the spanish american war

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The Spanish-American war was the first and biggest step that the United States of America took toward imperialism. It was the war that secured the US as the most powerful country in the world. This war was a benefit to the USA because we gained land, gained respect, and taught a lesson to one of our enemies. In addition to this, the losses that we suffered were almost nothing compared to other conflicts or wars. The Spanish-American war was by no means for the sole purpose of gaining land and respect, the United States freed an oppressed country and took pieces of land that were better off under US control. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Imperialism was a popular trend among the large, powerful countries. Imperialism is defined as “The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations” Imperialism cannot be said as either good or bad, but as a general rule; If you live in an annexed country, imperialism is not good, if your country annexes smaller ones to gain profit, land, and respect, then imperialism is good. The United States was not much of an imperialistic country until we won the Spanish-American war. As a result of this war, we annexed Guam, The Philippines, and Puerto Rico. This is the point at which the US becomes and imperialistic nation, and though it was a hard struggle to keep these annexed countries under control and eventually gave them all back to their rightful owners. The importance of taking these countries is that we then could have coal stations around the world to fuel our navy, and we got respect from other countries around the war. This respect and intimidation helped the allied powers defeat the central powers during World War II. Ever since the US became the most powerful nation after the Spanish-American war, we have retained the title. One reason why the Spanish-American war was good for the US is the relatively small losses we had. 332 Americans were killed and 1642 were injured, and 2957 died from disease. These numbers amount to a total of 3289 soldiers killed because of the Spanish-American war (McSherry). This seems like many casualties, but if one compares it to any other war, it is almost nothing, considering there were 15 million battlefield deaths in the Second World War (Ash 71).

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