Messianic Visions of the United States
After winning with unexpected ease the Spanish–American War of 1898, justified at home as a case of humanitarian intervention, the United States started understanding itself as a world power. This led to a renewed attention to international law, in order to reconcile the new leading role of the country with its democratic tradition. Even the formal colonialism in the Philippines and the tutelage of the newly independent Cuba were recast by the founders of the American Society of International Law as an expression of egalitarian values, American and universal at the same time. This ambiguous nationalist/cosmopolitan identity was based on a narrative of progress: the peak of civilization reached by the United States would expand world-wide through example and benevolent assimilation. This chapter argues that it was a narrative of primarily religious origin that justified the war in the eyes of the American people and underpinned future foreign policy.