[R-G] Farewell, Monroe Doctrine

[Anthony Fenton]

Farewell, Monroe Doctrine
Philip Brenner and Saul Landau | February 2, 2009
Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5830

Foreign Policy In Focus 	
www.fpif.org

President Barack Obama could swiftly improve U.S. relations with Latin  
America by announcing the death of the Monroe Doctrine and then  
presiding over its funeral. Such a statement would cost him little  
domestically, and win him praise and appreciation throughout Latin  
America and much of the world.

Most Americans don't know the details of this 185-year-old policy and  
could care less about it. Latin Americans, in contrast, not only can  
describe the Monroe Doctrine, but they revile it. In effect, it has  
become nothing more than hollow rhetoric that offends the very people  
it purports to defend.

In 1823, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wrote, and President  
James Monroe proclaimed, a doctrine that asserted U.S. political  
character is different from Europe's. The United States, President  
Monroe declared, would consider the extension of Europe's monarchical  
political influence into the New World "as dangerous to our peace and  
safety." European powers should leave the Americas for the Americans,  
he warned, and he strongly implied that there existed a U.S. sphere of  
influence south of the border.

At the time, Europe shrugged. After all, the United States possessed  
neither a formidable army nor navy. But three serious problems  
fundamentally vitiated this apparently noble gesture to protect newly  
independent republics in South America from European re-colonization.

First, Washington proclaimed it unilaterally. Latin Americans didn't  
ask us for protection. U.S. diplomats didn't even consult their  
counterparts. That was ironic, since the Doctrine's "protection"  
involved placing the United States between Latin American countries  
and supposedly malevolent European states.

Second, its paternalism — the claim that "our southern brethren" lack  
the ability to defend themselves — raises hackles in Latin America.  
Even if the implication had some validity at one time, it no longer  
corresponds to the region's reality.

The third and most problematic issue Obama faces from the outmoded  
doctrine relates to its legacy. For more than a century, the United  
States has periodically intervened in the domestic affairs of Latin  
American countries. Typically the United States invoked the Monroe  
Doctrine — without threats from Europe — to justify self-serving  
intrusions that have inflicted heavy damage on Latin American dignity  
and sovereignty.
Roosevelt Corollary

Under President Theodore Roosevelt, the doctrine stood for the  
informal colonization of most "independent" Caribbean Basin countries.  
The so-called Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine claimed  
Washington's right to preemptively intervene and occupy a Latin  
American nation, even if no European power had yet threatened to  
impose its power there. Roosevelt asserted that by virtue of going  
into debt to a European bank, a Latin American country weakened itself  
sufficiently to be vulnerable to re-colonization. Ergo, anticipatory  
military intervention became a necessity from 1900 to 1933.

U.S. troops invaded Colombia in 1901 and 1902; Honduras in 1903, 1907,  
and 1911; and the Dominican Republic in 1903, 1904, 1914, and 1916,  
occupying the island nation until 1924. U.S. troops landed in  
Nicaragua on multiple occasions, occupying it for some 20 years, and  
occupied Cuba for three years (1906-1909) and Haiti for 20 years. U.S.  
forces also made incursions into Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, and Costa  
Rica.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower used the doctrine in 1954 to justify  
the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Guatemala.  
President John F. Kennedy embraced it from 1961 to 1963 in attacking  
Cuba, and President Lyndon B. Johnson raised its banner in 1965 when  
he sent 23,000 Marines into the Dominican Republic in support of  
generals who tyrannically governed the country over the next 13 years.  
President Ronald Reagan said it was the basis for the CIA wars he  
pursued in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala during which more  
than 200,000 Central Americans died, as well as the U.S. attack on  
Grenada.

For these historic reasons, "Monroeism" carries a deeply negative  
meaning in Latin America and the Caribbean. Throughout the region, the  
mere mention of the Monroe Doctrine hints at impending U.S. aggression.

Nearly two decades after the Cold War's demise, U.S. policy elites  
still cling to this doctrine as an axiom of U.S. policy. In recent  
years they added as the latest corollary a demand that Latin American  
governments adopt neoliberal economics. No wonder Latin Americans have  
elected leaders — in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador,  
Nicaragua, Paraguay, Guatemala, Honduras, Uruguay, and Venezuela — who  
repudiated not only the doctrine's implied hegemony, but the economic  
rules that accompany it today. Notably, not one Western hemispheric  
country supported the United States in October, when the UN General  
Assembly voted 185-3 to end the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
The Ballots Did It

Over the last decade, citizens in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina,  
Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and other Central American nations have  
declared their opposition to U.S.-backed neoliberal economic policies  
and voted for candidates who eschew the notion of perpetual U.S.  
hegemony. Ballots, ultimately, killed the doctrine. This new wave of  
leaders is challenging U.S. supremacy. Last year, Bolivian President  
Evo Morales did what would have been unthinkable two decades ago: He  
evicted the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Ecuador has kicked out a  
U.S. military base.

Most Latin American nations now defy the United States on some major  
policy. Chile and Mexico, both Security Council Members, voted against  
Washington when the key UN resolution arose that would have sanctioned  
Bush's invasion of Iraq. And U.S. influence has been further eroded by  
the stronger diplomatic, economic, and military ties with China,  
Russia, and Iran that several countries in the region are developing.
Given the facts, President Obama should announce as soon as possible —  
and no later than the mid-April Summit of the Americas in Trinidad  
that he's slated to attend — that the Monroe Doctrine is dead and  
buried. This move could serve as a rhetorical catalyst for developing  
real partnerships that acknowledge Latin America's new status. Only  
the funeral of this 19th-century canon will enable the United States  
to birth a healthy policy.

Philip Brenner is a professor of international relations at American  
University. His most recent book is A Contemporary Cuba Reader (Rowman  
and Littlefield, 2008). Saul Landau is vice chair of the Institute for  
Policy Studies board of trustees. His most recent film is "We Don't  
Play Golf Here — and Other Stories of Globalization." They are Foreign  
Policy In Focus contributors.