From: s9874194@phobos.ucc.umass.edu (s9874194)
Subject: Re: US colonializing (Was: An open letter to the Emperor Akihito of Japan)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 20:52:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep1.152736.25369@acuson.com>, miklg@acuson.com (Michael Goldman ) writes...
>jwb@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au (Jim Breen) writes:
> 
>>miklg@acuson.com (Michael Goldman ) writes:
> 
>>>	In fact, the Russo-Japanese War was largely fought with war ships
>>>	made in the US and the UK to order of the combatants.  
> 
>>From my reading, all the Russian ships were made in Germany or Russia, and all the
>>Japanese ships were made in the UK or Japan. Do you have any information on ships
>>made in the US?
> 
>	I know that the Japanese bought some submarines from the US (these
>	were never used, but they scared the Russians since they were very
>	new and thus not understood) and I seem to recall some others, but I
>	will have to check.  The Russians had some submarines too, which they
>	never used.
> 
>>>       If Japan could get terrtorial
>>>	concessions from China in the 1890s certainly the US could have as well
>>>	had she wanted them.  That she chose not to could be due to a number
>>>	of reasons, but military inability seems hard to credit.
> 
>>It was busy at the time snatching colonies off Spain: (Philipines, Cuba, ...)
> 
>	This seems to support my thesis.  I.e., if the US could successfully
>	send a fleet to the Philipines in 1898, she equally could have sent
>	one to China ca. 1894 when Japan found some parts of China unclaimed
>	by other powers.  Defeating China was terribly easy, due largely to
>	the corrupt and decadent Dowager Empress's court - if Japan could do
>	it, certainly the US could have as well.
============================================================================
Michael, I do not know too much about the military capability of US, Japan,
or Russia during that time. But I GUESS that if US was to field a large and
powerful armed forces in China, They would not only face the resistance
from the corrupt and decadent Qing Dynasty, but also the resistances from
Japan, Britain, France, Germeny, Holland, Russian and all the other
western power who had already got settled down in China. By that token,
US probably would not like to launch a war with so many enemies. I thought
that that was the reason that US pushed for the "Open Door" so that it
could share some of the profit the others had got. I am open mind to your
suggestions!
Regards!
c.q.
===========================================================================

>	My point in citing the size of the US forces at the end of the US Civil
>	War was that the US had the industrial _capability_ to field large
>	and powerful armed forces as early as the 1860s.  That she later let
>	them decline is true, but that is the same as saying that the US
>	had little desire for military actions along the lines of other
>	European powers in claiming large sections of the world.  The war with
>	Spain was brief, and out of it the US acquired her only imperial
>	possessions.  That the US did not immediately free all the colonies is
>	certainly to her discredit, but it was not a US foreign policy objective
>	to claim imperial possessions in the manner of the European powers.
> 
>	As for the size of the US Navy ca. 1865, I will check, you may be right.
>	But I was thinking of the  total count, including blockade ships, which
>	were admittedly not great war ships.
> 
>	You realize, do you not, that this will result in a 27-part series on
>	the Open-Door policy, the Spanish-American War, and the US Civil
>	War?  I'm sorry sirrah, that it must come to this, but you leave
>	me no choice!   :-)
> 
>	- Michael Goldman
> 
>-- 
>"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have
>exhausted all other alternatives." - Abba Eban
>	Disclaimer:  All views are solely my own & not the views of Acuson.
>	<sun!sono!miklg>  or  [miklg@acuson.com]