The Significance of the United States as New Imperial Power: Panama Canal (Part 1)

The nineteenth century history of the Monroe Doctrine featured the distinctive isolationism that excluded European imperial nations out of the affairs in the Western Hemisphere and it also excluded the U.S itself from political powers of Europe outside the Western Hemisphere. The policy was crafted by John Quincy Adam and James Monroe in 1823 as an official declaration of the U.S supremacy in America. Throughout many presidential administrations from Mckinley, Roosevelt, Taft to Wilson, there had been a high frequency of formulation of aggressive foreign policies to gain the oversea possessions. Theodore Roosevelt purposely practiced foreign policy by exerting the U.S imperial influence around the globe, therefore he claimed many countries with savaged societies in the Western Hemisphere were too weak, uncivilized, less scientifically developed to defend themselves from European intervention and colonization. Theodore Roosevelt was a distinctive figure who applied energetic spirit to foreign policy and the United States should be world power that could exert influence around the world. Although he believed in working quietly and patiently to achieve goals overseas, however the use of force could be utilized if necessary. The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine was the aggressive approach to determine the U.S’s position as the imperial power to compete with European colonization in Asia and Africa, and necessary to protect the economic interest of the U.S.

The root of American imperialism originates in the capitalism and the capitalist world system. It is recognizable about the debate that continues arguing over whether the United States is an empire or not, or is in the thoughts of American political scientists and historians. Nevertheless, it is greatly appreciated that the United States is perceived as the force of good of the world, the police of the Western Hemisphere, its ideals and values of liberty and democracy with universal applicability, its missionary duties to modernize less developed societies are absolutely beneficial, and its counter-factual strategies to promote the domestic and international security are essential to any state. The Panama Canal was a successful achievement and it ultimately symbolized the U.S technological prowess and economic power. Nonetheless, the construction of isthmian Panama Canal reflected the U.S’s strongly desirable interest to open the connection between the sea of East and West in order to search for new foreign markets.

Redefining the Concept of American Imperialism

The term “imperialism” is defined in different ways and contexutualized with different purposes and different methods by many writers. But under the contextualization of Marxist theory, imperialism stands for the age of capitalism associated with the development of monopolistic organizations in the industrialized capitalist nations and the expansion of the capitalist mode of production beyond the national borders into non-capitalist states. In the concise manner, imperialism could be described as the developed stage or the mutated form of capitalism in the particular stage of its development where the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established. There is the precise implication that where there is the existence of imperialism, there is a presence of capitalism. But it seems to be inappropriate to link the American imperialism with the Marxist theory of imperialism since there is a particularly specific form of behavioral patterns from the capitalist form of socioeconomic organization that characterizes the United States. In the definition, the imperialism is the activity of the national government, which involves the act of exerting influences, the use of force to create and maintain the relationship between domination and subordination, and the control over the government. If there has been the existence of disparity at any moment, the people or groups would be prepared to take advantage of it. Thus the imperialist activities have always been performed by the large and powerful states. Behind any imperialist activity, there is always the motivation and opportunity as the two main components that factor the movements of imperialism. The motivation should be served as driving force for imperialist activity and the opportunity also depends on the disparity that both occur between the potential actor and potential victim. Beside the opportunity, the motivation should also be included in the disparity of power and required for the government to execute that opportunity. The motivation for imperialist activity can be identifiable if the government possesses the kind of superior power and provides the selection of space where the imperialism is exercised, then there should be a possible explanation for imperialist behavior.

From the aspect of political science, different interests could be utilized as the motivation for the imperialism, but there are two main interests: national interests and class interests. The national interest is most visibly appeared in the motivation for imperialism if the imperialist activity definitely benefits the imperialist nation as a whole, in the sense of bringing enormous benefits for the citizens of imperialist nation. National interest plays the role of spiritual need for the people of nation state. In terms of spirit, respects and recognition are highly essential for the nation to be perceived by the international community. Theodore Roosevelt once mentioned about the people with great sense of dignity and lofty spirit would encounter the catastrophic disasters of war, rather than changing basic prosperity with nation’s honor as the price. For various reasons, the national interest did not emerge along with the interest of human beings, because if there is no state, there is no national interest. Interest is a social concept and the nation is a basic accumulation of human groups or actor in the context of international politics, and therefore it is the most important social entity of interests. It generally verified that the concept of national interest did not visibly exist before the formation of human beings. However, the class interest can be coherently associated with national interest in the imperialist nations. Class interest is also considered as the group classes that earn benefits, and class interest actually exists in imperialist activity when it is expected to bring benefits for the particular classes of people among the citizens of the nation. Class interest, however, may or may not have the possibilities to replace the position of the national interest as the main primary groups receiving benefits. Class interest generates a set of mechanisms: economic interest, social-psychological factors and social networks that drive the class interest into more concept of individual interest. On the other hand, the class divisions can technically shape the political outcome, and the policy and optical outcomes can also alter the class politics. With the political participation of class divisions, classes could ultimately express the certain set of political behaviors that involve the political decision making, rationality, voting system and their particular interest for daily lives.

In the situation of the United States, the American imperialism tends to lean towards the concept of national security that expresses the plausibility. National security is strongly cited and emphasised as the enhancement for imperialism. Every nation has the collective interest to defend in protecting its territories from the possible threats which could appear to be hostile or aggressive and they could devastatingly sabotage its imperialist phases of expansion. Nations that have potential capabilities to sufficiently engage in imperialist activities will find efforts to control other nations that can increasingly contribute the national security by improvising the military expenditures and troops of imperialist nations to tactically encounter with its actual threats. The War of 1812 was a clear example of the United States to protect its national security from the Great Britain due to various reasons such as the restrictions of trade brought by the war between Great Britain and France, the impressment of American merchant sailors to Royal Navy, the British support for Native American tribes tackling the American settlers on the frontier, outrage over the insult of national honour with the Chesapeake -Leopard Affair and the desirable interest to conduct annexation of British territories. Then with the introduction of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States declared to isolate themselves from any international affair in Europe. Since the United States recognised its enormous potential in the expansion and growth, the doctrine was designed to create advantages for the United States to practice imperialist activities in the Western Hemisphere. The Spanish-American War resulted the total control of the United States in Western Hemisphere and it truly reflected its recognition as the new world power and the determination of defending its sphere of influence. It is difficult to confirm the plausibility that national security could require the American economic dominance of certain many countries in the world with less potential capabilities in economy and military. Obviously, there is a possibly rational explanation for what is required for American national security and the persistence of imperialist behavioural patterns in less powerful states. The concept of empire is quintessentially about the construction of hierarchies between people, the subordination or the productive cooperation between individuals or groups to enrich each others. The belief in hierarchy of European race held unquestionably by the Americans to rapidly enhance and justify the continuing territorial expansion, and there is thus the means to carry out that massive expansion. The other probable motivation for the American imperialism can be considered as the system of macroeconomy that promoted the prosperity. The American economy was not structurally dependent on the imperialist activities in overseas for the growth of prosperity, and the United States was having full potential to maintain the prosperity from domestic economy without resorting to any imperialist movements. Although the imperialist was not essentially necessitated to maintain the prosperity, the imperialist activity remains to be and will continue to be motivated by the act of promoting prosperity. With the use of force, the imperialist activity ranges from the maintenance of military bases in overseas to the military intervention, which significantly increased the the demands for military expenditure. If the nation is altruistically antagonized by a possible threat of other opponents with military actions, this will indirectly contribute to the increasing demand of military expenditures. Imperialist activity outside the post of empire can be shaped in avariety of patterns by processes occurring in the metropole, on the pursuit of searching for foreign markets, raw materials, and cheap labor forces. Foreign investments and export and import also play as the definite motivations for the actual functionality of imperialism, undeveloped countries’ borders were generally open for foreign investors and private business groups to implement the economic investments and substantially gain the profit generated from undeveloped countries and greatly contributed the prosperity of the United States. With or without the preservation for expansion of foreign market opportunities, the export markets and import sources were essentially crucial to the macroeconomic system of prosperity, for certain there was an assurance for the maintenance of the development of the American economy.

In terms of capitalism, the capitalism is a form of socioeconomic organisation that can be characterized by the concept of private ownership of the means of production, proletarianization of the work force, hierarchical control of the production processes and individual material gain incentives. There is no deny that the prevailing form of socioeconomic organization exists currently in the United States, Western Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. It seems there is nothing inevitable and universal about the capitalist form of socioeconomic organization. The varying degrees of evidence demonstrate the societies that are characterized by few or no conditions coherently connected with the capitalism and they conveyed the image of contemporary socialist societies. The act of self-satisfaction by individual reflects the behavior that must be sustained by set of values which strongly emphasize the individual rather than the whole large community in the system of society, the urge competition rather than cooperation, and it stresses the primacy of material goods and services to basically satisfy the human needs and elevate the human welfare within the societies. Apparently, these capitalist values tremendously increase the supply of marketable goods and services available to the societies that urgently need those conceivable products. The question remains to be seen as how did the American imperialism relatively originate in any significant manner to the institution of capitalism that genuinely characterized the contemporary United States? The national security was the interest designed to directly protect the U.S national interest in the periphery nations, and the national security raised from the potential external threats from other nations. The strength and the existence of the national security depended on the disposition of the foreign powers towards the United States, as long as the capitalist form of socioeconomic organization divided the world into nation states without the respected and accepted superior authority to maintain world peace. There were possibilities of nations appearing hostile to each other. The system of macroeconomic that promoted the prosperity contributed to the American imperialism was the basic need to secure access to foreign sources to raw materials. It is impossible to claim that the United States was highly dependent on the distribution and production of raw materials and related to the capitalist form of socioeconomic organization. This methodological approach of economic gains through the system of macroeconomic promoting prosperity fundamentally motivated imperialist activities in both capitalist and non-capitalist nations. The desire to increase the supply of available goods and services in the capitalist societies greatly enhanced the ability of government to promote the economic growth within the state. If there was more pressure to bring goods and limitations to access goods, there would be high motivation to search and exploit opportunities for economic reasons.

The idea of exceptionalism was also a major factor as contributing element to push the United States towards to imperialism. The plausibility of this spiritual idea urged the United States to dominate in the less civilised and savaged societies. It is undeniable to claim that United States was a great nation since the declaration of independence and the American way of life represented the greatest human achievement that had been cynically fostered and created a great impressions to the world. This follows that it is possible to attribute the popular support for the many imperialist movements to a belief that the American domination was a great contribution to them. This anomaly explains the idea that there is the presence of both the winner and the loser, that some must be dominant and others should be subordinate, therefore there was a great urge to dominate rather than being dominated by other imperial powers. However, the people within the state must have had a strong belief that they were the superior one among the world, and they had the capabilities to impose their ways of life on others through the use of dominant powers. People in both capitalist and non-capitalist nations would believe they were the uniquely exceptional and superior one, but that required the acceptability from others to truly recognize the superiority of others. The act of promoting democracy and liberty would have great influences, and the capitalist nation would be more susceptible to undertake the idea of exceptionalism and missionary imperialism.

Johan Galtung, the Norweigan sociologist, explicitly categorizes the types of imperialism, from economic, political, military, communication and cultural, but the concept of American imperialism can start from any corner, and it is difficult to identify the type of American imperialism. But judging from the the motivation and the opportunity that we recently discussed, the concept of American imperialism preferably pursued economic imperialism that seemed for foreign markets, imports and exports, as well as through the utility of military that assisted the imperialist movements to ensure the sufficient engagement of imperialism in periphery nation, although there were also the visions and products of cultural imperialism, and generally the influence of cultural imperialism. However, the economic imperialism that the United States actually had and still continually pursue is considered to be the primary type of imperialism. The cultural imperialism of the United States is entailed with the economic imperialism that serves as the secondary imperialism which brings them the respect and recognitions from the international communities and creates the standardised transmission of influences, and also functions to reinforce the image of the Center as the center in the dominance relationship between the Center and the Periphery. The United States opposed the idea of colonialism in the less developed countries, but should we develop the hypothesis that the American imperialism contains the hidden colonialism. Apparently, colonialism entails the annexation, occupation, the rule over regions and the population in the periphery nations. The colonialism should avoid the idea that colonialism was driven by the economic motives, and it should have been propelled by military considerations and national glory. The United States can be perceived as the non territorial empire due to the absence of native policy that was frequently structured in the periphery by European imperial powers. Obviously, the American imperialism cannot be separated from the economic connotations, as well as it can not be compared with colonialism in its motives, which in both cases encompassed the military, territorial, economic and ideological considerations that shaped the landscape of geopolitics. Imperialism shares the similarity with colonialism that the imperialist intervenes to dispose the current regime and implant the new government, but unlike the colonialism, imperialist nations always leave behind the military base, new constitution and new government. In fact, the American imperialism was foundational imperialism based on the national interest and the vision of American imperialism cannot be adequately explained without the understanding of American capitalism. The altered traditional understanding of empire was influenced by Lenin that he claimed imperialism was a system mechanically functioned by the economic exploitation, and it was the necessary and inevitable result of the logic accumulation of the late capitalism. For both Lenin and Marx, imperialism represented the historical stage of capitalism rather than the trans-historical practice of political and military domination.