Chapter 8: Grand Strategy of the United States

You can see from this why the U.S. has always been obsessed with Cuba. You can also see why the United States had to control Florida. Without at least Florida, the Louisiana Purchase would have been useless. In 1817, Jackson launched a war first to expel the Spanish from Florida and then to crush the Seminoles. This did not solve the problem, but it did ameliorate it.

Imagine a Mexico that would incorporate New Orleans and the Mississippi valley. The entire shape of North America would change. The U.S. would be forced back behind the Alleghenies—if they could hold there and the American Midwest would be Mexican.

Mexico had its own geopolitical problem with Texas. A desert—treacherous to cross—runs across northern Mexico. Sending settlers into Texas, let alone an Army, is difficult and complex. The Mexicans encouraged American settlement under strict conditions. Andrew Jackson, when he became President, ever mindful of threats to New Orleans, offered to buy Texas from the Mexicans, an offer that was refused. The refusal led him to support the American secessionist movement in Texas, encouraging his political ally and friend, Sam Houston, to take a leadership role in the rebellion.

The secessionist movement won independence at the battle of San Jacinto, near what is today Houston. The secessionists defeated the Mexicans at the Battle of San Jacinto. Had they lost and the Mexicans marched to New Orleans, history would have been very different. But the Mexicans lost at San Jacinto and Texas became formally independent and informally an American buffer with Mexico. It was at the Battle of San Jacinto—not Yorktown or New Orleans—that American power was guaranteed. The battle did more than create Texas. It secured the Mississippi River and New Orleans from future threat and with it, American agriculture.

The later war with Mexico, merely confirmed the fact that Mexico’s influence did not extend north of the band of deserts that caused Santa Anna’s army to arrive exhausted and weakened in Texas. San Jacinto broke Mexico’s will to dominate North America. Canada was a negligible force posing no challenge to the United States. The United States effectively dominated North America. It directly controlled the United States and could exert its will on the rest of the continent. Following the destruction of the remaining Indian nations in a series of minor wars, the United States dominated the continent by the end of the 1830s, with its unity confirmed in the Civil War.

Note the extraordinarily important role played by Andrew Jackson. As we will see in the next chapter, his role in American history can’t be underestimated. But also understand that even without a Jackson, the United States had to attempt what it did. Louisiana had to be acquired. New Orleans had to be defended. Florida had to be taken. Texas had to be absorbed. Geography dictated this. But the outcome was not certain. Mexico could have been the dominant power in North America and may be in the future. But for now, this is how the U.S. fulfilled its first imperative. And gives a sense of why the U.S. is obsessed with Mexican immigration, the role of Cuba, and British bases in the Bahamas. It all makes sense.

In reality, North and South America are islands, not really connected. Panama and Central America are impassable by large armies. The major threat in the hemisphere came from naval bases in the Caribbean. But in a broader sense, the sheer proximity of South America to North American makes it an area of concerned. United and mobilized, there is a potential threat to American interests there.