The Process、Cause And Influence Of American Colonization Of The Philippines

Until now,the war,which happened in the Philippine,just has been regarded as the part of Spanish-American War,so that there are few books and essays discussing it,even less about it in China.However,this war has its own unique characteristics.Unlike the tension of Cuba,which had been attracted American’s attention for a long time,Philippine never appeared in the horizon of American until the outbreak of the battle of Manila in 1898,let alone the United States had no clear requirement of interest about the Philippines.Nevertheless,after the US Navy’s victory in the Manila Bay,Mc Kinley government soon conscribed Philippine expeditionary force,which was designated VIII Corps,for an expedition to the archipelago and occupied the City of Manila.During the Paris peace negotiations,the United States decided to occupy and colonize the entire Philippine archipelago.In eight months,the United changed its foreign policies rapidly.This thesis,concentrated on the Manila Battle in 1898,focus on exploring the reasons for the changes in the foreign policy of the United States in such a short period of time from its declaration of war against Spain to the Paris peace negotiations.This thesis explores the reason why the U.S.decided to occupy and colonize the Philippines through analyses of the Rational Action Model,Analytical Hierarchy Process and Procedure Analysis Method.The Rational Action Model regards a country as a single and rational actor and its action is driven by interest,which is made after rational calculation in order to choose the plan that can achieve goals and maximize the value of goals.Previous studies on the Spanish-American War mostly focus on the United States’ interests in the Philippines and Cuba under the Rational Action Model.In the Rational Action Model,it is thought that the battle results from the change of the strength of America and Spain and America’s commercial expansion.However,this idea is not fully in line with some historical facts at that time.More importantly,it can hardly explain why the United States took action since its interest was uncertain at that time.As far as the Philippine battlefield is concerned,neither the United States nor the Spanish side was fully prepared for this war,and the Americans won the final victory by making fewer mistakes.The victory of the Manila Naval Battle was a surprise to most Americans,including President Mc Kinley.Therefore,the action was not driven by interest.In other words,interest was not the motivation for the United States to decide to expand the war and eventually colonize the Philippines.As for Analytical Hierarchy Process,this essay tries to explore the role of Roosevelt,Lodge,Mc Kinley,Long and Mahan in this decision-making change as well as Britain and Germany’s role.In the external environment,the attitude of Britain,German et al influenced the American decision as well.However,as a static research method,Analytical Hierarchy Process still highlights that interest is the motivation of action so that it can’t explain why America changes its policies.Therefore,based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process,Procedure Analysis is introduced to explore Dewey’s motivation and why the Mc Kinley government decided to occupy and colonize the Philippines.To this end,the essay comprehensively demonstrates the panorama of the whole process from the naval battle in Manila Bay to the Mc Kinley government’s decision to colonize the entire Philippines.When we re-examine the battle of Manila Bay,we find that neither the United States nor the West is well prepared.Dewey took over the post of commander of the Asian squadron based on his personal relationship with Roosevelt,so Long,Secretary of Navy,was reluctant to recognize Dewey’s promotion at the beginning,and the U.S.Asian squadron was not a very formidable force for war purposes.The squadron,consist of four battleships,was lack of modern battleships to go to Manila,and inadequate with fuel and ammunition seriously.In addition,the lack of intelligence was another problem that bothered Dewey.All these shows that the United States was not ready to attack Manila at the time,but after the victory of the battle in Manila Bay,the Mc Kinley administration immediately sent the Army VIII Corps to the Philippines and occupied the city of Manila.Finally,Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States in the Paris Treaty.Thus,it can be found that the demand for interests is not always appears before actions,nor always be the reason for the actions.The pursuit of the interests of individuals and the country is not always the same.In the context of decision-making,it is similar to “the funnel of choice” proposed by Joseph Nye.But different from it,the author argues that the U.S.government’s choice didn’t develop simply linearly and gradually became smaller.The accessible options kind of “relied on history”,which meant an accidental event would affect the development direction of the whole event.In addition,through the joint effect of factors like domestic politics,public opinion and the international environment,the United States further developed its foreign policies towards the direction of occupying and colonizing the whole Philippines in 1898.