I have very little knowledge about either local or US policy and politics for the region at the time but I wondered if there was any chance or PoD that would give a decent reason and explaination for the Phillipines becoming independant in the 1920-1930s. I understand that in 1935 independance talks were begun, is there any way to acclerate these and achieve total freedom ? Perhaps if the USA kept trade and basing rights ?
Pre WW2 Phillipines Independance - Possible ?
- Thread starter Woolly Mammoth
- Start date
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
True, although you'll probably need a stronger anti-Imperialist league in the United States. However, there is the danger of the Philippines falling into Germany's hands, which would actually deny the US some important business deals and some other things but that may be better in the long run.
Wolfpaw
Banned
Ugh. What the US troops did was bad enough--reports had eerie foreshadows of Vietnam. I don't even want to think what the Kaiser's pickleheads would do, especially given Germany's stellar record in Africa.
Wolfpaw
Banned
A Bryan presidency would likely see Cuban, Puerto Rican, Filipino, and possibly even Samoan independence. And it's not even likely that a Spanish-US conflict is butterflied away with him; he was pretty okay with spreading democracy and dismantling colonialism with armed support, and supported war with Spain (or at least heavy assistance to the rebels) before Hearst made it cool.
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
Philippine democracy would be better developed with a Bryan presidency, though there may be other nations that are interested in taking the Philippines (Britain, France, Japan).
Hmm yes. US grants independence in 1901.
1914, Japan invades claiming the Phillippines were under German influence...
I don't think you can have full independence with the US leaving the Phillipines completely before say the 1930s without Germany, Japan or some other colonial power taking over. Having a Phillipines closer to Cuba or post-independence Phillipines could work though. The US allows local political independence and self-rule but holds onto Subic Bay and makes it clear that Manilla is an ally/protectorate the US will protect from other powers.
I never credit that argument, or the related suggestions they might have fallen to Japan or whoever.
That is--if only Americans lived up to their self-image as liberators, it would have been easy enough to guarantee Philippine independence by Americans negotiating with the locals for very limited concessions. What the US establishment mostly wanted out of the Philippines was a naval base. Given the role of the US Navy in securing the defeat of the Spanish, I think if we'd have asked for some land to lease for a base at Manila, we could probably get that and keep the good will of the vast majority of Filipinos. With a major US Naval base guesting on Filipino soil, I don't think any European power or Japan would think the Philippines would be an easy mark for conquest, even if the independent Filipino state proved to be very rickety and unstable. (Not saying it would, just conceding that that might have happened). The US base would be a tripwire; attacking the islands would be tantamount to attacking the USA. That might not have deterred all powers in the era but it would be something for them to think seriously about anyway, and I believe if the relationship between Washington and Manila were reasonably cordial, the US would indeed go to war to defend the Philippines from any attack.
Nothing in any of my studies has indicated to me that the islands were ever on the whole of great economic value to the USA; conceivably possessing them may have on the whole covered the costs of doing so.
I do believe that a cordial and respectful relationship with a Filipino government could have brought Americans all net benefits that OTL were achieved by colonial conquest. And left the islands as safe, or conceivably safer, from foreign attack than their status as an American possession which we were not prepared to spend adequate funds to actually defend in full!
The problem was, we didn't trust that a bunch of brown people could create a government we could deal with without our "help." Never mind they were actually doing it long before American ground forces could arrive...
A related problem was that this was an era when European powers were scrambling to consolidate and expand all their colonial claims and Americans were simply afraid of being frozen out.
I should acknowledge that an American patron-client relationship with a nominally independent Philippines is no guarantee of amity and good cheer in the islands--that was a game we played in Latin America with often grim results for the locals. An independent Philippines under American protection might be regarded as an international joke and a de facto colony.
But it would still be legally independent, at least as much so as Cuba or Haiti was in this era, and considering how often those nations were under US military occupation, perhaps considerably more so.
It is tricky to see how and why we'd let them go between 1901 and 1940. Once we decided to subdue the place, we started wading in pretty deep in blood; it would have been hard to back out when the resistance was still strong and hot, and then afterward we wouldn't want to let them go too soon lest recent resentments lead the newly freed government to turn to our enemies as allies out of spite. One would think the Republicans of the 1920s might be open to the idea of pulling out, as an economy measure and to help return the USA to "normalcy," except that it was the icons of their own party, including factions that had fratricidally split from each other, who had all together supported the colonization effort just a couple decades before. And by then, the pacification measures were finally going well enough and profits were at last to be made in the islands not too badly offset by the high costs of violent rule. Local elites who could be relied on to do business with Americans were being cultivated. I am not sure when the planned date for independence was set for around 1940 or so but I suspect it may have been set before FDR took office. So in a sense, in the sense that the US government accepted in principle the Philippines would be eventually independent and even set a specific deadline, that decision was made before WWII OTL! I am not sure when or by whom though.
Then of course we postponed it during the war when the place was under Japanese occupation.
If we had somehow been able to sufficiently fortify the place so the Japanese failed to take it, perhaps we'd have stuck to our self-imposed timetable and perhaps not.
What about Germany? They were certainly interested in acquiring the Philippines.
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
The German Navy was in Manila when the Spanish-American War broke out, and they were prepared to seize the islands had it not been for the British Navy, which was supporting the US Navy. Why not get the Philippines to join the British Empire and obtain Dominion status within say, thirty years?
Wolfpaw
Banned
Dominion? What? Dominion status was reserved for White settler colonies, not a tangle of islands lousy with savage Malays and sprinkled with Papist dagos. The British were busy enough trying to digest the last bits of South Africa--they don't need to be fighting Germans over an archipelago east of China.
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Wolfpaw
Banned
I am dubious as to the German Navy's ability to pull this off.
Too, there will be massive international fallout if the US has guaranteed Filipino independence.
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
Though wouldn't Britain try to add the Philippines to British Malaya instead?
Wolfpaw
Banned
Probably not. British Malaya was more a loose collection of princely states under British suzerainty; the Straits Settlement was the only area under direct British rule. And even then, Hong Kong is going to be more important to a British Philippines than Singapore.
The Philippines likely just becomes its own colony, but again the British aren't going to want to fight another bloody colonial war at the edge of the world.
HeavyWeaponsGuy
Banned
More like setting the republic free, arranging a lucrative deal for coaling stations, and making the Philippines a playground for US business interests.
That's really about the most clean the place can come off, it's just too important to US interests at this point in time.
Wolfpaw
Banned
Fair enough, but its still better than years of brutal guerrilla warfare and millions of dead Filipinos.
HeavyWeaponsGuy
Banned
Not even that, likely simply a puppet regime under British direction.
It was not, generally, British policy to completely take a place over and build an administration from the ground-up, they loved to work through proxies, why rule the Transjordan directly when one can work through a handpicked noble as king?
