From Four Nodes of History: The Human Rights Challenge in the Philippine Security Sector I. The coming of the United States 1. Why did the United States take interest in the Philippines? In the mid 19th century, a powerful group emerged in the US wanting to transform the United States from a regional American power (Monroe Doctrine) into a global power (Mahan Doctrine). It was Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan who developed the doctrine, whose general theoretical framework first appeared in his book “The Importance of Sea Power upon History, 16601783” (published in 1890). He advocated the thesis that the key to world power was the control of the world’s sea routes of commerce through naval power projected from strategic naval bases. This became known as the Mahan Doctrine (1890). Advocates of America’s “Manifest Destiny” gravitated to Mahan’s naval theoretical conclusions, recruited him and became a conspiratorial group. One of the key leaders of this group was Theodore Roosevelt, an advocate of US sea power. 42 They operationalized the doctrine which could be summarized as follows: a) To become a world power, the United States must become a sea power. b) To become a sea power, it has to build a powerful navy and take control of strategic islands, identified as Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines, as naval bases from which the US could be able to project sea power and control world commerce. 2. What motivated the US to become a world power? US factories began to expand to such a level that the commodities they produced went beyond the needs of their populace. This created a major crisis of overproduction. Without markets to absorb US commodities, the specter of economic collapse triggering factory shutdowns and mass unemployment due to unsustainable industrial growth became a grim reality. They also needed cheap raw materials and fossil fuel to meet the requirements of their industries. Sea power had been demonstrated by the US and Great Britain as a way of opening new markets.