Cultura Americana

American strategic culture is one that is wholly unique in the world, becoming in a relatively short time, the only remaining global superpower in the world. To understand strategic culture, you must first define it. Strategic culture, as defined by Thomas Mahnken in “American Strategic Culture”, can be simply put as “the American way of doing war”. Strategic culture in the United States flows from a number of different factors such as geography, history, and political culture.

To better understand the direction of U.S. strategic culture, two common misconceptions must be debunked, those being the myth of pre-WW1 isolationism, and the clumsiness of U.S. foreign policy. Walter Russell Mead in “Lucid Stars: The American Foreign Policy Tradition” is quick to point out how wrong the isolationist myth really is, by showing the fact that American troops by the late 19th century had seen action in almost every major continent on the planet, from Haiti, Samoa, and the Dominican Republic, to Japan and Liberia. The second myth of clumsiness of American foreign policy borders on illogical. Mead brings up perfect examples of early American foreign policy working in their favor, such as the Napoleonic wars resulting in the purchase of the Louisiana territory, or the successful deterrence of French and British intervention on behalf of the Confederacy, even after the Trent affair. Economically, the U.S. hasn't been any less isolated, such as the Panic of 1893, caused by the crash of the Argentine lon market and the effect it had of British banks.

In O’Connor’s “American Foreign Policy Traditions”, O’Connor goes through the evolution of the different approaches America has taken throughout it’s history. When the United States was founded, its geographic location away from Europe, combined with the Royal Navy’s dominance of the Pacific, allowed it to adopt a Jeffersonian policy, which is to ensure peace and democracy at home, rather than spreading it abroad. As the United States grew and industrialized, to ensure it’s economic interests, started to adopt a Hamiltonian approach,which is to promote economic interests at home and abroad. After emerging as a global superpower after WW2, the United States used their elevated position to adopt a Wilsonian policy, focusing on spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world.

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