This project argues that the science of forestry adopted by the United States Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Interior was a tool of soft power that secured the geopolitical standing of the United States Empire at the turn of the twentieth century. It radically challenges U.S. historians to consider the creation of forest reserves in Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, and Puerto Rico as part of an Executive strategy to settle the most challenging environments of the U.S. Empire while making the U.S. the primary global authority for forest, range, and desert research by 1914.