The Monroe Doctrine
The ideal of isolationism has become a prevalent call from varying partisan factions. Although the appeal for xenophobic policy hails from disparate pockets of the political spectrum, the motivation is always in response to the perceived results of interventionist policies. This paper will summarize the Monroe Doctrine (MD), define its impact on United States (US) domestic and foreign policy, and discuss the implications of nationalist policies in a global community.
Historical Context of the Monroe Doctrine
On December 2, 1823 President James Monroe addressed Congress about the international conditions of the American continents. Several situations manifested in the years preceding Monroe’s stated position. States such as Columbia, Mexico and Chile fought for independence from Spain, taking advantage of its weakened power resulting from the Napoleonic Wars. “Napoleon’s occupation of Spain and his invasion of Portugal undermined the Spanish and Portuguese Empires and stimulated the emancipation of Latin America” (Page, 2003). Recognizing the strategic commercial rewards, the American government quickly recognized Latin American (LA) states as sovereign. In addition, Russia had lay claim to trade territory in the North American continent. “Simultaneously with granting the renewal of the Russian-American Company’s second charter in 1821, the Russian government determined that there were far too many foreigners and far too much foreign influence in Russian America. Having apparently learned nothing from Baranov’s quarter of a century of experience, it decreed that there be no trade with non-Russians in the territory north of fifty-first parallel¬–roughly the northern tip of Vancouver Island–and that the Russian-American Company settlements be supplied only by Russian ships. Further, Czar Alexander I issued a ukase (an imperial decree) prohibiting foreign vessels from coming within 100 miles of Russian territory, including all of the islands of the Aleutians” (Borneman, 2004). Furthermore, The Holy Allegiance (HA) of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and, following the removal of Napoleon from power, France, sought to restore monarchial rule and defend each other from revolutionary forces. Britain’s tentative commitment was interrupted when the HA proposed intervention in LA’s struggles with Spanish rule. “In 1822, at the congress of Verona, Britain opposes plans for intervention in Spain and Latin America - and subsequently withdraws from the Quadruple Alliance. (Regardless of this a French army marches into Spain in 1823 to restore Ferdinand VII to his throne.)” (Gascoigne).
Following the Congress of Verona, the British government sought to maintain trade profits from South America through a suggested allegiance with the American government to enforce sovereignty for the new LA states. However, many American officials wanted to avoid any European imbroglio. Moreover, the memories of the War of 1812 and the pre-American Revolution British rule left a bitter taste in the mouths of nationalists such as John Quincy Adams. The MD was therefore a procurement proclamation announcing America’s claim to the North American continent while recognizing the authority of existing inclusionary states such as Canada and Mexico.
Impacts on United States Domestic Policy
The domestic impact of the MD cemented the prevailing sense of entitlement expressed in the term Manifest Destiny. The American government enforced a strategy of impartial intercontinental commerce and blocked colonial impingement. Seemingly blind to the irony, US history is replete, perhaps fed by, American expansionism. Prior to the MD, Native American Indian tribes were subject to genocidal attacks by the encroaching “Whites.” “Andrew Jackson, from Tennessee, was a forceful proponent of Indian removal. In 1814 he commanded the U.S. military forces that defeated a faction of the Creek nation. In their defeat, the Creeks lost 22 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama. The U.S. acquired more land in 1818 when, spurred in part by the motivation to punish the Seminoles for their practice of harboring fugitive slaves, Jackson's troops invaded Spanish Florida” ("Indian removal: 1814 - 1858,”). The inherent racist attitudes extended to slavery and the minority worker forces treated like slaves, such as the Asian railroad laborers. Tinged with a perverse interpretation of Christian dogma and a capitalist thirst for resources, the principles of the MD fueled the darker chapters of US history. “The appropriation of Indian territory occurred in a period of great expansion, because Americans believed it was their ‘manifest destiny’ to acquire new lands. Advocates of this ideology believed that the United States had a providential right and obligation to assume control over less-developed areas in the name of republicanism, Christianity, and white supremacy. Expansionists even had a quasi-legal justification for building a continental empire, the Monroe Doctrine” (DeConde, Burns, & Logevall, 2001).
Impacts on United States Foreign Policy
The initial impact of the MD were partially realized as the HA did not attempt to recover Spanish control of the Latin American states. Although the chief factor of this was the powerful British Navy, America drew a proverbial line in the sand by announcing the implied determination to maintain LA autonomy. The years preceding the Monroe presidency bore witness to the invocation of the MD as a contract of defense. However, a redirection of the plan to include American interventionism was set forth by president Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. “Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and 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 such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power” (Roosevelt, 1905). The Roosevelt Corollary (RC) was both preemptive intervention and a new height of hypocrisy and hubris as it was developed in reaction to LA states defaulting on loans, also known as economic stabilization. The principles of the RC have underlined all future US global interference. America policing the world is a concept adopted to rationalize our military and political activities internationally. One can even infer that the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an extension of the RC.
US private industry, entangled in the American government from the beginning, secured economic, and eventually military, supremacy over the other world governments. After the establishment of the United Nations, the US exercised veto power as well as unilateralism in defiance of Security Council resolutions condemning American military acts of aggression. To many in the world, the US is a rogue state, concerned only with economic domination and military omnipotence. Without directly invoking the MD or the RC, US foreign policy has consistently demonstrated the core principles of both dogmas. Just as preemptive intervention dictates that the US intervenes before European powers do, so too a preemptive strike dictates that the US attacks before a perceived enemy can consider attacking. The essential element of these policies is that “the United States had a providential right and obligation to assume control over less-developed areas in the name of republicanism, Christianity, and white supremacy” (DeConde, Burns, & Logevall, 2001). More directly, US foreign policy has been dictated by the exploitation of global resources. The worldwide community was appalled by the genocide in Darfur, yet US policy focused on Iraq with its vast oil fields and strategic military position. Darfur’s resources were controlled by a corrupt regime, friendly to US private industry. Fundamentally, the moral choice would be for US intervention in Darfur, historically however, the US favored corrupt regimes that did business with US banks and corporations.
In conclusion, the MD and resulting corollary policies have led the US down a path of aggression and hegemony. Following American independence, the European states faced several years of war, revolution, and strife. The known world was hostile towards new states, hungry for resources, and spacious, with many places still undiscovered. The MD was more relevant to that place in time when the US needed to determine its boundaries. The advances in science, commerce, and communication have made the known world much smaller. As resources dwindle under increasing demand and the earth chokes on the excessive waste generated by the massive population, the US must adopt a new paradigm. The time to intervene globally for financial or military gain has passed. The international community must act as a single state to preserve mankind without regard for primacy or profit. Until we do recognize this basic truth, the end of humanity is imminent.
References
Borneman, W.R. (2004). Alaska: saga of a bold land. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
DeConde, A., Burns, R.D., & Logevall, F. (2001). Encyclopedia of american foreign policy, vol. 1. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Gascoigne, B. (n.d.). History of europe: quadruple and holy alliances: ad 1814-1822. Retrieved from www.historyworld.net
Indian removal: 1814 - 1858. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.pbs.org
Monroe, J. (1823). Transcript of Monroe Doctrine. Ourdocuments.gov. Retrieved March 28, 2011, from www.ourdocuments.gov
Page, M.E. (2003). Colonialism: an international social, cultural, and political encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Roosevelt, T. (1905). Transcript of Theodore Roosevelt's Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Ourdocuments.gov. Retrieved March 31, 2011, from www.ourdocuments.gov
Bibliography
Tucker, S.C. (2009). (2009). The encyclopedia of the spanish-american and philippine-american wars: a political, social, and military history. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
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