The Social Causes of Great Power Restraint During the Spanish-American War

• In Event: Conflict, Governance, and International Political Order

Abstract

The Spanish-American War of 1898 resulted in control of the Philippines, Guam, Cuba and Puerto Rico being transferred to the United States. Surprisingly, however, there was little competition from other great powers, most notably Britain, France and Germany, for control of the islands. This is in marked contrast to the simultaneous great power competition over the territories of the declining Ottoman Empire or for influence in China. This is puzzling given the United States was a rising power which had emerged post-Civil War as a major economic and military rival in the Americas and Pacific. Existing scholarship emphasizes that the United States was able to deter intervention by any of these three, but such explanations rest on troubling assumptions. The United States was not more militarily powerful than these three great powers, particularly in the western Pacific, nor had it established a reputation for cost-acceptance which could have offset deficiencies in capabilities. I argue that the lack of crisis and great power hostilities triggered by the decline of Spain and the rise of the United States are attributable to interstate social structure. Specifically, the United States had established hierarchical relationships with subordinates in the Americas which were largely open to the economic interests of other great powers, thus assuaging fears of exclusion and threat. This paper utilises this episode to illustrate the importance of the characteristics of interstate hierarchies to understanding the probability of major power war associated with rising powers. It thereby contributes to debates on the risk of conflict emphasized by power transition theory by directing attention towards the social structures which powerful states create and which inform potential rivals about intentions.

Author

• Patrick Gill-Tiney, University of Oxford