Why Is The Spanish American War Inevitable

unforgiving than the Spanish American War. An excerpt from the Library of Congress stated, “The war had cost the United States $250 million and 3,000 lives, of whom 90% had perished from infectious diseases.” . This war brought out the worst in Americans when it came to securing vital information, interrogation tactics were implied by forcing water down people’s stomachs, known as Water Cure. Many people argued we went too far and may have been the enemy we were trying to defeat. It would be almost 40 years later after WWII, when the Philippines finally regain their independence. The Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War were ultimately inevitable for the United States. There are two reasons for this claim, the U.S. had decided
it was going to expand its Navy and become the superpower we now know today and secondly, being a relatively established country, it was expected to help our allies in need. At the time, the U.S. wanted to expand the Navy and have military around the world to better compete with rising nations like China. This was a rising concern for the U.S. because at the time (and even today) you could not have a strong military without having a well-developed Navy fleet. America was trying to keep an advantage over other nations, which is one of the reasons we plotted war on the Philippines. Having land over-seas, we could station our military on, was crucial in having the U.S. expand its’s military power. On the other hand, when it came to helping other countries, it was expected for the U.S. to intervene in Cuba and help them gain their independence from Spain. Of course, we had other reasons like the sinking of the Maine and the Spaniards taking aim at U.S. soldiers. But a key reason in my opinion, for the U.S. declaring war, goes back to the fact that Spain was causing conflict with the investment of sugar trade we had in Cuba. Freeing Cuba from Spanish control benefitted the U.S. and Cuba. The Library of Congress states, “In 1894 nearly 90 percent of Cuba's exports went to the United States, which in turn provided Cuba with 38 percent of its imports. That same year Spain took only 6 percent of Cuba's exports, providing it with just 35 percent of its imports.” . Spain, no longer needed to be in the picture and the U.S. now had more justification to declare war upon the Spanish and free Cuba.