16. US foreign policy in Latin America

Author(s):  
James Dunkerley

This chapter examines US foreign policy in Latin America and the historical evolution of US relations with the region. It first considers the Monroe Doctrine and manifest destiny, which sought to contain European expansion and to justify that of the United States under an ethos of hemispherism, before discussing the projection of US power beyond its frontiers in the early twentieth century. It then explores the United States’ adoption of a less unilateral approach during the depression of the 1930s and an aggressively ideological approach in the wake of the Cuban Revolution. It also analyzes US policy towards the left in Central America, where armed conflict prevailed in the 1980s, and in South America, where the Washington Consensus brought an end to the anti-European aspects of the Monroe Doctrine by promoting globalization. Finally, it looks at the impact of the Cold War on US policy towards Latin America.

Author(s):  
James Dunkerley

This chapter examines the historical evolution of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. It begins with a discussion of the Monroe Doctrine and manifest destiny, which sought to contain European expansion and to justify that of the United States under an ethos of hemispherism. It then considers the projection of U.S. power beyond its frontiers in the early twentieth century, along with the effect of the Cold War on U.S. policy towards Latin America. It also explores American policy towards the left in Central America, where armed conflict prevailed in the 1980s, and that for South America, where the Washington Consensus brought an end to the anti-European aspects of the Monroe Doctrine by promoting globalization.


Author(s):  
Brian Loveman

U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America in the 19th century initially focused on excluding or limiting the military and economic influence of European powers, territorial expansion, and encouraging American commerce. These objectives were expressed in the No Transfer Principle (1811) and the Monroe Doctrine (1823). American policy was unilateralist (not isolationist); it gradually became more aggressive and interventionist as the idea of Manifest Destiny contributed to wars and military conflicts against indigenous peoples, France, Britain, Spain, and Mexico in the Western Hemisphere. Expansionist sentiments and U.S. domestic politics inspired annexationist impulses and filibuster expeditions to Mexico, Cuba, and parts of Central America. Civil war in the United States put a temporary halt to interventionism and imperial dreams in Latin America. From the 1870s until the end of the century, U.S. policy intensified efforts to establish political and military hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, including periodic naval interventions in the Caribbean and Central America, reaching even to Brazil in the 1890s. By the end of the century Secretary of State Richard Olney added the Olney Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (“Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition . . .”), and President Theodore Roosevelt contributed his own corollary in 1904 (“in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of wrongdoing or impotence, to exercise an international police power”). American policy toward Latin America, at the turn of the century, explicitly justified unilateral intervention, military occupation, and transformation of sovereign states into political and economic protectorates in order to defend U.S. economic interests and an expanding concept of national security.


Diálogos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Flavio Alves Combat

O objetivo do artigo é analisar a condução da política externa estadunidense com a China, entre 1890 e 1909, tomando como referencial a interpretação historiográfica dos autores revisionistas William Appleman Williams e Walter LaFeber. Propõe-se que o “anticolonialismo imperial” engendrado pelos Estados Unidos no processo de disputa pela abertura do mercado chinês está na origem dos conflitos com as tradicionais potências imperialistas. O trabalho explora, portanto, a tese historiográfica revisionista segundo a qual a política externa norte-americana radicada nos princípios da “Open Door Policy” é fundamental para a compreensão de antagonismos que contribuíram para a Guerra Fria. Abstract The aim of the article is to analyze the conduct of US foreign policy with China between 1890 and 1909, taking as reference the historiographical interpretation of the revisionist authors William Appleman Williams and Walter LaFeber. It is proposed that the "imperial anticolonialism" engendered by the United States in the process of dispute over the opening of the Chinese market is at the origin of conflicts with the traditional imperialist powers. The paper thus explores the revisionist historiographical thesis that US foreign policy rooted in the principles of the Open Door Policy is fundamental to understanding the antagonisms that contributed to the Cold War. Resumen El objetivo del artículo es analizar la conducción de la política exterior estadounidense con China, entre 1890 y 1909, tomando como referencial la interpretación historiográfica de los autores revisionistas William Appleman Williams y Walter LaFeber. Se propone que el "anticolonialismo imperial" engendrado por Estados Unidos en el proceso de disputa por la apertura del mercado chino es el origen de los conflictos con las tradicionales potencias imperialistas. El trabajo explora, por lo tanto, la tesis historiográfica revisionista según la cual la política exterior norteamericana radicada en los principios de la "Open Door Policy" es fundamental para la comprensión de antagonismos que contribuyeron a la Guerra Fría


Author(s):  
Robert G. Patman

This chapter examines US foreign policy in Africa. It first considers the United States’ historical engagement with Africa, particularly during the Cold War era that saw the intensification of US–Soviet Union superpower rivalry, before discussing the rise of a New World Order in the immediate post–Cold War period that held out the possibility of positive US involvement in Africa. It then explores the United States’ adoption of a more realist approach after Somalia, as well as its renewal of limited engagement between 1996 and 2001. It also analyzes US policy towards Africa after 9/11, with emphasis on President George W. Bush’s efforts to incorporate Africa into Washington’s global strategic network as part of the new war on terror, as compared to the approach of the Obama administration calling for political transformation in Africa.


1970 ◽  
pp. 32-44
Author(s):  
D. Lakishyk ◽  
D. Puhachova-Lakishyk

The article examines the formation of the main directions of the US foreign policy strategy at the beginning of the Cold War. The focus is on determining the vectors of the United States in relation to the spatial priorities of the US foreign policy, the particular interests in the respective regions, the content of means and methods of influence for the realization of their own geopolitical interests. It is argued that the main regions that the United States identified for itself in the early postwar years were Europe, the Middle and Far East, and the Middle East and North Africa were the peripheral ones (attention was also paid to Latin America). It is stated that the most important priorities of American foreign policy were around the perimeter of the zone of influence of the USSR, which entered the postwar world as an alternative to the US center  of power. Attention is also paid to US foreign policy initiatives such as the Marshall Plan and the 4th Point Program, which have played a pivotal role inshaping American foreign policy in the postwar period.


The article analyzes the current concepts of US foreign policy, the direction of US foreign policy, and examines the economic background of US foreign policy. In particular, the fundamental indicators of US economic development have been studied, which allow the state to be a regional and world leader and pursue a hegemony strategy. The subject of research in the article is to determine the general and specific aspects of US foreign policy at the present stage. The goal is to determine the impact of US policy on the geopolitical transformation of the world. Objectives: the study of modern concepts of US foreign policy in the context of globalization and regionalization of the world. The study used the following general scientific methods: using the system analysis, the evolution of the US foreign policy in the globalization languages of the world was considered; In order to generalize the activities of various administrations and governments, compare their positions on shaping the country's foreign policy, a comparative historical method was used. relationship. The following results were obtained: on the basis of the analysis of the current US policy, the political strategies of the United States in Europe and the Middle East were discovered and analyzed in detail. Conclusions: The United States remains the key actor in international relations at the present stage, and so far retains its influence on the processes in the world. US foreign policy is aimed at stabilizing international relations in such key regions as the Middle East and the EU. A comprehensive analysis of the presidents and their administrations suggests the continuity of US foreign policy in the Middle East. With the arrival of D. Trump, the foreign policy of American Republicans is saturated with power and cruelty.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Fabbrini ◽  
Amr Yossef

The existing literature explains the wavering course of President Barack Obama's policy on the 2001–03 Egyptian crisis as attributed to either his personal characteristics (lack of an international experience, predisposition to sermonize rather than to strategize) or to the impact of the decline of the United States as a global superpower (inability to influence foreign actors and contexts). Although both explanations are worthy of consideration, this article seeks to demonstrate that they are insufficient when accounting for the uncertainties shown by the United States during the Egyptian crisis. Domestic factors, particularly the internally divided US political elite and a foreign policy team with different views, played a crucial intervening role in defining the features of US foreign policy. It was domestic politics that made the Obama administration ineffective in dealing with the new scenario that emerged in the Middle East and in Egypt in particular.


Author(s):  
Benjamin C. Montoya

A fear of foreignness shaped the immigration foreign policies of the United States up to the end of World War II. US leaders perceived nonwhite peoples of Latin America, Asia, and Europe as racially inferior, and feared that contact with them, even annexation of their territories, would invite their foreign mores, customs, and ideologies into US society. This belief in nonwhite peoples’ foreignness also influenced US immigration policy, as Washington codified laws that prohibited the immigration of nonwhite peoples to the United States, even as immigration was deemed a net gain for a US economy that was rapidly industrializing from the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th century. Ironically, this fear of foreignness fostered an aggressive US foreign policy for many of the years under study, as US leaders feared that European intervention into Latin America, for example, would undermine the United States’ regional hegemony. The fear of foreignness that seemed to oblige the United States to shore up its national security interests vis-à-vis European empires also demanded US intervention into the internal affairs of nonwhite nations. For US leaders, fear of foreignness was a two-sided coin: European aggression was encouraged by the internal instability of nonwhite nations, and nonwhite nations were unstable—and hence ripe pickings for Europe’s empires—because their citizens were racially inferior. To forestall both of these simultaneous foreign threats, the United States increasingly embedded itself into the political and economic affairs of foreign nations. The irony of opportunity, of territorial acquisitions as well as immigrants who fed US labor markets, and fear, of European encroachment and the racial inferiority of nonwhite peoples, lay at the root of the immigration and foreign policies of the United States up to 1945.


1990 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 595-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
William M. Leogrande

Many foreign policy analysts in the United States expected a shift in US policy towards Latin America when George Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan as president. Though Bush had been a loyal supporter of Reagan's policies throughout the preceding eight years, Bush nevertheless seemed more pragmatic than his mentor. Whereas Reagan was the leader of the Republican Party's right wing, Bush was a scion of the East Coast Republican establishment, stronghold of the party's moderate centre.


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