Theodore Roosevelt's War: The Spanish-American War

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During the nation’s state of transition, it participated in what Theodore Roosevelt referred to as a “splendid little war”: The Spanish-American war. Although the Spanish-American War was the shortest declared war in United States history, the impression it left revived the United States Navy. After many decades of falling behind other modern navies and loosing respect from other countries, the US was able to show off their new developments of steel ships and other advanced equipment. “The war itself revealed the growing tactical and logistical complexities of modern naval warfare, and the U.S. Navy, like all navies, was in the process of overcoming the challenges presented by the technology of the new steel warships” (Hayes). Although the …show more content…
Navy was in the spotlight, Roosevelt began to stress the need to upgrade the Navy and achieved what is considered one of the greatest “peacetime achievements” in history: the 14-month circumnavigation of the world. One of the main goals for this journey was to push the limits of the new steam ships and observe the condition that the battleships will return in after traveling such a long distance. The president encouraged this by saying, “I want all failures, blunders and shortcomings to be made apparent in time of peace and not in time of war”, he wanted all the flaws to be tested and avoided before they needed to be used in times of war. This way, if there were flaws in the steel or the steam-engine, they would not be risking any tactical impact. By the end of the journey the ships were still in one piece and therefore the trial was considered a success because it had surpassed many expectations. Only very minimal technical adjustments were observed and noted: greater size and displacement of ships, shipboard habitability, ventilation, hull casement shutters, rapid-fire guns’ placement, and the lofty upper works had the potential of becoming very dangerous during wartime (Callaghan). All of these observations led to continuing advancements in the steam and steel industry, which further enhanced the United States Navy. Although the Great White Fleet ships were magnificent and revolutionary when they were launched. When …show more content…
During the nineteenth century, defense spending was consistently over or around ten percent of GDP (gross domestic product). The government funding must cover machinery equipment and defense forces. The price of steel is far more expensive than the price of wood, as well as the price of steam engines is far more expensive than sails and relying on the wind. Due to the fact that steel was required in abundant amounts, there needed to be a new way to obtain it. The transition from the “Age of Sail” to steam and steel was very costly, but ultimately made the navy more efficient and more
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