y. Historiography considers the role of such powerful men as a crucial element of its analysis. Historiography also considers whether expansionism was a necessary element of American history, a result of a perceived need to expand for the sake of the nation's survival. The sources suggest that this was not the case in the expansionism pursued by McKinley, although the President certainly used such an argument in defending his policies.
In Walter LaFeber's The New Empire, the reader is left with no doubt that both the process of the development of American history and the actions of powerful men seizing opportunity at a crucial stage of that process were the compelling forces behind McKinley's expansionism. Examining the rationale of Alfred Mahan for expansionism and his influence on McKinley, LaFeber finds that:
To Mahan, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Cabot Lodge, colonial possessions, as these men defined such possessions, served as stepping-stones to the two great prizes: the Latin-American and Asian markets. This policy much less resembled traditional colonialism than it did the new financial and industrial expansion of the 1850-1914 period. These men did not envision "colonizing" either Latin America or Asia. They wanted both to exploit these areas economically and give them (especially Asia) the benefits of western, Christian civilization. To do this, these expansionists needed strategic bases from which shipping lanes and interior interests could be protected.
Mahan's influence on McKinley was great, and McKinley's expansionist policies, whatever their underlying motivations, aimed precisely at the economic-strategic impulse inherent in Mahan's rationale for expansionism. With respect to the Asian markets, for example, McKinley and his policy makers believed that "commercial expansion" would not succeed "without defensible strategic bases" to protect those new markets. This argument was used ...