Briefly speaking, the War of 1898 had far-reaching effects on the United States both from within and outside (Beede ix). First off, the United States started to shoulder worldwide responsibilities, including safeguarding the Philippines, Guan, and the Caribbean (Beede 9). Without a doubt, the U.S joined the ranks of countries that boasted of sophisticated military machinery by the end of the War. The new responsibilities meant that the U.S was to expand its army of thousands of troops, but even more important were the changes in the military structure that saw the archaic formation reformed to reflect the challenges of the moment.
The American-Spanish War of 1898 paved the way for numerous changes in diplomatic, social, and economic aspects of the U.S. As such, the period of the war has dubbed the transitional moment for the U.S. For example, the U.S army and its activities had connotation of the Civil War, albeit in a different form. On the economic front, the Spanish-Cuban/American War engineered changes in the U.S financial policies. For the first time in its history, the U.S government allowed small denomination bonds to trade among small investors. This inspired the support of all citizens to wage the war. This, according to pundits, provided fertile grounds that would later form the basis for World War I and subsequent conflicts.
According to Beede (2013), the Spanish-American War of 1898 provided a good learning environment that would later fuel the political unrest, the Philippine War, and later conflicts that led to the occupation of Haiti in 1934 (9). The social configuration was not spared during and after the War of 1898. As noted earlier, the War of 1898 provided for an avenue for the support of the smallest of the citizens to call, and as such, the U.S national pride soared and nationalism became evident.
On its part, the government steered clear its role in the war. It pledged to its people and supporters to fight the war against imperialism, and the Teller Amendment was one of the anti-imperialist sentiments that played in the regional and global galleries.
The Spanish-American War openly revealed the once hidden dualism of the U.S foreign policy, which since has been existed as the one used throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century in different forms, though. The War served as an invaluable tool that unionized the Northern and the Southern soldiers to fight one common enemy: Spain. Soldiers from these two warring groups had never shown the unity that was exhibited during the War of 1898. To this end, the 1898 War provided for a transition between the America of 19th and 20th centuries.
Other than the internal aspects that changed as a result of the war, external effects were more profound. The War of 1898 between Spain and America marked the end of the Spanish colonial domination over the Western Hemisphere and paved the way for the United States to be a powerful entity in the entire Pacific. The war culminated in the signing of the peace treaty that saw the Spanish relinquish their control of Cuba and ceding Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico to America.
The War led to the annexation of the independent state of Hawaii. All these activities established the U.S as a powerful nation that exercised its dominance and control of the entire Caribbean region. It also allowed the U.S a favorable ground to pursue its economic, political and social interests in the Asian continent.
Works Cited
Beede, Benjamin R. The War of 1898 and U.S. Interventions. New York, NY: Routledge, 2013. Print.