The following quote from an article published by Aroop Mukharji on October 1, 2023 in the International Security Journal, provides insight to President William McKinley’s handling of the Philippine Islands and military intervention in the late 1890’s. It reads,
The meddler’s trap denotes a situation of self-entanglement, whereby a leader inadvertently creates a problem through military intervention, feels they can solve it, and values solving the new problem more because of the initial intervention. The inflated valuation is driven by a cognitive bias called the endowment effect, according to which individuals tend to overvalue goods they feel they own. A military intervention causes a feeling of ownership of the foreign territory, triggering the endowment effect.
According to a simple definition from dictionary.com, “meddle” means “to involve oneself in a matter without right or invitation; interfere officiously and unwantedly.” Meddling defines many US foreign policy decisions where the “meddler’s trap” begins with President McKinley.
President McKinley did not set out initially to annex the Philippines. The Spanish-American War declaration—approved in 1898, by the US Senate—allowed the US military to place about 14,000 troops in the Philippines, leading the island chain to be conquered. Here, the mindset (cognitive bias) of valuing what you “own” comes into play. When you value something from conquest, like a nation, then it is hard to let it function on its own without meddling or oversight.
The Philippine islands are the size of the US state of Arizona, with about nine million people in 1898 and over 6,500 miles west of California. The islands were poor in natural resources and a non-existent manufacturing base in 1898. President McKinley’s thoughts were not clear on why he pushed for Philippine annexation. This is because he did not leave behind sufficient documents for historians to clearly discern his decision-making process.
Fighting broke out on February 4, 1899, between American forces and Filipino nationalists who sought independence. The Philippines were annexed on February 6, 1899, with US Senate approval of the Treaty of Paris. It was the largest US annexation outside our hemisphere.
The ensuing Philippine-American War lasted three years and resulted in the deaths of over 4,200 American soldiers and over 20,000 Filipino combatants. As many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died from violence, famine, and disease. Would this war have occurred if the US had not annexed or militarily intervened in the Philippines? This is one unintended result of the meddler’s trap. According to Mukharji,
Individuals tend to overvalue goods that they feel they already own (regardless of whether they actually own the good). The deployment of troops encourages an expanded feeling of ownership over territory. Before intervention, problems abroad may seem distant and unimportant. But after intervention, even minor problems abroad take center stage. Military intervention abroad, in other words, can drive perceptions of national interest, not just the other way around….
[McKinley] believed that the Philippines mattered to U.S. interests because he already felt ownership over the Philippines. That feeling of ownership produced the endowment effect, leading McKinley to overvalue the Philippines.
He wanted to solve the problem the original act of intervention created, but he valued solving that problem more because of the initial intervention. The meddler’s trap leads to a circle of intervention when the way out of the circle is to not intervene at all. Mukharji continues,
The counterintuitive idea that McKinley valued the Philippines primarily because U.S. forces were already there captures the self-entangling essence of the meddler’s trap. National interests may often drive a military presence abroad. But McKinley’s decision illustrates that a military presence abroad can also drive national interests.
The US foreign wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were meddler’s traps. US leaders had great difficulty removing US military personnel from foreign military interventions even with bipartisan support. The allure to keep a US military presence in a nation leads to an entitlement mindset where this problem and nation is ours to influence.
Vietnam’s history is centuries before Columbus discovered the Americas in the 1490’s. Iraq has at least four thousand years of civilizations. Afghanistan is known as the “graveyard of empires”—Alexander the Great’s campaign in the 330’s BC, the British from 1839 to 1842 and 1878 to 1880, Russia’s attempt in the 1980’s, and the US from 2001-2021. This history implies that the US should not intervene financially, militarily, and politically in any nation.
Many national leaders and their citizens do not like another nation telling them what they should do, especially when advice is unsolicited. Meddling is a centuries-old problem that can be greatly lessened with this question: is what another nation doing causing my country harm? If the answer is in doubt or clearly no then do not meddle in their business. It is simple to apply in human relationships and it can be applied to foreign relations.
