Editing Pax Americana (section)

== Early period ==
{{Main|Gilded Age}}

{{See also|History of the United States (1865–1918)|Territorial evolution of the United States}}
The first articulation of a ''Pax Americana'' occurred after the end of the [[American Civil War]] (in which the United States both quashed its greatest disunity and demonstrated the ability to field millions of well-equipped soldiers utilizing modern tactics) with reference to the peaceful nature of the North American geographical region, and was abeyant at the commencement of the [[First World War]]. Its emergence was concurrent with the development of the idea of [[American exceptionalism]]. This view holds that the U.S. occupies a special niche among [[developed nation]]s<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sagehistory.net/gildedage/documents/TurnerFT.html |title=sagehistory.net |publisher=sagehistory.net |access-date=July 29, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090629043938/http://sagehistory.net/gildedage/documents/TurnerFT.html |archive-date=June 29, 2009 }}</ref> in terms of its national [[credo]], historical evolution, political and religious institutions, and unique origins. The concept originates from [[Alexis de Tocqueville]],<ref name="politikwissenschaft.tu-darmstadt.de">{{cite web|url=http://www.politikwissenschaft.tu-darmstadt.de/fileadmin/pg/Sektionstagung_IB/Thimm-American_exceptionalism.pdf|archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20090225014354/http://www.politikwissenschaft.tu-darmstadt.de/fileadmin/pg/Sektionstagung_IB/Thimm-American_exceptionalism.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 25, 2009|title=American Exceptionalism}}</ref> who asserted that the then-50-year-old United States held a special place among nations because it was a country of immigrants and the first [[modern democracy]]. From the establishment of the United States after the [[American Revolution]] until the [[Spanish–American War]], the [[foreign policy of the United States]] had a regional, instead of global, focus. The Pax Americana, which the Union enforced upon the states of central North America, was a factor in the United States' national [[prosperity]]. The larger states were surrounded by smaller states, but these had no anxieties: no standing armies to require taxes and hinder labor; no wars or rumors of wars that would interrupt trade; there is not only peace, but security, for the Pax Americana of the Union covered all the states within the [[Federation|federal]] constitutional republic.<ref name="LalorCyclopaedia">Lalor, John J., ''Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States''. Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1884. "[https://books.google.com/books?id=OC0QAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA959 The Union] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170330182741/https://books.google.com/books?id=OC0QAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA959 |date=2017-03-30 }}", p. 959.</ref> According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first time the phrase appeared in print was in the August 1894 issue of ''Forum'': "The true cause for exultation is the universal outburst of patriotism in support of the prompt and courageous action of President Cleveland in maintaining the supremacy of law throughout the length and breadth of the land, in establishing the ''pax Americana''."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://public.oed.com/help/|title=Help|website=Oxford English Dictionary|access-date=April 2, 2021|archive-date=April 7, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200407071332/https://public.oed.com/help/|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:10kMiles.JPG|thumb|right|1898 [[political cartoon]]: "Ten Thousand Miles From Tip to Tip" meaning the extension of U.S. domination (symbolized by a [[bald eagle]]) from Puerto Rico to the Philippines.]]
[[File:Roosevelt monroe Doctrine cartoon.jpg|thumb|right|1906 political cartoon depicting [[Theodore Roosevelt]] using the Monroe Doctrine to keep European powers out of the Dominican Republic]]
With the [[rise of the New Imperialism#New Imperialism and the emerging empires|rise of the New Imperialism]] in the Western hemisphere at the end of the 19th century, debates arose between [[imperialism|imperialist]] and [[isolationism|isolationist]] factions in the U.S. Here, ''Pax Americana'' was used to connote the peace across the United States and, more widely, as a Pan-American peace under the aegis of the [[Monroe Doctrine]]. Those who favored traditional policies of avoiding foreign entanglements included labor leader [[Samuel Gompers]] and steel tycoon [[Andrew Carnegie]]. American politicians such as [[Henry Cabot Lodge]], [[William McKinley]], and [[Theodore Roosevelt]] advocated an aggressive foreign policy, but the administration of President [[Grover Cleveland]] was unwilling to pursue such actions. On January 16, 1893, U.S. diplomatic and military personnel conspired with a small group of individuals to [[Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii|overthrow the constitutional government]] of the [[Kingdom of Hawaii]] and establish a [[Provisional Government of Hawaii|Provisional Government]] and then a [[Republic of Hawaii|republic]]. On February 15, they presented a treaty for annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]], but opposition to annexation stalled its passage. The United States finally opted to annex Hawaii by way of the [[Newlands Resolution]] in July 1898.

After its victory in the [[Spanish–American War]] of 1898 and the subsequent acquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and [[Guam]], the United States had gained a [[colonial empire]]. By ejecting Spain from the Americas, the United States shifted its position to an uncontested regional power, and extended its influence into Southeast Asia and Oceania. Although U.S. capital investments within the Philippines and Puerto Rico were relatively small, these colonies were strategic outposts for expanding trade with Latin America and Asia, particularly China. In the Caribbean area, the United States established a [[sphere of influence]] in line with the Monroe Doctrine, not explicitly defined as such, but recognized in effect by other governments and accepted by at least some of the republics in that area.<ref name="KirkpatrickWar">Kirkpatrick, F. A. [https://books.google.com/books?id=XtFCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA18 ''South America and the War'']: Being the Substance of a Course of Lectures Delivered in the University of London, King's College Under the Tooke Trust in the Lent Term, 1918. Cambridge [England]: University Press.</ref> The events around the start of the 20th century demonstrated that the United States undertook an obligation, usual in such cases, of imposing a "Pax Americana".<ref name="KirkpatrickWar" /> As in similar instances elsewhere, this Pax Americana was not quite clearly marked in its geographical limit, nor was it guided by any theoretical consistency, but rather by the merits of the case and the test of immediate expediency in each instance.<ref name="KirkpatrickWar" /> Thus, whereas the United States enforced a peace in much of the lands southward from the Nation and undertook measures to maintain internal tranquility in such areas, the United States on the other hand withdrew from interposition in Mexico.<ref name="KirkpatrickWar" />

European powers largely regarded these matters as the concern of the United States. Indeed, the nascent Pax Americana was, in essence, abetted by the policy of the United Kingdom, and the preponderance of global [[sea power]] which the [[British Empire]] enjoyed by virtue of the strength of the [[Royal Navy]].<ref>Porter, Bernard. [https://books.google.com/books?id=m38uhldLcGsC ''Empire and Superempire: Britain, America and the World'']. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.</ref> Preserving the [[freedom of the seas]] and ensuring naval dominance had been the policy of the British since victory in the [[Napoleonic Wars]]. As it was not in the interests of the United Kingdom to permit any European power to interfere in Americas, the Monroe Doctrine was indirectly aided by the Royal Navy. British commercial interests in South America, which comprised a valuable component of the [[informal empire]] that accompanied Britain's overseas possessions, and the economic importance of the United States as a trading partner, ensured that intervention by Britain's rival European powers could not engage with the Americas.

The United States lost its Pacific and regionally bounded nature towards the end of the 19th century. The government adopted [[protectionism]] after the [[Spanish–American War]] and built up the navy, the "[[Great White Fleet]]", to expand the reach of U.S. power. When Theodore Roosevelt became President in 1901, he accelerated a foreign policy shift away from isolationism towards foreign intervention which had begun under his predecessor, [[William McKinley]]. The [[Philippine–American War]] (1899&ndash;1913) arose from the ongoing [[Philippine Revolution]] against [[imperialism]].<ref>{{cite journal|pmid=11635503|year=1984|last1=Gates|first1=J. M.|title=War-related deaths in the Philippines 1898-1902|journal=Pacific Historical Review|volume=53|issue=3|pages=367–78|doi=10.2307/3639234|jstor=3639234|url=http://www3.wooster.edu/History/jgates/book-ch3.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100805061319/http://www3.wooster.edu/history/jgates/book-ch3.html|archive-date=August 5, 2010}}</ref> Interventionism found its formal articulation in the 1904 [[Roosevelt Corollary]] to the Monroe Doctrine, proclaiming the right of the United States to intervene in the affairs of weak states in the Americas in order to stabilize them, a moment that underlined the emergent U.S. regional [[hegemony]]. By 1900, the United States possessed the world's largest industrial capacity and national income, having surpassed both the United Kingdom and Germany.<ref>Kennedy, Paul. "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers." Vintage, January 1989. United States is listed as possessing 23.6% of world industrial capacity compared to 18.5% for the British.</ref>