Is the Monroe Doctrine Obsolete?

American Security and the Monroe Doctrine -Michael Streich

 

 

The Roosevelt Corollary of 1904 expanded the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, proclaimed by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams in order to preserve the integrity and national security of the new United States. Although toothless in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine as it impact national security and the flow of commerce would become the indirect policy of U.S. foreign affairs throughout the 19^th Century.

 

Land Acquisition in the Name of National Security

 

The Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed the limit and curtail European interference in the Western Hemisphere. By 1900, this interference embraced European imperialism in global matters. Secretary of State John Hay published the “Open Door” notes regarding the flow of commerce in China. The United States began construction of the Panama Canal for reasons of commerce as well as national security.

 

A Central American canal was linked to American interests long before President Roosevelt made it a reality. The 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty attempted to share the canal with Britain, but the issue soon became one of national security. In the late 1870’s, President Rutherford By Hayes warned that, “…The United States must exercise such control as will enable this country to protect its national interests…” Rutherford cited commercial and defense interests.

 

In 1890 Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan published The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1782. A vocal architect of imperialism, Mahan showed the necessity of building the canal in order for the U.S. to maintain global power.

 

The Monroe Doctrine’s Lessons in the 19^th Century

 

The presence of European powers in the Western Hemisphere was always a concern. President James K. Polk threatened war with England over the Oregon Territory and then led the nation into war against Mexico, rivaling Thomas Jefferson’s land acquisitions. Southerners supported the war, fearful that growing British influence in Texas would result in the limitation of slavery in the Lone Star Republic.

 

After the Civil War, the irrepressible Secretary of State William Henry Seward lobbied Congress to purchase Alaska. After 1865, Seward took a hard line against napoleon III of France who was attempting to reestablish a French colony in Mexico.

 

Seward was an avid expansionist but it was Secretary of State James Blaine, the “plumed knight,” whose actions resulted in greater U.S. influence in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

 

By 1900, the United States had acquired Midway, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Samoa with its superb harbor at Pago Pago. Cuba, in the wake of the Spanish War, was ostensibly independent but became a sphere of influence.

 

At the 1900 Republican national convention, arch-imperialism Senator Albert Beveridge told his audience, “Think of Cuba in alliance with England or Germany or France!” Beveridge referred to these powers as rivals. Imperialism broadened the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine. Globally, the flow of commerce became intricately tied to national security in the same way President Barack Obama used the phrase to justify U.S. intervention in Libya.

 

The Roosevelt Corollary Expands the Monroe Doctrine

 

Although 19^th Century expansion was in keeping with the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, imperialism opened the door toward a pattern of global U.S. involvement in the name of security and commerce. In 1917, the U.S. purchased the Virgin Islands from the Dutch to keep Germany from acquiring the land. Americans enjoyed their isolation but only as long as there were no European encroachments.

 

The Roosevelt and later Lodge Corollaries addressed debt by Central and South American countries. Potential European intervention in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic over debts forced the U.S. to intervene, although some observers found it immoral and many still do.

 

The Monroe Doctrine is not obsolete. The thesis behind the proclamation is still used on a global scale to protect the flow of commerce and national security. Expansionism, whether labeled manifest destiny or imperialism, was the product of this spirit.

 

Sources;

 

Albert J. Beveridge, “The Star of Empire,” The Meaning of theTimes And Other Speeches (The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1968)

Albert Weinberg, Manifest Destiny (Johns Hopkins University Press)

Warren Zimmermann, First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2002)