government. It is a right like the one that a tree has to obtain the necessary air and land for the full development of its capacities and the growth that it has as its destiny.

In this way, the idea spread that the "mission" of the United States was to explore and conquer new lands in order to bring to each of the American peoples the light of democracy, freedom and civilization, establishing thus the belief that democracy was the only acceptable form of government and that any regime contrary to the democratic values proclaimed by the United States should perish.

What is certain is that Manifest Destiny reflected the need for expansion during a time when imperialism and territorial conquest were necessary if a nation was to become strong and broadly developed. Among the reasons that led the United States to expand was the large population growth in the territories of the thirteen colonies.

As the settlement of so many individuals in such a small space was practically unsustainable, it was necessary to venture to conquer new lands in order to give the population a Lebensraum in the Ratzelian sense, which establishes the relationship between space and population ensuring that the existence of the State was guaranteed when it had enough space to attend to its needs. However, the reasons for US expansion, in the same way, responded to other interests, such as the commercial race against the English.

Source: The World Order

Obtaining overseas territories

For the United States, control of the seas was of vital importance. Given the growing influence that the English had begun to have with Asia, the North Americans considered the need to have a port in the Pacific, especially in the California area, where maritime expansion would begin to reach small islands along the Ocean.

It was through the port of California where they entered the conquest of overseas territories along the Pacific Ocean. The first territories to be occupied were: Howland Island; Baker's Island; Jarvis Island; Kingman Reef; and the island of Johnston, all this during the period of 1857-1858. However, overseas acquisitions continued to increase in subsequent years, with Wake Island joining the list in 1867, and the island of Samoa in 1889.

American expansion in the Pacific. Source: Brief History of the United States

With such a vast extension of territory along the Pacific, it was a reality that most of the maritime trade of European countries with Asia would be biased by the North American positioning, and, despite being true, the United States would undertake a new attack to seize some other crucial territories to fully establish their sea power.

The Spanish-American War demonstrated the decline of the old Spanish empire and the emerging naval power of the United States. After the Spanish defeat, some of the last territories belonging to the metropolis became part of North American control and were the reason for the consolidation of the United States in the Pacific. The Philippines and Guam gave it a greater presence near the coasts of Japan as well as a greater facility for the establishment of military bases and ports near the Asian continental mass.

However, these acquisitions and triumphs would not have materialized without the theoretical skill and ability of Captain Alfred T. Mahan. American theorist who knew how to guide the United States towards the development of a naval power and pave the way towards the consolidation of world power. Throughout his extensive work, Mahan manages to define and give meaning to the concept of naval power.

In summary, this author considers that the naval power formula focuses on the construction of a merchant navy, which in turn generates the need to create a navy capable of protecting merchant ships, and, finally, the creation of supply bases throughout the oceans. However, beyond this little formula, Mahan created a series of factors that the United States followed to the letter.

The six points for the development of naval power were presented by Mahan in his work entitled "the influence of naval power in history", and are considered essential if a nation wanted to become a maritime power, these were: 1) the situation geographic; 2) the physical conformation of the territory; 3) the extension of the territory; 4) number of inhabitants, 5) the national character; and 6) the class of government. [5]

The United States managed to fulfill each of the postulates in Mahan's theory and thus managed to become a maritime power, because by the year 1880, "the United States Navy ranked twelfth in the world; by 1900, with 17 battleships and six cruisers, it ranked third", today it ranks first. [6]

The North American interest in the expansion towards overseas territories did not stop with the conquest of the Pacific, because following its status as a bioceanic country and in accordance with Mahan's postulates, they entered the conquest of the Caribbean Sea. Mahan considered that this sea had an important role in the configuration of the naval power of the United States. Following the logic of the Roman Mare Nostrum towards the Mediterranean, Mahan considered that:

In military prowess terms, these pathways are known as communications. These are probably the most vital and determining element in military or naval strategy. They are literally the most radical, since all military operations, as well as the fruit of a plant, depends on communication with the root (...) It is because of the potential effect on these lines of communication that all positions in the Gulf or in the Caribbean derive their military value, or their desire to have it.

Based on this premise and after the victory in the Spanish-American War, the United States managed to obtain important territories along the Caribbean Sea. To carry out, years later, a channel that would connect both Oceans and reinforce the foundations of its naval power. After 1900, the old colonial powers had been biased towards US power and a new era was taking shape.

The exponential growth of the United States and its establishment as a world power caused authors such as Karl Haushofer to consider its essential role in the reconfiguration of world politics during the first half of the 20th century.

Through his model known as Panregionen, Haushofer divided the world into four large blocks led by a specific power; Pan America was led by the United States, Eur Africa dominated by Germany, Pan Russia led by the Soviet giant, and Pan Asia led by Japan. [7]

Haushofer panregions. Source: EcuRed

However, despite the fact that this model was established more than half a century ago, the truth is that the United States has remained a benchmark in terms of powerful countries worldwide. Currently, it continues to play a crucial role in decision-making at the international level, as well as in the active participation of global issues.

Final considerations.

It is hard to imagine world politics without the role played by the United States. Although the criticism of its foreign policy and the means by which it manages to achieve and capture its national interest is great, a reality that must be taken into account is that, through the reinforcement of the national character of its population, the creation of a merchant marine and the extensive and continuous investment in the exponential development of its military apparatus, the United States has remained in a strong position during the last years.

However, it should be considered that such actions could also call into question the operation of his much-acclaimed doctrine that proclaims that no government outside of democratic values has a place within American territory, since the question once again comes up: are the United States a democratic federation, or is it a hydra between republicanism and empire?