Monroe doctrine: Dead or Alive?

[The article was published in two installments in Dhaka Courier on respectively 16 and 23 January 2014]

Is Monroe Doctrine dead or still operative in any form and facade in US foreign policy? Answer readily available from President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry is ‘Monroe Doctrine is dead’ and this very saying now also goes by the name  ‘Kerry Doctrine’ (Secretary of State John Kerry told this while delivering speech in the Organization of American States in November 2013) while quite a lot of think-tanks, researchers, educationists, media persons---print or electronic---, policy-makers and leaders have noted cagily that Kerry's call for a mutual partnership with the other countries in the Americas was more in keeping with Monroe's initial message than with the policies that had been enacted long after Monroe's death. Moreover, general perception in the air largely stands against Kerry’s stand. Therefore, before embarking upon any well enough sustainable conclusions necessarily arises here a focus on the spirit, appeal and necessity of Monroe Doctrine in US perspective.

The Monroe Doctrine was a policy of the United States came into being on December 2, 1823 through the Message of President James Monroe at the commencement of the first session of the 18th Congress. In fact, the statement in the Message was not included in the name of ‘Monroe Doctrine’. The term "Monroe Doctrine" itself was coined later in 1850.  It stated that further efforts by European nations (Old world) to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America (New world) would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention. At the same time, the doctrine noted that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries.

The Doctrine/declaration was issued at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved or were at the point of gaining independence from the Portuguese Empire and Spanish Empire; Peru consolidated their independence in 1824, and Bolivia would become independent in 1825, leaving only Cuba and Puerto Rico under Spanish rule. The United States, working in agreement with Britain, wanted to guarantee that no European power would move in.

The full document of the Monroe Doctrine is long and embedded with diplomatic lingo, but its real meaning is found in two key passages:

The first is the introductory statement. ‘The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers’ and

The second key passage, a fuller statement of the Doctrine, is addressed to the "allied powers" of Europe (fingering at the Holy Alliance); it clarifies that the United States remains neutral on existing European colonies in the Americas but is opposed to "interpositions" that would create new colonies among the newly independent Spanish American republics. ‘We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States’.

By the end of the nineteenth century, Monroe's declaration became a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States as one of its longest-standing codes of belief. It was invoked by many U.S. statesmen and several U.S. presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy (In the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, President John F. Kennedy cited the Monroe Doctrine as a basis for America's "eyeball-to-eyeball" confrontation with the Soviet Union that had embarked on a campaign to install ballistic missiles on Cuban soil), Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and many others. However, the policy became deeply resented first by Latin American nations and then by the nations all over the world for its overt interventionism and perceived imperialism.

Curiously enough, since its coming into birth, Monroe Doctrine has been being applied intentionally or recklessly or inadvertently under compulsion or not by both Democrats and Republicans in various forms and modes under the umbrella of geo-strategic inevitability captivating broad-based political, economic, cultural and military vision and mission of America within the fold and, consequently, in the milieu of time, space and dimension remarkably got flashed the argots and drives as follows:

Manifest Destiny and its enforcement under President James Knox Polk (1845-1849).  It is the far and wide held belief or doctrine, held primarily in the middle and latter part of the 19th century that it was the destiny of the U.S. to expand its territory over the whole of North America and to broaden and bump up its political, social, and economic influences. The phrase is colored with scores of denotations and connotations in both negative and positive perspectives. This variety of possible meanings was summed up in 1980 in the book ‘Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role’ by Ernest Lee Tuveson, who notes: ‘A vast complex of ideas, policies, and actions is comprehended under the phrase "Manifest Destiny". Historians by and large are of the opinion that there are three basic themes to Manifest Destiny:

a. The special virtues of the American people and their institutions;

b. America's mission to redeem and remake the west in the image of agrarian America;

C .An irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty by the Americans.

Credit in public goes to journalist O'Sullivan who wrote an essay in 1845 entitled ‘Annexation in the Democratic Review’, wherein he first used the phrase manifest destiny and then On December 27, 1845, in his newspaper the ‘New York Morning News’, O'Sullivan asserted addressed that ‘the United States had the right to claim "the whole of Oregon and that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us’. O'Sullivan believed that manifest destiny was a moral ideal (a "higher law") that superseded other considerations. Initially Manifest Destiny could not draw the attention at large. Drolly enough, the term became popular only after it was criticized by Whig opponents of the Polk administration. Despite all these criticisms, expansionists embraced the phrase, which caught on so quickly that its origin was soon forgotten. Polk attached Manifest Destiny to the Monroe Doctrine and used it to support expansion westward.

Secretary of State James G. Blaine’s Big Brother policy of 1880. The "Big Brother" policy was an extension of the Monroe Doctrine formulated by James G. Blaine in the 1880s that aimed to rally Latin American nations behind US leadership and to open their markets to US traders. Blaine served as Secretary of State in 1881 in the cabinet of President James A. Garfield and again from 1889 to 1892 in the cabinet of President Benjamin Harrison. As a part of the policy, Blaine arranged and led the First International Conference of American States in 1889;

President Theodore Roosevelt Corollary of 1904.Since the United States began to emerge as a world power, the Monroe Doctrine came to define a recognized sphere of control that few dared to challenge. Before becoming president, Theodore Roosevelt had proclaimed the rationale of the Monroe Doctrine in supporting intervention in the Spanish colony of Cuba in 1898. On December 4, 1904 after he became president for a second term and following the Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903, President Theodore Roosevelt issued his annual message called ‘State of the Union Address’ to Congress. Included in the message was what would come to be known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This corollary asserted the right of the United States to intervene in Latin America in cases of “flagrant and chronic wrongdoing by a Latin American Nation”.

Woodrow Wilson’s missionary diplomacy (1913-1921). It was Woodrow Wilson's idea of the United States' moral responsibility to deny recognition to any Latin American government that was viewed as hostile to American interests. It was also a sort of spreading out of Monroe Doctrine.

"Missionary diplomacy" is a descriptive tag over and over again applied to the policies and practices of the United States in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921). According to Arthur S. "[Secretary of State William Jennings] Bryan and Wilson were both fundamentally missionaries of democracy, driven by inner compulsions to give other peoples the blessings of democracy and inspired by the confidence that they knew better how to promote the peace and well-being of other countries than did the leaders of those countries themselves." Wilson related both missionary diplomacy and the New Freedom (The New Freedom envisaged a return to free competition in the United States. The monopolistic interests had to be destroyed at home and their influence in foreign policy dispelled, and thus Wilson's initial rejection of "dollar diplomacy)."

Democracy, Wilson contemplated, was the most Christian of governmental systems, suitable for all peoples. The democratic United States thus had a moral mandate for world leadership and, hence, he sounded by stating ‘World must be made free for democracy’. At the end of World War I, he saw the League of Nations as an instrument for the application of Wilsonian democracy on an international scale.

Clark Memorandum of 1928. The Clark Memorandum on the Monroe Doctrine or 236-page Clark Memorandum, written on December 17, 1928 by Calvin Coolidge’s undersecretary of state J. Reuben Clark, concerned the United States' use of military force to intervene in Latin American nations and concluded that the United States need not invoke the Monroe Doctrine as a defense of its interventions in Latin America. The Memorandum argued that the United. It was made public in 1930 during the Hoover administration. Although sometimes viewed as an absolute refutation of the Roosevelt Corollary, Clark was simply advancing his belief that the corollary was separate from the Monroe Doctrine and that American intervention in Latin America, when necessary, was sanctioned by U.S. rights as a sovereign nation, not by the Monroe Doctrine. It is in true sense more than Monroe Doctrine.

President Franklin Roosevelt’s (1933-1945) Good Neighbor policy. In a shot to denounce past U.S. interventionism and subdue any subsequent fears of Latin Americans, Roosevelt on March 4, 1933 announced during his inaugural address that: "In the field of World policy, I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a World of neighbors." This position was affirmed by Cordell Hull, Roosevelt's Secretary of State at a conference of American states in Montevideo in December 1933. Hull said: "No country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another".  Roosevelt then confirmed the policy in December of the same year: "The definite policy of the United States from now on is one opposed to armed intervention.

Overall, the Roosevelt administration expected that this new policy would create new economic opportunities in the form of reciprocal trade agreements and reassert the influence of the United States in Latin America; however, many Latin American governments were not convinced. This doctrine was coined and applied with a view to winning the mind of the states in Latin America just to save and uphold US trades and interests there. It was not a departure from Monroe Doctrine. Rather a kind of strategic stand was infused into the vein of Monroe Doctrine.

Harry S Truman (1945-1953) Doctrine. World war two gave birth to new political landscapes in Europe one is the rise and spread of communism led by USSR and the other being financial crises in the capitalist bloc including Britain, which started losing its leading role in continuing supports to the states in Western Europe entailing in particular Greece and Turkey. To cope with the situation, President Harry .H. Truman In a speech on March 12, 1947(what later became known as the Truman Doctrine), stated that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent them from falling into the Soviet sphere’. Truman told Congress the policy was "to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. He reasoned, as these "totalitarian regimes" coerced "free peoples", they represented a threat to international peace and the national security of the United States.

The Doctrine was informally extended to become the basis of American Cold War policy throughout Europe and around the world. It shifted American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union from détente (a relaxation of tension) to a policy of containment of Soviet expansion as advocated by diplomat George Kennan. With this doctrine, which was an extension of Monroe Doctrine under the new circumstances, USA availed herself the golden opportunity of poking nose formally into the affairs of Europe.

The Domino Theory. It was promoted at times by the United States government and speculated that if one state in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. Referring to communism in Indochina, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower put the theory into words during an April 7, 1954 news conference: Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the "falling domino" principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences. The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify the need for American intervention around the world.

President John F. Kennedy In the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 heroically cited the Monroe Doctrine as a basis for America's "eyeball-to-eyeball" confrontation with the Soviet Union that had embarked on a campaign to install ballistic missiles on Cuban soil. It is profoundly believed that the dividends of such application enhanced and strengthened US interests in the Zone uniquely.

The Nixon Doctrine (also known as the Guam Doctrine) was put forth during a "Silent Majority" speech in a press conference in Guam on July 25, 1969 by U.S. President Richard Nixon. According to Gregg Brazinsky, Nixon stated that "the United States would assist in the defense and developments of allies and friends," but would not "undertake all the defense of the free nations of the world." This doctrine meant that each ally nation was in charge of its own security in general, but the United States would act as a nuclear umbrella when requested. The Doctrine argued for the pursuit of peace through a partnership with American allies. The Nixon Doctrine implied the intentions of Richard Nixon shifting the direction on international policies in Asia, especially aiming for "Vietnamization of the Vietnam War." Here a kind of partnership was envisioned with allies so that US dominance as leader of capitalistic bloc remained ongoing in the light of emerging challenges from communism under USSR. This is also a readjustment with Monroe and Manifest Doctrines in broader contexts.

The period of President Ronald Regan from 1981 to 1989 is definitely noted as one of the milestones for US foreign policy because rise and elevation of US to the position of the leader of newly emerged uni-polar world was put into practice during his time. To speak the truth, Monroe doctrine, whether was officially uttered or not, was geared and applied with more colorful modes and manners differently in the light of new challenges and dilemmas created by the march of communism under USSR. Regan must take credit for his successes in uprooting the communist foundation in USSR tearing it into a number of pieces (free and sovereign states having almost non-communistic ideals and models) pulling President Gorbachev unbelibably in his turn. This very stratagem later came to be known as Reagan Doctrine. In fact, it was a strategy orchestrated and implemented by the United States under the Reagan Administration to oppose the global influence of the Soviet Union during the final years of the Cold War. While the doctrine lasted less than a decade, it was the centerpiece of United States foreign policy from the early 1980s until the end of the Cold War in 1991.

Under the Reagan Doctrine, the United States provided overt and covert aid to anti-communist guerrillas and resistance movements in an effort to "roll back" Soviet-backed communists governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The doctrine was designed to diminish Soviet influence in these regions as part of the administration's overall Cold War strategy.

The expression ‘Bush Doctrine’ was used by Vice President Dick Cheney, in a June 2003 speech in which he said, "if there is anyone in the world today who doubts the seriousness of the Bush Doctrine, I would urge that person to consider the fate of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq’. The Bush Doctrine implies a combination of various related foreign policy principles of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. The phrase was first used by Charles Krauthammer in June 2001 to describe the Bush Administration's "unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol. After 9/11 the phrase described the policy that the United States had the right to secure itself against countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups, which was used to justify the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Different pundits  attribute different meanings to "the Bush Doctrine", as it came to describe other elements, including the policy of preventive war, which held that the United States should depose foreign regimes that represented a potential threat to the security of the United States, even if that threat was not immediate; a policy of spreading democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating terrorism; and a willingness to unilaterally pursue U.S. military interests. Some of these policies were codified in a National Security Council text entitled the National Security Strategy of the United States published on September 20, 2002.

There is no denying the fact that Bush Doctrine is a clear message to the world that USA has long been faithfully carrying the assigned loads of Monroe and Manifest Doctrines in different forms and dimensions under different circumstances to suit the very purposes of USA.

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44^th and current President of the United States, and the first African American to hold the office. In February and March 2009, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made separate overseas trips to announce a "new era" in U.S. foreign relations with Russia and Europe, using the terms "break" and "reset" to signal major changes from the policies of the preceding administration. Obama attempted to reach out to Arab leaders by granting his first interview to an Arab cable TV network, Al Arabiya.

Obama gave his first major foreign policy speech of his campaign on April 23, 2007 to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, in which he outlined his foreign policy objectives, stressing five key points:

"bringing a responsible end to this war in Iraq and refocusing on the critical challenges in the broader region,"

"by building the first truly 21st century military and showing wisdom in how we deploy it,"

"by marshalling a global effort to meet a threat that rises above all others in urgency – securing, destroying, and stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction,"

"rebuild and construct the alliances and partnerships necessary to meet common challenges and confront common threats", and

"while America can help others build more secure societies, we must never forget that only the citizens of these nations can sustain them."

During his campaign, Obama emphasized the importance of diplomacy and development as tools to aid the U.S. in building new and even stronger alliances, re-building broken relationships and repairing the United States image abroad. In addition, he stated that one of his foreign policy objectives was to combat global poverty, generate wealth and build educated and healthy communities as a means to combat extremism. All these are still on during his second term as President of USA as his defined mission, although his vision for ‘Mightiest USA’ on earth remains ablaze all the time.

All he did over the years from 2009 to till the date are not enough to prove his state of standing to the commitments and avowed stands. He had lot of plus points while the boxes of failures are also noticeable largely. His getting Noble Peace Prize might be an impetus but he is definitely caught otherwise in a vicious circle of Manifest Doctrine backed by Monroe Doctrine. America is America and Obama is well aware of it.   

All are more or less attempts to sustain, lionize and invoke Monroe Doctrine of 2 December 1823 by coining and forwarding necessary approaches, paradigms and strategies tuning with time, space and dimension and all the forty three Presidents starting from Gorge Washington to Barack Obama deserve to be held responsible, strictly in proportion or not, for upholding, strengthening and consolidating the ‘Manifest Doctrine,’ which is more visionary, chauvinistic and imperialistic than the Monroe Doctrine itself. Therefore, Kerry’s saying ‘Monroe Doctrine is dead’ does not carry credibility and viability from practical point of view. Rather the unfolding truth is that the Monroe Doctrine shall continue since die under various shades as the augury of the long-cherished ‘Manifest Destiny’ of the United States of America.