Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. Navy and the Spanish-American War

In the 1890s, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt led a campaign to modernize the navy. Paramount in Roosevelt's vision was the creation of a fleet of modern, steel-hulled warships armed with the most powerful weapons available. The future president and his intellectual soul mate, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, firmly believed that America's emerging global expansion would only reach its full potential through sea. power. The swift and overwhelming US victor in the Spanish-American