But this insistence on self-restraint should not be misunderstood for modesty. Whereas interventionists of Roosevelt’s ilk aspired merely to equality – to have America counted as a fully fledged great power – Wilson’s goal was absolute pre-eminence. Nor was this a vision that scorned ‘hard power’. Wilson had thrilled in 1898 to the excitement of the Spanish-American War. His naval expansion programme and his assertion of America’s grip on the Caribbean approaches was more aggressive than that of any predecessor.
