The Emergence of American Amphibious Warfare, 1898–1945. David S. Nasca
While America’s geopolitical strategy during the nineteenth century was focused on building its political, economic, and military base in North America, the early twentieth century was a period in which the United States extended beyond its continental boundaries and took on a more assertive stance in its interests throughout the rest of the world. The United States’ concern in the Asia-Pacific Region was predicated on its commercial ties with China as well as free access to international shipping routes in the Pacific Ocean. In addition, the United States was also concerned with the future of the Philippines. Besides economic development and commercial ties with other European colonies and sovereign states in the region, the Philippines also had geostrategic importance because it was essential to security and stability in the region. While some Americans believed the United States should grant the liberated Philippines immediate independence, there were others who felt that the country would quickly be carved up between the British, Germans, and Japanese. Far from being able to govern themselves, the Filipinos were viewed as being too divided and weak to protect themselves. Therefore, American advocates for expansion used the pretext of state building to maintain a large garrison in the Philippines and impose an American colonial style government to administer the country for an indeterminate amount of time until the United States felt the Filipinos were ready for independence.2
Army and Marine garrisons served as part of this massive state-building project, but they also supported Alfred Mahan’s advocacy on the strategic importance of sea power. America’s possession of the Philippines, as well as its newly acquired Pacific territories, provided essential combat-service support in the refueling and resupply of the U.S. Navy. In addition, from an economic perspective, the Americans feared that if they did not take control of the Philippines, they would be locked out of the Asian market. The British already had a naval base at Hong Kong that gave them access to China; many strategists argued the United States needed its own base.3 The protected chain of islands that stretched from the North American continent to China and Japan allowed the quick deployment of powerful ground and naval forces if war threatened to upset the political and economic interests of the United States.
The United States’ concerns about the security of its overseas interests were justified based on the dynamics of the international system between 1900 and 1918. Nationalism and imperialism were still on the rise and remained the driving forces behind the major world powers’ actions throughout the globe. In both Asia and Africa, few sovereign states were left to their own devices, since most of them had become either protectorates or colonies of the European powers. Richard Langhorne’s study bases the collapse of the balance of power in the international system on the European powers expanding beyond the European mainland. The rush for colonies combined with the ease in which the European powers attacked and subjugated foreign countries led to the creation of imperial trading blocs that provided ready access to labor, markets, and resources to feed the rise of the Second Industrial Revolution. As a result, the old checks and balances established from the Congress of Vienna in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars were being circumvented through the expansion of national power through colonial conquest.4
Interestingly enough, the expansion of European territory, power, and influence was based on technology that would be used for amphibious warfare. Militaries around the world were undergoing radical changes as a result of advances in weapons and technology. Studies of European armies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries point out that technology and innovation fueled the extraordinary growth in military power. Industrialization transformed the nature of war because of the standardization of machine tools, which allowed the manufacture of large numbers of identical, interchangeable parts. In addition, technological innovation and industrial mobilization also allowed greater theoretical performance to be transformed into reality where scientific study and the careful management of manpower and resources were coordinated to bring forth a system of innovation and development.5 Improvements in small arms and artillery, as well as the invention of the machine gun, the tank, the internal combustion engine, the airplane, and the radio, increased the speed, distance, and lethality of armies on the battlefield. Getting to a location with the most military power in the shortest amount of time was important for a strategic victory.
As such, the major powers (Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and Italy) all vied for geopolitical supremacy in the world and invested in the development of weapons and technology that would give their respective countries an edge in the imperial competition. The “Scramble for Africa” was in full swing among the European powers, despite attempts by the Berlin Conference in 1885 to regulate European colonization and trade in Africa. While the conference attempted to alleviate issues for potential friction and conflict among the great powers of Europe, it only channeled great power hostility toward competing powers on the African continent. The fact was that the major powers were playing for the highest stakes in grand strategy. Although the major powers attempted to create a new balance of power, they instead led an undignified rush for “slices” of Africa.6 By 1900, most of Africa was under European rule, and the major powers were focused on consolidating their colonial gains for economic development and geopolitical advantage. In addition, the major powers also utilized their African territorial acquisitions to forward deploy naval and ground forces to protect their national interests.
In scrambling for colonial territory in Africa, the European powers were caught in a series of small wars with various African states and tribes that were quickly overwhelmed by the technological innovations that supported the European colonial armies in the realms of medicine, transportation, and weaponry. In addition, European colonial consolidation became a reality as various industries and businesses sought to capitalize on the availability of African manpower and resources. The administration and development of these colonies varied among the European powers, ranging from the brutal and oppressive to the semibenevolent and laissez-faire. During this time, Great Britain destroyed the Mahdists during its conquest of the Sudan and conducted military operations to defeat the Boers in South Africa. In addition to these conflicts, Great Britain also focused its energies not only on maintaining its global dominance, but also on warding off potential challengers, such as France, Russia, and Germany. Paul Kennedy’s examination of Great Britain’s geopolitical superiority in 1900 led him to conclude, “By her possession of an enormous colonial empire, Britain enjoyed the strategical benefits of the most important collection of naval bases throughout the world…. The numerical, material and strategical superiority of the Royal Navy was cold, hard reality [to all rivals].”7
Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific Region was becoming the new battleground in the struggle for empire among the major powers. The focus was China under the Qing Dynasty, which was struggling against political and economic collapse. The Taiping Rebellion was the most destructive and costly civil war in human history. After nearly a decade of fighting, the Qing Dynasty crushed the Taipings and attempted to reunite the country and focus on bringing forth modest efforts toward a modernization movement that would strengthen the empire politically, militarily, and economically. Unfortunately, the corruption and lack of unity within the Qing Dynasty caused the modernization movement to fail and resulted in China being defeated by Japan during the First Sino-Japanese War (1895–96).
Japan’s ability to defeat China was the result of its extraordinary period of intense political, economic, and military modernization during the Meiji Restoration. Japan’s transformation during the second half of the nineteenth century revealed that the Japanese made a conscious effort to overcome their cultural and social paranoia of foreign influences and instead embraced new ideas, cultures, and especially all technologies. As a consequence, the Japanese government focused on making the country wealthy and powerful in order to be able to stand up to aggressive foreign powers in the Asia-Pacific Region. The recruitment of foreign advisers and experts, the aggressive quest for foreign capital and resources, and borrowing the latest weapons and industrial technologies set the foundations for Japan’s modernization. This in turn would result in Japan using what it learned from the West to begin shaping these influences in a way that best suited Japanese culture and society. The Japan that emerged to defeat China in 1896 was a country that incorporated the best from the West while retaining its own national and cultural identity.8
During this conflict, Japan deployed its military forces to destroy the Chinese Imperial Navy to protect