Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The United States’ approach to foreign policy had not change conceptually from the days it signed its independence. These ideas were primarily based on protecting US interests overseas and restricting foreign influences in the Americas. Once they furthered themselves politically and
economically, they gained the status of being a world power and they still wanted more. They figured they had to strengthen the country industrially as they needed worldwide markets for its growing industrial and agricultural
surpluses as well as sources of raw materials for manufacturing. They could only achieve these foreign markets with more concentrated efforts on its foreign policy as America was principally guided by economic motives.
The internal economic growth of the United States made them want to look outward for foreign markets. Export earnings increased from 450 million to over a billion from 1870 to the early 1890’s. US business’s were soon
overpowering foreign competition as even American steelmakers could easily compete with any British producer in the world. Everything seemed to be inciting the US to expand abroad. Expansionists throughout America emphasized the resources of what other lands could provide and the wealth that could result from their establishment. For example, Cuba offered an abundance of sugar
plantations and land in Panama would offer America control of the canal.
The economic benefits of a foreign land can be seen through an example of Americans exploring the distant islands of Hawaii. During the course of the early 1800s, missionaries from America traversed on a laborious voyage to Hawaii and ended up settling there. They offered accounts of incredible economic opportunities and possibilities in the Hawaiian islands. Consequently, other Americans proceeded to Hawaii to become sugar planters and to establish lucrative businesses.
<span>Remember, at the time, it was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Empire (unlike any of the other major states in Europe) was a patchwork of over a dozen major ethnic groups. Nationalism tends to organize along ethnic boundaries (that is, nations tend to form around a large concentration of one ethnic group). Thus, with a very large number of different ethnic groups, the Empire had to worry about each group wanting to split from the Empire, and form its own nation. Indeed, after WW1, this is what happened to the Empire - it was split into about a 8 different countries (or, more accurately, portions of 8 countries included lands formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire).</span>
