Taft’s Rationale for the First Nicaraguan war, 1909-1912
Edward Scheirer
America’s Small Wars
Dr. Ferrell
4/2/15
1
Abstract
This paper explores the rationale behind the U.S. intervention in Nicaragua from 1909 to
1912 (the First Nicaraguan War). It first details the legacy of the Spanish American War in its
effects on creating an American focus on foreign policy in Latin America. It then looks at both
President Theodore Roosevelt’s and President William Howard Taft’s general strategic thinking.
These are described both to explicate Taft’s agenda and to put it in a historical context which
emphasizes a shift from Roosevelt’s security-focused agenda to an economically focused agenda.
Then an overview of the Nicaraguan conflict is provided for illustrative purposes. The central
point of this paper is that while Taft had an over-arching foreign policy agenda in Latin America,
his public statements make it clear that the U.S. intervened in Nicaragua for the maintenance of
regional political stability in order to secure the U.S.’s economic interests in the Panama Canal
zone.
2
The Spanish American War expanded the horizons of U.S. interests in the Western
Hemisphere. The permanent absorption of Puerto Rico into U.S. political control and the
temporary administration of Cuba (1898 to 1902) demonstrate the strength of the ties the U.S.
had with states within the Americas. Under the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt these interests
were security ones, as the concern for conflicting European interests in the region, embodied by
the Monroe Doctrine, was high. President William Howard Taft replaced this security emphasis
with an economic one, as a concern for economic security and the production of excess goods in
the U.S. pushed the U.S. to open new markets in the independent states of South America. The
first Nicaraguan War from 1909 to 1912 was indirectly the result of this new emphasis. Through
state of the union addresses and public speeches, Taft and his cabinet members made the
rationale for intervention into Nicaragua clear. The U.S. would behave towards its southern
neighbors in a way that would bring about economic prosperity. The economic interest of U.S.
policy placed the decade-long construction of the Panama Canal in a central position as it
became the keystone to Taft’s foreign policy in the region. Taft made clear that the stability of
the Central American region was imperative to the canal’s construction. While the Nicaraguan
war fit into Taft’s broader foreign policy agenda, the economic interests the U.S. had vested in
the successful completion of the Panama Canal and the necessity for the existence of stability in
the region to protect that asset explains more accurately the intervention into Nicaragua.
The Spanish American War placed the U.S. on a world stage. The U.S. fought the
disintegrating empire of Spain in 1898 in military engagements isolated to the island of Cuba and
the Philippines. Scholars debate the causes of this war and explain them through various
perspectives ranging from humanitarianism to an emerging imperialist agenda. 1 What is clear is
1
Jeffrey Bloodworth, “For Love or for Money?: William McKinley and the Spanish American War,” White
House Studies 9, no. 2 (September, 2009), 135.
3
that the war resulted in the U.S. incorporating a number of territories like Puerto Rico and the
Philippines under U.S. sovereignty.
These new possessions expanded U.S. political and
economic interests in both the Pacific and the Americas. The U.S. became more connected with
the international world as its political and economic interests extended beyond its borders most
visibly in the form of its territories. To protect them the U.S. became intimately concerned with
the wider world in the regions where it held these new territories and saw its own security linked
to the actions of other states. Lester Langley, a prolific scholar on U.S. Caribbean policy at the
turn of the 20th century, describes the contemporary sentiment for empire and the legacy of the
Spanish American War, saying,
The United States in 1898 was not considered, nor did it consider itself, an
imperial power, but the nation lived in a world of competing dynamic
empires…in some minds the fear was not of European encirclement nor of
further European encroachment against weak Latin American states but of
American unwillingness to stake out its own empire…the empire was not
created by the triumph of 1898; rather, the experience of war and the
exultation of victory seemed to sweep away doubts about America’s special
role in the Caribbean.2
Prior to the war, some in the U.S. believed that America’s security depended on its achieving
empire in the few regions left for conquest. The war quelled fears that the U.S. would not
achieve this and expanded emphasis on the Caribbean.
The war set up interest forming circumstances, in the form of territories, where the U.S.
would have to become heavily involved in the Caribbean. Taft expresses this understanding. He
begins his state of the Union address of 1912 with an unusually long and detailed introduction:
The foreign relations of the United States actually and potentially affect the
state of the Union to a degree not widely realized and hardly surpassed by
any other factor in the welfare of the whole Nation. The position of the
United States in the moral, intellectual, and material relations of the family
of nations should be a matter of vital interest to every patriotic citizen. The
2
Lester D. Langley, The United States and the Caribbean, 1900-1970 (Athens: University of Georgia Press,
1980,) 4 and 13.
4
national prosperity and power impose upon us duties which we cannot shirk
if we are to be true to our ideals. The tremendous growth of the export trade
of the United States has already made that trade a very real factor in the
industrial and commercial prosperity of the country. With the development
of our industries the foreign commerce of the United States must rapidly
become a still more essential factor in its economic welfare.3
The U.S.’s expanding economic interests at the beginning of the 20th century offered new
challenges from the actions of other states, and thus foreign affairs had become the most
important factor “in the welfare of the whole nation.” The U.S.’s new economic and political
interests in the Caribbean opened up a new mindset of interconnection in foreign affairs thinking.
The war turned the United States into a nominal empire which the government and public
had to focus on. Regardless of its size, this small empire had an effect on foreign policy. The
U.S. became more concerned with Asia, China in particular. The push to open up trade with
China under President William McKinley’s secretary of state John Hay developed into a policy
known as the “Open Door Policy.”4 These expanded interests drew the U.S. into conflict with
Chinese “Boxer rebels” (1898 to 1901) who waged war against all foreigners on Chinese land in
a xenophobic, bloody, and fruitless conflict. The Qing Empress Dowager Cixi’s tacit support for
this rebellion also resulted in tensions with the Chinese state. The threat to U.S. nationals and
their property in China, as well as the potential risk of losing future profitable trade with China,
resulted in a U.S. expeditionary force landing on mainland China to put down this “Boxer
rebellion.”5 In the Caribbean, a similar increase in concern prompted a more engaged policy in
the region for years to come, for instance, during the Venezuelan debt crisis of 1901 the U.S.
3
William Howard Taft, "State of the Union Address, December 3, 1912,” The American Presidency Project,
accessed February 24, 2015, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29553.
4
The Open Door Policy was designed to open up China’s closed society to free trade and American goods, and to
reduce interference with rival European trading nations by respecting spheres of influence. Thomas Schoonover,
Uncle Sam’s War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003), 112.
5
Ibid. 109-11.
5
threatened war with Germany.6 To ensure U.S. dominance and regional stability in the Caribbean
the U.S. took control of the Dominican Republic’s custom houses in 1905.7 In 1915, the U.S.
intervened in Haiti to ensure that government’s stability, to protect U.S. trade, and to sort out the
problem of Haiti’s large foreign debt.8 After the U.S. went to war with Spain in 1898, the U.S.
became an integrated participant in the Caribbean and Asia.
The U.S.’s new territorial
possessions gained after the war with Spain placed the U.S. deeply into a geopolitical arena
where the U.S. had to consider ramifications of other states actions to protect its far-flung
interests.
During the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1901 to 1909), the U.S. followed a Latin
American policy focused on ensuring the security for the U.S. The U.S. viewed European
powers like Germany as potential threats to U.S. security and interests in the Caribbean. Since
the Americas were one of the few places in the world no longer extensively colonized and not
under the control of European powers, it was of natural interest to those powers who desired to
expand their economic and political power through an expansion of colonial possessions.
German desires for the economic and political benefits of empire primarily illustrate this
thinking. It was a desire which concerned the U.S. as David Healy, a scholar of U.S. foreign
policy at the turn of the 20th century, writes,
Contemporary Americans were united in their opposition to European
expansion in the New World, and after 1900 they came quickly to focus
their strongest fears and suspicions, no longer on France or Great Britain,
but on the rising power of Germany…Germany, like the United States, was
a fast-rising industrial power and a relative newcomer to the imperial
scramble for colonies. Also like the United States, it had recently entered
the international competition to become a leading naval power…americans
6
David Healy, Drive to Hegemony: The United States in the Caribbean, 1898-1917 (London: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1988), 102-4.
7
Lester Langley, The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934 (Wilmington, DE:
Scholarly Resources, 2002), 60.
8
Walter H. Posner, “Marines in Haiti, 1915-1922,” The Americas 20, no. 3 (January, 1964), 231-5.
6
perceived another kind of threat, as Germany’s economic penetration of
Latin America and success in selling its exports there identified her as a
leading trading rival.9
The German desire for colonies in a colonized world drove it to seek out opportunities and
influence in the Caribbean. Roosevelt was concerned for U.S. security in Latin America based
on European expansion into the region.
European involvement came primarily in the form of European loans to financially weak
South American states. The British were the largest lenders, however France and Germany also
held a significant portion of Latin American state bonds.10 The U.S. feared that the inability to
pay off this debt would result in the European’s taking harsh measures, explicitly forceful
manipulation and potential colonization.11 The debt would provide European powers with a
justifiable pretext for invasion. This fear contributed to an extension of the Monroe Doctrine
known as the “Roosevelt Corollary.” This policy statement focused on maintaining the status
quo of the American states. In Roosevelt’s State of the Union for 1905, he outlined this new
interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, explaining,
It must be understood that under no circumstances will the United States
use the Monroe Doctrine as a cloak for territorial aggression…in some State
unable to keep order among its own people, unable to secure justice from
outsiders and unwilling to do justice to those outsiders who treat it well,
may result in our having to take action to protect our rights…moreover…if
a republic to the south of us commits a tort against a foreign nation…then
the Monroe Doctrine does not force us to interfere to prevent punishment of
the tort, save to see that the punishment does not assume the form of
territorial occupation in any shape…on the one hand, this country would
certainly decline to go to war to prevent a foreign government from
collecting a just debt; on the other hand, it is very inadvisable to permit any
foreign powers to take possession, even temporarily of the custom houses of
an American Republic in order to enforce the payment of its obligations; for
9
Healy, Drive to Hegemony, 72-3 and 75.
Ibid. 14.
11
Ibid. 196-7; Dexter Perkins, A History of the Monroe Doctrine (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1941), 2289.
10
7
such temporary occupation might turn into a permanent occupation.12
The U.S. would seek to protect its “rights” in Latin America (without seeking territorial
expansion) and, while respecting the repayment of foreign debt, would not accept the use of that
debt for the colonization of any Latin American republic. A reemphasis and reinterpretation of
the Monroe doctrine underlined Roosevelt’s security concerns in Latin America.
Active European colonialism was an implicit security threat because it placed a
heightened and expanding European state close to the United States’ own territories in the
region. The protection of U.S. interests (In the form of its territories and future economic
penetration) in the Caribbean and South America thus came into greater focus because European
involvement might spell war for the United States. The primary state which Roosevelt feared
was Germany, which sought to gain an empire of its own in a world carved up by the other
European powers.13 These fears came closest to conflict in the climax of the Venezuelan debt
crisis in 1902. When Germany and England were on the cusp of war to enforce the repayment of
European loans totaling 5.25 million pounds, Roosevelt responded strongly, threatening war if
the two European powers took military action.14 Because the U.S. saw a threat coming from
across the sea the long-term U.S. emphasis on naval development continued. The navy would
serve as a first line of defense in the event of a war with a European power.15 This emphasis
occurred during a burgeoning naval arms race which would climax later in the century.
Roosevelt thus built up the navy in the form of his Great White Fleet, which sailed the globe to
demonstrate U.S. military power. This military context shows the severity of the German threat
12
Theodore Roosevelt, "State of the Union Address, December 5, 1905,” The American Presidency Project,
accessed March 4, 2015, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29546.
13
Healy, Drive to Hegemony, 72-3.
14
Ibid. 101-4.
15
Ibid. 97-8.
8
as, in 1906, the Germans had twenty dreadnoughts and the U.S. had twenty dreadnoughts.16 The
U.S. and Germany were expanding power peers searching for dominance in the only region of
the world which remained un-colonized. Germany was thus an active and capable threat which
the Roosevelt Corollary hoped to mitigate. The Roosevelt presidency followed a Latin American
policy which emphasized the security of the United States.
The U.S. fought the Nicaraguan war from 1909 to 1912 for the immediate goal of
ensuring stability in Nicaragua. The president of Nicaragua, Jose Santos Zelaya, was in power
from 1893 to 1909. Under his leadership Nicaragua attempted an expansionist strategy in a
region rife with instability.17 In 1907, Zelaya invaded Honduras to little effect hoping to gain
agriculturally rich territory.18 As a result of these expansionist actions, the U.S. did not view
Zelaya favorably. Langley speaks to this point, arguing,
Control of Nicaragua’s finances offered the key to American success, and
Knox avidly pursued an adjustment with that country. The first task, he
believed, was ridding the country of Zelayista influence. Zelaya had been
opposed to foreign meddling in isthmian affairs; his followers, presumably,
felt the same way.19
The U.S. did not approve of Zeleya’s expansionist policies which brought instability to the
region and questioned the legitimacy of U.S. involvement in the Canal Zone. Internally, Zelaya
had favored Nicaraguan controlled businesses and was opposed to U.S. dominated fruit and
railroad companies.20 He contracted a large national debt to the sum of 17 million pounds which
was owed to the English.21 Zelaya’s foreighn policies conflicted with U.S. policies in the region.
Zelaya’s domestic policies isolated the foreign merchants of the port city of Blue Fields
16
Ibid. 98.
Langley, The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 52.
18
Ibid. 52-3.
19
Ibid. 61.
20
Ibid. 56.
21
Ibid. 61.
17
9
and their native beneficiaries, who, the regional governor Juan J. Estrada led in a rebellion in
1909.22 This rebellion destabilized the country and placed U.S. lives and property at risk. When
Zelaya’s forces executed two U.S. citizens fighting for the rebels, the U.S. publicly chastised the
regime and sent the navy to surround the country’s Pacific and Caribbean coasts. In his 1909
State of the Union President Taft recalls this emotional event, stating,
I need not rehearse here the patient efforts of this Government to promote
peace and welfare among [Central American] Republics, efforts which are
fully appreciated by the majority of them who are loyal to their true
interests. It would be no less unnecessary to rehearse here the sad tale of
unspeakable barbarities and oppression alleged to have been committed by
the Zelaya Government. Recently two Americans were put to death by
order of President Zelaya himself. They were reported to have been
regularly commissioned officers in the organized forces of a revolution
which had continued many weeks and was in control of about half of the
Republic, and as such, according to the modern enlightened practice of
civilized nations, they were entitled to be dealt with as prisoners of war. At
the date when this message is printed this Government has terminated
diplomatic relations with the Zelaya Government…and is intending to take
such future steps as may be found most consistent with its dignity, its duty
to American interests, and its moral obligations to Central America and to
civilization.23
The execution of the two Americans was the event which spurred the U.S. to desire officially a
break with the Zelaya government and to work towards its demise. In 1909, U.S. marines landed
to protect the Blue Fields rebels by ensuring that advancing government forces did not take
control over the port and the custom house at Blue Fields.24 While Zelaya still had popular
support, Estrada and his lieutenant, Adolfo Diaz, forced his resignation with American support in
1909.25 After Zelaya’s resignation, a supporter, Dr. Jose Madriz, took power until Estrada
22
Ibid. 56.
William Howard Taft, "State of the Union Address, December 7, 1909,” The American Presidency Project,
accessed February 24, 2015, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu /ws/index. php?pid=29551.
24
Langley, The Banana Wars, 57-8.
25
Ibid. 59.
23
10
marched on the capital, Manangua, in 1910 and took control of the country.26 In 1911, Estrada
lost power to the U.S.-favored Diaz who immediately faced a Zelayista revolt from the state
military which General Luis Mena led in 1912.27 This power struggle produced political chaos
which prompted a U.S. intervention consisting of 1,100 marines (who sustained 37 casualties
with seven killed).28 The U.S. intervention against the Mena rebellion was quick and successful.
However, its aim was stability in the region. To ensure this, the U.S. maintained a marine
contingent in Nicaragua to supervise elections and to ensure the once-expansionist state’s
stability.29 The U.S. maintained a contingent there until 1925 but was quickly re-deployed after a
second Nicaraguan war erupted in that year.30 The immediate goal of the U.S. intervention in
Nicaragua from 1909 to 1912 was the maintenance of that state’s stability.
Taft’s foreign policy had a distinctly economic focus. After the industrial revolution and
the panic of 1893, it became a popular viewpoint that the U.S. needed to expand trade. This idea
was a product of the belief that U.S. industry was over-producing for its contemporary needs and
so needed to expand its commercial interests.31 Taft emphasized this concern for trade expansion
in a speech in Los Angeles in October 1909, explaining,
I do not know that the increase in the merchant marine is essential to your
enjoyment of great benefits from that Canal. I do not think it is. I think if
we were to go on as we are now you still would derive immense benefits by
the trade brought in here by foreign vessels and…vessels of the United
States. Nevertheless, you are on the Pacific; you are on the great ocean
surrounded by the Orient on the one side, by the west coast of South
America and by the west coast of North America…in which the great
commercial progress of the world is to be manifested…it is undoubtedly
true it is shown in our South American trade that the control by the flag
of the ships that carry the trade greatly influences the trade in favor of the
26
Ibid. 60.
Ibid. 63-5.
28
Ibid. 70.
29
Ibid. 70 and 165.
30
Ibid. 177-8.
31
Healy, Drive to Hegemony, 146.
27
11
country that owns that flag and owns those ships…you say we are going to
help along a selfish private corporation…Well we are, because the private
corporation is the instrument by which we wish to accomplish a great public
good.32
The Panama Canal will provide great economic benefits, but will not be essential to the
Californians Taft speaks to because they have great opportunities for trade with the Orient and
the west coasts of the Americas. Taft desired to expand trade using U.S.-flagged ships and
private companies as this trade was imperative to the U.S. and was thus providing a public good.
Taft saw an expanding trade as an important aspect of U.S. foreign policy and had a clear plan to
see that it developed.
Expanding trade with South America was imperative given the geo-political situation at
the time. Though the U.S. had extensive trade with Europe, the home countries could easily
shield their imperial systems from foreign trade and effectively block U.S. trade with them.33
Empire gave the home states the possibility of trade exclusivity in these colonies while pushing
U.S. goods out, the result of which was that only the Europeans would receive the economic
benefits of trade. However, there remained one large area of the globe to which the U.S. could
confidently expand its trade interests, South America. To this end Taft followed a policy dubbed
“Dollar Diplomacy.” Its emphasis was not on the use of the army to impose the U.S.’s desires
upon South America, but to use the coercive power of U.S. loans to influence South American
states. Taft explicated clearly this policy in his 1912 state of the union address, explaining,
To-day, more than ever before, American capital is seeking investment in
foreign countries, and American products are more and more generally
seeking foreign markets. As a consequence, in all countries there are
American citizens and American interests to be protected, on occasion, by
their Government. These movements of men, of capital, and of commodities
32
William Howard Taft, “Speech on the Panama Canal and Merchant marine: Los Angeles, California, October
11, 1909,” The Collected Works of William Howard Taft, edited by David H. Burton (Athens: Ohio University
Press, 2002), 3: 272.
33
Ibid. 77.
12
bring peoples and governments closer together and so form bonds of peace
and mutual dependency…the resultant situation inevitably imposes upon
this Government vastly increased responsibilities. This Administration,
through the Department of State and the foreign service, is lending all
proper support to legitimate and beneficial American enterprises in foreign
countries.34
The U.S. government under Taft aimed to protect and promote the expansion of trade into Latin
America. The goal was to produce stability in the region through loans and financial reform to
prepare the way for productive commerce and trade. Taft’s secretary of state, Philander C.
Knox, explains the administration’s rationale in a public speech saying,
In Central America the [Taft] administration seeks to substitute dollars for
bullets by arranging, through American bankers, loans for the rehabilitation
of the finances of Nicaragua and Honduras. The conventions with those
countries…will take the customs houses out of politics so that every
ambitious revolutionist shall not seize them to squander the resources of his
country to impose himself as dictator.35
The U.S. would ensure stability and economic prosperity by exerting economic influence
through U.S. bank loans and ensure the repayment of those loans through U.S. control of the
politically turbulent custom houses. To this end, U.S. policy necessitated the expulsion of
European banking interests from the region.
Taft viewed the European bankers as solely
motivated by the repayment of their debt.36 The European states did not care whether the
governments of South America fell, so long as they received their money, which broke from
Roosevelt’s policy which assumed colonial intentions. The U.S. had an interest in maintaining
the proper functioning of these states. This policy is evident in Taft’s dealings with Nicaragua.
Knox brokered deals to satisfy the English bankers’ monetary demands and opened up American
34
Taft, "State of the Union Address, December 7, 1909.”
Philander C. Knox, “Toledo Speech, 1912,” as quoted in Langley, The Banana Wars, 63.
36
Dana Gardner Munro, “Dollar Diplomacy in Nicaragua, 1909-1913,” Hispanic American
Historical Review 38, no. 2 (May 1958), 211.
35
13
loans to the Nicaraguan government to stabilize the Estrada (and later Diaz) governments.37 The
U.S. also took over the custom houses to provide stability to the state and to guarantee that
Nicaragua repaid the U.S. loans.38 The goal was to produce stability in the once expansionist and
revolutionary state of Nicaragua through control of custom houses and the production of
financial stability. Taft’s foreign policy had a distinctive economic focus in relation to South
America.
The Panama Canal was a central motivating factor for the U.S. intervention in Nicaragua
from 1909 to 1912.
The importance of the Panama Canal in U.S. Caribbean policy cannot be
overstated. Under Roosevelt, plans for the canal went into consideration in defining key security
challenges as its defense was imperative.39 The canal would be a source of economic and
military strength. It would thus be a target for European powers and so needed protection. One
solution was to expand the number of U.S. naval bases, like that of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba,
which guarded the key straits into the Caribbean Sea.40 However, Roosevelt preferred a less
direct, less costly, and less imperialist option. Ultimately, he decided that in the event of a war
with a European power the navy could capture land adjacent to these straits and produce the
same tactical effect.41 For Taft, the canal’s construction was also imperative. However, Taft
viewed it primarily in an economic light. The canal was needed to promote U.S. economic
expansion. The canal would cut down transport costs from the East and West coasts and from
the West Coast to the Caribbean. The cost of the canal also made it an important policy point for
the United States. In 1910, the construction of the canal cost 57 million dollars, which was
37
Langley, The Banana Wars, 61.
Ibid.,
39
Healy, Drive to Hegemony, 81.
40
Ibid. 98-9.
41
Ibid.,
38
14
equivalent to eight percent of the entire federal budget for that year.42 This was a big project that
needed protection, and Taft continued it as a central part of his economically focused policy
agenda. However, the new focus on overall economic expansion was not the central reason for
intervention in Nicaragua. Nicaragua was part of a foreign policy in which the Panama Canal
was at the center. Since the canal was key to Taft’s goal of economic expansion through
increased trade, the protection of this canal was vital. Under Roosevelt, it was a central strategic
concern for the navy but now U.S. leadership viewed it primarily economically. Taft argued that
stability in the central Americas was integral to the security of the Canal. He said in his first
State of the Union Address in 1909 that,
it is very apparent that the considerations of geographic proximity to the
Canal Zone and of the very substantial American interests in Central
America give to the United States a special position in the zone of these
Republics and the Caribbean Sea. I need not rehearse here the patient
efforts of this Government to promote peace and welfare among these
Republics, efforts which are fully appreciated by the majority of them who
are loyal to their true interests.43
America’s policy in Central America was determined by Central America’s geographic
proximity to the Panama Canal, and resulted in the promotion of stability to protect U.S. interests
in Panama. The Zelaya regime’s expansionist tendencies and the revolution of 1909 and revolt of
1912 all had consequences which could have spilled into neighboring states. Taft referenced this
possibility in his 1912 state of the Union Address, explaining,
In the recent revolution in Nicaragua, which, it was generally admitted,
might well have resulted in a general Central American conflict but for the
intervention of the United States, the Government of Honduras was
especially menaced; but fortunately peaceful conditions were maintained
within the borders of that Republic44
42
William Howard Taft, "State of the Union Address, December 6, 1910,” The American
Presidency Project, accessed February 24, 2015, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu /ws/index. php?pid=29551.
43
Taft, "State of the Union Address, December 7, 1909.”
44
Taft, "State of the Union Address, December 3, 1912.”
15
The fear of instability in Central America prompted U.S. action. The Nicaraguan war can be
explained through Taft’s overall economically focused foreign policy, as it followed the general
practices of “Dollar Diplomacy.” However, based on Taft’s public statements,
it is more
accurate to say that the protection of the Panama Canal (the centerpiece of Taft’s policy
thinking) through the maintenance of stability in Central America, was the most immediate
reason for the intervention into Nicaragua from 1909-1912.
The Spanish American War integrated the U.S. into a global system of nations where the
U.S. had expanding important interests in both Asia and Latin America. This new situation
presented the U.S. with the challenge of dealing with the implications of foreign actions. To deal
with this new situation, Roosevelt took a security-focused perspective where deterring European
threats to U.S. interests in Latin America was key to his Latin American foreign policy. The
First Nicaraguan War from 1909 to 1912 was the result of Taft’s new economic-focused foreign
policy in the region whose immediate goal in Nicaragua was the insurance of stability. Taft’s
desire to expand trade in the region placed the construction of the Panama Canal at the keystone
position in his Latin American policy. Due to the canal’s strategic economic importance, the
stability of the geographically proximate Central American states like Nicaragua became key to
the security of the Panama Canal. In this light, and based on Taft’s policy statements, the First
Nicaraguan war is most accurately described as a war aimed at maintaining the stability of
Central America for the security of the economically significant Panama Canal.
16
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