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America’s desire to establish an economic empire determined most of its foreign policy between the Civil War and the end of World War II, and fueled the U.S. into three wars: the Spanish-American War, WWI, and WWII. At the end of the 19th century, the U.S. used the “open door policy” with the motives of achieving free trade and control over Cuba to enter a war against Spain. Then, during World War I, Wilson resolved to stay neutral, yet the thought of economic gains and pressure from the business sector induced his changing of policy. A decade later, as in the previously mentioned wars, the driving force in World War II was profit. The U.S.’s involvement in World War II was greatly influenced by the interests of the industrialists and political leaders. The U.S. did not enter the war in order to stop fascism and religious oppression. At the end of the 19th century the “open door policy” led the United States into conflict with Spain. After the battle at Wounded Knee (1890), which resulted in the closing of the internal frontier, America’s need for economic expansion grew due to limited domestic expansion. (Zinn, 297) America’s market became so saturated, that it had to start expanding outward to make a