[This was published on 07 October 2014 in
Burma Times. The very write-up is, truly speaking, a kind of summation and amplification
of my articles published in two installments in Dhaka Courier titled’ Monroe
doctrine: Dead or Alive? on 16 and 23 January 2014, in the African Herald
Express titled ‘‘Monroe doctrine: A case of US foreign policy’ on 08 August
2014]
Speaking in the superlative, from the
standpoint of digit, there has been 44 Presidents of USA while from the
viewpoint of personality, the number is thirty two. It happened so because some
of them were elected for two terms while Franklin D. Roosevelt was voted to the
office for three terms, although provision for third term exists no more. Under
such calculations, the number of President from the Republican Party stands at
eighteen since Abraham Lincoln became the first in 1861 and the number of
President from the Democratic Party comes to thirteen since Andrew Jackson
became the first in 1829. There are marked differences between Republican and
Democratic parties on matters of strategies, program, manifesto and so forth,
although similarities on visions and missions to make USA the topmost developed
country anointed with science and technology having the highest degree of
excellence and application with the leadership of the world are very much
spotted and recognized. Republicans are usually viewed as conservative, too
much nationalistic and doctrinaire whilst Democrats feel free to fashion
themselves as champion of human rights and democracy.
This is interesting to note that when a
person, whether he is Republican or Democrat, is voted to the office of the President
of USA, he starts behaving as President of USA even going above the line of his
party. It does so happen since the very presidency is faced with problems and
issues of multifarious natures, scales and dimensions in action in the context
of national, bi-lateral, regional and international landscapes as a whole and
thus, focuses on realities, possibilities and challenges to put the vision and
mission of his party into practice as contained in the party documents get
thrust for limitations and less actualities. Excepting few, all the Presidents
are more or less fall into it or revolve around it.
Having these in true perspective, this is to
say that America is America. She never sits idle even for a moment and feels
free to create a thing out of nothing. Indeed and she is the number one
trouble-maker and trouble-shooter. Like in all other areas of disciplines, her
quests for inventing something new in international politics, relations and
diplomacy are also magnificent and historic. It is true that doctrine,
political or otherwise, at any rate once gets acceptance and application can hardly
be eliminated overnight. Matter becomes more somber and fierce if such doctrine
is repeated again and over in the context of time, space and dimension to suit
the very purposes of those in power who like it or are tactful enough to depend
on it in various forms, styles and magnitudes under compulsion, convincing or
not. Of them there we find such doctrines, which are exceptionally far-reaching
and fruit-bearing geopolitically, economically and militarily. Yes, Monroe
doctrine is one of such eventualities, which one may call the most aggressive
and potential tool for expanding and sustaining US’ interests on earth. There
are differences of opinions inside and outside USA on the application and
continuance of Monroe doctrine under the ongoing state of affairs in the world.
That’s why, asking arises is Monroe Doctrine dead or still operative in any
form and façade 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. This is, to speak the truth, a kind of substantial elaboration
of my write-up under the title ‘Monroe Doctrine: A case of US foreign Policy’ published
in the African Herald Express on 8 August 2014.
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.
For USA Monroe doctrine, from the point of
view of its theme, spirit and dividends, is like a cow that gives milk and, so,
If America ever feels necessity not to have milk any more from this very cow
only then she can decide to slaughter it. Can America, a hyper state with hyper
tensions, distresses and anomalies originating from her approaches, initiatives
and strategies, confusing and/or not, in almost all areas, decide so merely
sounding and passing few plain words under the overall present landscapes in
the world?
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 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. Democratic
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 (1913-1921) missionary diplomacy. 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.
Domino Theory 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.
Democratic
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.
President
Jimmy Carter (January
20, 1977 – January 20, 1981) made attempts to build up US image as the
leading follower and implementer of human rights and democracy certainly with
American interests in mind but he was in vain since he could not realize the
vehemence and velocity of Manifest doctrine working under various doctrines
initiated by his predecessors. President Jimmy Carter could not show his
excellence because of his inclination towards so-called human rights. Regan
called him weak and ineffectual statesman and leader. Jimmy Carter's story is one of the greatest dramas in
American politics. In 1980, he was overwhelmingly voted out of office in a
humiliating defeat. Carter
was the first elected president since Hoover in 1932 to lose a reelection bid.
Carter was the first president to confront the challenge of militant Islam,
then embodied by the Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Iranian revolution.
Carter was also the first president to embark on what would prove to be the
excruciating road to peace in the Middle East.
The Camp David Accords would
become Carter's greatest foreign policy. But in the end, he would be undone by
his failure to secure the hostages' release and by a plummeting economy. Interesting
enough, The memories of his presidency -- gas lines, inflation, recession, the
Iran hostage crisis, an ineffectual and fractured administration, and the
so-called national malaise -- would be eclipsed, finally, by his
post-presidential successes as a peacemaker in the world's most troubled areas,
and his emergence as a champion for the poor in his own country by his
post-presidential successes as a peacemaker in the world's most troubled areas,
and his emergence as a champion for the poor in his own country.
On January 23, 1980, Jimmy Carter stated in a
State of the Union Address that, "The Soviet Union is now attempting to
consolidate a strategic position, therefore, that poses a grave threat to the
free movement of Middle East oil." To combat this, Carter stated that
America would see "an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the
Persian Gulf region ... as an assault on the vital interests of the United
States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary,
including military force." Therefore, military force would be used if
necessary to protect American economic and national interests in the Persian
Gulf. Thus, circumstances dragged him to the point of reverse standing.
In 2002, President Carter received the Nobel
Peace Prize for his work "to find peaceful solutions to international
conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and
social development" through The Carter Center. Three sitting presidents,
Woodrow Wilson, and Barack Obama, have received the prize; Carter is unique in
receiving the award for his actions after leaving the presidency. He is, along
with Martin Luther King, Jr., one of only two native Georgians to receive the
Nobel. Other side of the coin is that Jimmy Carter is a burning example to tell
the world that ‘Office of the President of USA is for a rough and tough person,
not for a person who is emotionally tied to rhetoric of politics and
humanitarian zeal’.
President Ronald
Regan’s period
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 unreliably
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.
George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) faced a
dramatically changing world, as the Cold War ended after 40 bitter years, the
Communist empire broke up, and the Berlin Wall fell. The Soviet Union ceased to
exist; and reformist President Mikhail Gorbachev, whom Bush had supported,
resigned. While Bush hailed the march of democracy, he insisted on restraint in
U. S. policy toward the group of new nations.
In
other areas of foreign policy, President Bush sent American troops into Panama
to overthrow the corrupt regime of General Manuel Noriega, who was threatening
the security of the canal and the Americans living there. Noriega was brought
to the United States for trial as a drug trafficker.
Bush's
greatest test came when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, then
threatened to move into Saudi Arabia. Vowing to free Kuwait, Bush rallied the
United Nations, the U. S. people, and Congress and sent 425,000 American
troops. They were joined by 118,000 troops from allied nations. After weeks of
air and missile bombardment, the 100-hour land battle dubbed Desert Storm
routed Iraq's million-man army. What George H.W. Bush did and applied to face
the crises before should be viewed from the need of US leadership in molding
and remolding the political landscapes in the targeted areas.
During the administration of William Jefferson Clinton (1993-2001),
the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well being than at any time in its
history. Clinton, a charming and sweet-spoken President of USA, wanted to walk--
with spotted variations and strategies-- along the line of Jimmy Carter. Nevertheless,
he could not come out of the wall of American vision and mission that believe
in using force as and when required for national interests at te negation of
human rights even. What he achieved was good for USA, although he could not go
through the iron wall of power elites who matter in deciding the future of USA
and its course of actions. He was the first Democratic president since Franklin
D. Roosevelt to win a second term. He has also given birth a doctrine called
‘Clinton dotrine’.
The Clinton Doctrine is not a clear
statement in the way that many other United States Presidential doctrines were.
However, in a February 26, 1999, speech, President Bill Clinton said the
following, which was generally considered to summarize the Clinton Doctrine:
It's easy ... to
say that we really have no interests in who lives in this or that valley in Bosnia,
or who owns a strip of brush land in the Horn of Africa or some piece of
parched earth by the Jordan River. But the true measure of our interests lies
not in how small or distant these places are, or in whether we have trouble
pronouncing their names. The question we must ask is, what are the consequences
to our security of letting conflicts fester and spread. We cannot, indeed, we
should not, do everything or be everywhere. But where our values and our
interests are at stake, and where we can make a difference, we must be prepared
to do so.
Clinton later made statements that augmented
the doctrine of interventionism:
"Genocide is
in and of itself a national interest where we should act" and "we can say to the people of the world,
whether you live in Africa, or Central Europe or any other place, if somebody
comes after innocent civilians and tries to kill them en masse because of their
race, their ethnic background or their religion, and it's within our power to
stop it, we will stop it."
The Clinton Doctrine was used to justify the
American involvement in the Yugoslav Wars President Clinton was criticized for
not intervening to stop the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. Other observers viewed Operation
Gothic Serpent in Somalia as a mistake.
The National Security Strategy(NSS) also
declared the right of the United States to intervene militarily to secure it's
"vital interests" which included, "ensuring uninhibited access
to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources".
There
is lot of sayings abbot Clinton doctrine. In fact, the Clinton administration's
foreign policy has been repeatedly described and illustrated by top
administration officials. But what they say and what they do are so unfamiliar
and unexpected that they are barely heard and even less understood. For the
Clinton team, implementing the decisions of the U.N. Security Council and
secretary general in Somalia, Bosnia, Cambodia or wherever our foreign policy
is. Doing what the United Nations calls on us to do is our foreign policy.
That is why Secretary of State Warren
Christopher listed among the administration's foreign-policy accomplishments
''taking the lead in passing the responsibility to multilateral bodies.'' It is
presumably why the administration accepted Mr. Boutros-Ghali's claim of
authority to decide when and where NATO air strikes could take place in Bosnia,
and why the U.S. dispatched crack troops to Somalia without raising serious
questions about whether it is prudent, justifiable or in the U.S. interest.
The Clinton administration has made acting
through the United Nations the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy. ''There is a
political will in the new administration to use the United Nations in solving
international disputes,'' Mr. Boutros-Ghali told David Frost soon after
President Clinton's inauguration. And he was right. But even he must be
surprised at the extent of the Clinton administration's commitment to global
multilateralism.
The clearest statement yet of the Clinton
doctrine of ''assertive multilateralism'' was offered in U.N. Ambassador
Madeleine Albright's June speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. But Mr.
Christopher and other policy-making members of the Clinton team have emphasized
and illustrated the administration's belief that a strong United Nations is
critical to U.S. national security, that a conflict anywhere is a threat to
U.S. national security, and that they have a commitment to promote peace and
development everywhere through the United Nations.
Epoch of George W. Bush (2001-2009). 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.
The airborne terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the thwarted flight against the White House or
Capitol on September 11, 2001, in which nearly 3,000 Americans were killed,
transformed George W. Bush into a wartime president. The attacks put on hold
many of Bush’s hopes and plans, and Bush’s father, George Bush, the 41st
president, declared that his son “faced the greatest challenge of any president
since Abraham Lincoln.”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 44th
and current President of the United States, and the first African American to
hold the office. It is by and large agreed that there is no concrete Obama
Doctrine. The Obama Doctrine is a catch-all term recurrently used to
portray one or several principles of the foreign policy of U.S. President Barack
Obama. Contrasting the Monroe Doctrine, the Obama Doctrine is not a detailed
foreign policy introduced by the executive, but somewhat a phrase used to
describe Obama's common style of foreign policy. This has convinced and led
journalists and political commentators to cogitate on what the exact canons of
an Obama Doctrine might look like. Commonly speaking, it is broadly, yet
inaccurately accepted that a central
part of such a doctrine would emphasize negotiation and collaboration rather
than confrontation and unilateralism in international affairs. This policy
has been praised by some as a welcome change from the equally interventionist Bush
Doctrine. Cohorts of Obama's unilateral policies (such as targeted killings of
American citizens) including former United States Ambassador to the United
Nations John Bolton, have described it as overly idealistic and naïve,
promoting appeasement of the USA's enemies. Others have drawn attention to its
radical departure in tone from not only the policies of the Bush administration
but many former presidents too.
During his first term, he had a dramatic
start and presentation. 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 ardently called
for 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. Central part of such a doctrine would
emphasize negotiation and collaboration rather than confrontation and
unilateralism in international affairs. 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 during his
first term 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 second term is faced with more
challenges, ambiguities, contradictions and limitations, inherent or not.
Reality pushes US to lean towards partnership negating the single stewardship.
China, now number-1 economic power in the world, with China Dream (The concept
of Chinese Dream is very similar to the idea of the "American Dream".
The idea was put forward by the new CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping on 29
November 2012 and repeated by him on numerous important occasions. The
Communist Party’s propaganda chief, Liu Yunshan, has directed that the concept
of the Chinese dream be incorporated into school textbooks. Many observers and
critics conclude overridingly that China Dream has its root in Tianxia, which
in simple terms calls for supremacy of china over the world. Unification theme
applied to tianxia can be seen
in Sun Tzu's ‘The Art of War’ where the supreme goal of offensive strategy was
to conquer without destroying that which you sought to conquer: "Your aim
must be to take All-under-Heaven intact. Thus your troops are not worn out and
your gains will be complete. This is the art of offensive strategy", India
with India doctrine (Monroe doctrine in Indian perspective) and Japan with past
imperial vision are rising geometrically from the soils of Asia. Moreover, Both
India and Japan are desperately talking for restructuring the UN ensuring their
permanent memberships in the Security Council. Theory and practice of American
democracy are being questioned by many with convincing arts, logic and
mathematics. Days of Uni-polar world centering USA getting dimmer not at a
snail's pace but surely more than this. But America, from the very bosom of her
heart, is not ready to accept such inescapable landscapes.
Even being a Democrat President Obama is
daring enough to show American excellence of might, power and light as and when
required. He is now ridding on the original spirit of the vested quarters and
lobbyists deeply rooted in the heart of USA. For a non-stop dominance over the
world, present and/or future, America shall do and follow whatever is considered
necessary under the circumstances, approving or not. She has pointedly deviated
from her original stand of soft power diplomacy and mutually rewarding partnership
approach. Animal spirit started to gain over rationality pulling America below
the benchmark. Congressmen, policy-makers, party leaders and think-tanks of
various natures and folds are emotionally or whimsically or deliberately
nodding such tsunami. Barack Obama’s getting Noble Peace Prize before he had attained
a profile of having so, might be an imposed impetus for him. Norwegian Nobel
Committee and the power behind it have to be answerable in future whether they
have done the right thing at the right time or not.
One
may be tempted to say that Obama is categorically caught or else in a vicious
circle of Manifest Doctrine being geared and carried by Monroe Doctrine plus
others of the predecessors. America cannot hang down in shame when her voice
and interference appear to be recorded. She must raise her head high in pride
and Obama is well aware of it. From this understanding, creation of more and
more approaches, strategies, models etc under catchy doctrine(s) is inevitable.
To the very purposes, academics, think-tanks and organizations are ready to
respond responsibly and serve promisingly. More veracity is that ‘president of
USA does not rule and run the administration in his own mood and mode; rather he
has to pass through the music of carrot and stick policy of those who matter in
practice, overtly or covertly, in deciding the fate of USA’. Question is who
are they? Let it be unfolded more manifestly and courageously by those who fell
and realize that America should survive and continue not by wielding the wheels
of power and might, but by sticking to the accepted and widely acclaimed
principles of democracy, good governance and human rights.
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Cesar
Chelala, MD and PhD, a winner of the
Overseas Press Club of America award, in an article ‘ A failure of US
democracy and human rights’, 01 November 2014, Daily Observer, Bangladesh,
noted:
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It is a
sad day for democracy when 12 Nobel Peace laureates write a letter to US
President Barack Obama urging him to close one of the darkest chapters of
recent US history by acknowledging and then rejecting the "flagrant use
of torture and other violations of international law" that have been
conducted with the excuse of "fighting terrorism" since 2001. That the recipient of the letter is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate himself makes the situation ludicrous. That he presides over the country purported to be one of the world's leading democracies makes the situation even more incongruous. For those of us who used to admire Obama for his avowed stand on human rights, his re-election seemed to give him the opportunity to fulfil the promises he made regarding the closure of Guantanamo, the use of torture and the killing of innocent people in several countries in conflict. However, we are still to see a determined action from him on the human rights front, to which he has paid only lip service so far. And it makes us wonder who really holds power in the United States. How is it possible that the president of the most powerful country in the world is unable to rally the support necessary to end one of the most disgraceful policies of the US government? Although six months have passed since the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence voted to release its 480-page executive summary of its review of the nation's "enhanced interrogation" programme, the release of the unabridged and uncensored summary has not yet happened. The reasons for this situation are not a secret. As the committee's leader, California's Senator Dianne Feinstein stated last April, "The report exposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain in our history that must never again be allowed to happen.’ In a two-year study, the Constitution Project, a US independent group, concluded that it was indisputable that US forces had employed torture as well as 'cruel, inhuman or degrading' treatment in many interrogations; that 'the nation's most senior officials' bear ultimate responsibility for allowing and contributing to the spread of these techniques; and that there is substantial evidence that information obtained by these methods was neither useful nor reliable. The US Supreme Court has held since the 1890s that punishments that involve torture are prohibited under the Eighth Amendment, which states, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." The US is a party to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which originated in the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1984, and that was signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 and ratified by the Senate on Oct 27, 1990. In addition, the US is a party to the following conventions that prohibit torture: the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights signed in 1977 and ratified in 1992. In 2006 the military issued field manuals on intelligence collection and counterinsurgency that stressed that "no person in the custody or under the control of the Department of Defence, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, in accordance with and as defined in US law. Despite these guidelines, the US military systematically violated these rules both at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and in more than 17 countries where both US citizens and foreign nationals were transferred to US administered detention facilities, where they were held incommunicado for periods of months and even years. That happened in spite of the fact that the Convention Against Torture proscribes signatory states from transferring a detainee to other countries "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." Those actions, taken in full knowledge of the US president, led the Nobel Peace Prize laureates to say, "We have reason to feel strongly about torture. Many of us among the Nobel Peace Prize laureates have seen firsthand the effects of the use of torture in our own countries. Some are torture survivors ourselves. Many have also been involved in the process of recovery, of helping to walk our countries and our regions out of the shadows of their own periods of conflict and abuse." "It is with this experience that we stand firmly with those Americans who are asking the US to bring its use of torture into the light of day, and for the United States to take the necessary steps to emerge from its dark period of its history, never to return."(http://www.observerbd.com/2014/11/01/51985.php#sthash.CZUNvdfu.dpuf).
USA
is already faced with challenges from within and without. Her distinct,
targeted and overriding dominance under the wrinkle of partnership(s) may
softly be called a kind of strategic approach or compromise under the
situations mostly compelling from practical standpoints.
All of the aforesaid attempts aimed at
sustaining, lionizing and invoking manifest doctrine keeping also Monroe Doctrine of 2 December 1823
alive by coining and forwarding necessary approaches, paradigms and
strategies tuning with time, space and dimension. All the forty four
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 and thus, Monroe Doctrine, is itself an unfolding reality
for US. 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. The world by and large senses and tastes the overall
blasts of this very doctrine. Therefore, it is alive or breathing necessarily
but not, not dead at all
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