Wars During Imperialism

William McKinley said, “War should never be entered upon until every
agency of peace has failed.” But that didn't stop many wars from
breaking out during America's stage of imperialism. America invaded many
lands to wipe out pirates or smugglers or to protect the interests of
America. The regions include: Puerto Rico, Greece, Falkland Islands,
Sumatra, Argentina, and Peru. There were many wars during America's
imperialism and I am going to comment on them.

Most of the wars that I read about have been for America citizens and
in the name of American's well being. But couldn't they have just left
these other countries alone? I can understand the Mexican-American War
but to go so far as Hawaii and Japan I believe that it was just
overkill. America didn’t need any of these places they just, in my
opinion, kept wanting to find power for themselves. Like in Japan the
trade between them and the U.S. Was dwindling over the last century so
we decided to do something about it and show them our power, which was
100 times greater than theirs at the time. We basically pointed a gun at
their head and forced them to trade with us. Much like with Mexico, even
though I believe the war was entirely acceptable since we didn't go
looking for a fight on lands we had no claim to(Pilgrims cough cough).
That war was a power struggle between two nations that were in close
proximity with each other. But we did eventually force Mexico to sell
their northern territories at the hefty sum of 15 million dollars.

There were wars based on the protection of the United States of America
and there were wars that got rid of a couple of pirates. But in the end
when we look back on it, was it right? Was taking Hawaii such a great
thing? The Kanakas (native Hawaiians) lived a peaceful extremely
friendly society before Americans came and commented that they were to
lazy and had no need to further their industry, technology, and economic
system. Basically that they were lazy. Until America put a stop to the
Kanakas' ability to pick food from trees whenever they wanted and still
have enough to share with neighbors which apparently made them lazy.
They overthrew the peaceful Queen by force and demanded some type of
government. Did any of this need to happen? Did we really need to
disrupt these people's lives and build all sorts of companies and
industrial sites there? There were many wars, yes. But did half of them
need to happen? You be the judge.
Works Cited
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/timeline-and-history-of-american-imperialism.html