Author 2: Well, not entirely academic. There was pretty serious trade competition between the US and Britain. The US was increasingly annoyed with Britain holding colonies (including a lot of former German ones) and making it hard for the US to trade with those colonies. The other consideration was that Britain had the biggest Navy, and regardless of how friendly, it was the biggest threat. If the US Navy could figure out a way to deal with the British Navy, then nobody else could threaten us.
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