scholarly journals The Monroe Doctrine and the Foreign Policy of the United States in the Western Hemisphere

Author(s):  
J.J. Slechta
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.


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.


1966 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 404-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold F. Smith

The Nearness of Cuba to the United States, lying as it does a scant ninety miles from the coast of Florida, has always provided a strong reason for American preoccupation with the “Pearl of the Antilles.” This geographic proximity has been a source of political consideration and concern for over a century. The historical roots of the western hemisphere, with Columbus’ landings in the Caribbean, the Spanish, English, and French colonization and imperialism, and our own interest, expressed most notably in the Monroe Doctrine, have kept Cuba central in our thoughts. Our continued interest during the twentieth century, following the removal of Spanish control from the island at the turn of the century, has intensified through the years, partly because its sugar has been important to our economy, and partly because the island has become politically unfriendly in the past decade.


1994 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bernell

The bitter rivalry between the United States and Cuba has occupied a position as one of the principal political disputes in the Western Hemisphere for the past 35 years. Since the rise of Fidel Castro, the governments of these two countries have placed themselves on opposite sides of almost every major regional and global issue. They have long held vastly different ideas about what constitutes a good and just government, what kind of international behavior is legitimate, and the ends that foreign policy should serve. Moreover, they have not only harbored political differences but also maintained a very intense dislike of one another. The United States has attempted to sustain a picture of Cuba as an international outlaw, the source of much turmoil, crisis, and mischief in the world. Adding a personal dimension to the attacks, the United States has also sought to demonize Castro, creating and continually portraying an image of him as the embodiment of evil.


1955 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-193
Author(s):  
Stanley L. Falk

RESIDENT James Monroe’s message of December 2, 1823 to the United States Congress was greeted with a national acclaim and approval seldom accorded the pronouncements of the American chief executive. The statement of foreign policy—since become known as the Monroe Doctrine—embodied in this message met with almost unanimous praise. “It would indeed be difficult,” noted Addington, the British chargé in Washington, “in a country composed of elements so various, and liable on all subjects to opinions so conflicting, to find more perfect unanimity than has been displayed on every side on this particular point.”


Author(s):  
Jude Woodward

The case that China must be contained rests on the premise that it is – or is about to – engage in a coercive expansion of its influence in ‘Central Asia, the South China Sea, the internet and outer space’ and it is only a matter of time before China tries ‘to push the United States out of the Asia-Pacific region, much the way the United States pushed the European great powers out of the Western hemisphere in the 19th century’. China’s rise is cast as dangerous for the security of its neighbours and world peace, with the only guarantee of regional and global stability the maintenance of the leading role of the US, particularly in Asia itself. This chapter examines the truth of these claims in the light of the China’s own explanation of the direction of its foreign policy. It argues that while China’s foreign policy has become more emphatic in pursuing its international interests, especially relating to trade and energy security, that there is a great deal of difference between greater confidence in pursuing China’s national interests and a new aggressive stance.


1936 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 400-413
Author(s):  
John H. Spencer

The recent changes effected in the foreign policy of the United States both as regards the relations of that State with its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere and as regards its position as a world Power have brought again to the fore the question of the validity of the Monroe Doctrine. There are reasons to believe that this traditional policy, if not completely repudiated by the very State which brought it into being, will, at least, remain uninvoked during some period of time. In fact, it would appear that in so far as it is concerned with the problem of intervention, the doctrine has been definitely rejected by the present administration through the so-called “good neighbor policy.” Furthermore, it has but recently been observed in the Congressional debates preceding the passage of the Neutrality Joint Resolution of August 31 of last year, that the imposition of an impartial arms embargo against belligerents would preclude the United States from applying the Monroe Doctrine in case a weak American State should be the object of aggression by a foreign Power.


Author(s):  
Payam Ghalehdar

Why has regime change figured so recurrently in US foreign policy? Between 1906 and 2011, the United States forcibly intervened in at least sixteen states, targeting their domestic political authority structure. Accounts thus far in International Relations scholarship fail to provide sound explanations for this pattern. Their premise that the United States seeks national security, economic benefits, or democracy in the target state is put into doubt by studies that demonstrate the limited success of most US regime change interventions. Focusing on the emotional state of US presidents, this book presents a novel explanation for the recurrence of forcible regime change in US foreign policy. It argues that regime change becomes an attractive foreign policy tool to US presidents when emotional frustration grips them. Emotional frustration, the book’s core concept, is an emotional state that comprises hegemonic expectations, perceptions of hatred in target state obstructions, and negative affect. Once instigated, it shapes both presidential preferences and strategies, carrying with it both a desire for removing foreign leaders as the perceived source of frustration and a turn to military aggression. Based on a wealth of declassified government sources, the empirical part of the book illustrates how emotional frustration has time and again shaped US regime change decisions. Spanning two world regions—the Western Hemisphere and the Middle East—and roughly one hundred years of US foreign policy, the book traces the emotional state of US presidents in five regime change episodes—Cuba 1906, Nicaragua 1909–1912, the Dominican Republic 1963–1965, Iran 1979–1980, and Iraq 2001–2003.


Author(s):  
Joseph A. Fry

This chapter examines US foreign policy challenges over the final two years of the war. Those challenges included the repercussions arising from US efforts to restrict neutral trade with the South, Confederate shipbuilding efforts in Great Britain and France, Confederate attempts to provoke an Anglo-American crisis by attacking the United States from Canada, and Napoleon III’s military and political intervention in Mexico and attempt to install a European monarch in the Western Hemisphere. By continuing their policy of belligerent warnings and timely conciliation, Lincoln and Seward successfully resolved all of these issues. Finally, this chapter includes coverage of the military and imperial dimensions of Lincoln’s policies toward Native Americans.


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