Mahan, warned others that the Pacific could be entered into and controlled only by a powerful country. Mahan, head of the Naval War College, believed that our survival depended upon a strong navy, and he argued that a strong navy would need island custody to serve as our new naval bases. The time had come for Americans to buck up and seek the welfare of our country. American ships had been active in the Pacific. The New England whaling fleets monitored the ocean in search of their prey. The trade in China had been eating at Yankee merchants since 1784. Japan at the time however, had effectively closed its doors to all outside forces and restricted all foreign …show more content…
It was sparked by a European scramble for an empire. And between 1870 and 1900, the European powers seized approximately 10 million square miles of territory in Africa and Asia, a fifth of the world's land mass. This meant that 150 million people were subjected to colonial rule. In the United States, a growing number of policy makers, bankers, manufacturers, and trade unions grew fearful that the country might be closed out in the struggle for global markets and raw materials.
William Howard Taft followed Roosevelt into the White House. Taft believed in economic expansion, and he introduced a policy called "dollar diplomacy." This policy used diplomacy to advance while protecting American businesses in other countries. Taft also employed Roosevelt's corollary in Nicaragua and along with other Latin American countries to protect our American investments. Our businesses had been active in Nicaragua since the 1850s and the country attracted our fruit growers and mining companies. Others believed that Nicaragua offered the best site for a canal, thus, investing in