Nobody ever talks about the lack of drawdown after the Spanish-American war!
The proximate cause appears to be the occupation of the Philippines after the US decided to take them as a colony rather than liberate them. The unexpected insurgency that followed forced Congress to maintain the army’s wartime size.
A complete explanation of why the army stayed large after the general end of the Philippine insurgency in 1902 is beyond me, however. I am seeing several general explanations along the lines of “the Spanish-American war revealed serious problems in the US military, and a man named Elihu Root was appointed to correct them; this led to a large reorganization, which included the de facto founding of the National Guard and the creation of many new military bases around the world”.
I might chalk it up to “the US decided it ought to become a major military power with colonies after it thrashed Spain”, in a more general sense, but that’s just armchair history. Interested if anyone with solid historical knowledge of this period could weigh in.
The proximate cause appears to be the occupation of the Philippines after the US decided to take them as a colony rather than liberate them. The unexpected insurgency that followed forced Congress to maintain the army’s wartime size.
A complete explanation of why the army stayed large after the general end of the Philippine insurgency in 1902 is beyond me, however. I am seeing several general explanations along the lines of “the Spanish-American war revealed serious problems in the US military, and a man named Elihu Root was appointed to correct them; this led to a large reorganization, which included the de facto founding of the National Guard and the creation of many new military bases around the world”.
I might chalk it up to “the US decided it ought to become a major military power with colonies after it thrashed Spain”, in a more general sense, but that’s just armchair history. Interested if anyone with solid historical knowledge of this period could weigh in.