Filipino struggle for independence (1899–1902).
This was imperialism. The US staked its claim for
a share of the China market whose potential was
overestimated. The appearance of the US in
eastern Asia as a Western colonial power aroused
the alarm of Japan and marks the origins of a new
conflict in eastern Asia in the twentieth century.
Theodore Roosevelt had recognised that the
Philippines were indefensible; they were, to use
his words, America’s ‘heel of Achilles’.
In the military sense, America’s role as a world
power was potential rather than actual during the
first decade and a half of the twentieth century.
The American army was small – adequate to deal
with Indians and Mexicans; its warships in the
1880s had been called in Congress a collection of
washtubs. How soon the US could turn military
potential into reality is illustrated by the amaz-
ingly rapid construction of the modern US navy.
In the 1890s American naval power was puny,
just enough to cope with Spain’s antiquated war-
ships; by 1920, the US navy could match the
British. But to exercise world power requires not
only the means – and no one could doubt in the
early twentieth century America’s capacity – but
also the will. Before 1914, it did not seem realis-
tic to suppose that the US would become
involved in war over the conflicts of the other
Western powers. The American people saw no
need for war. The large navy, which could ensure
the security of the North American continent and
its approaches, and the small professional army,
indeed, point to the overwhelmingly defensive
attitude of the US. Nevertheless, it was drawn to
war in 1917. But it was only with great reluctance
that Americans came to accept that the US’s cir-
cumstances had fundamentally changed from the
times of the Founding Fathers and their advice
that the US should not entangle its fortunes in
the rivalries of Europe. The war that had begun
in Europe three years earlier spread to every
continent and turned into the first global war.
In eastern Asia Japan emerging as a strong mili-
tary power took advantage of Europe’s distress.
China’s disintegration was Japan’s opportunity.
China’s efforts to modernise came too late.