The Monroe Doctrine and the United States' international involvement -

Reginaldo Nasser: An analysis of the transition of the Monroe Doctrine reveals how the US moved from regional isolation to global intervention based on the expansion of trade and the strength of economic sanctions.

Le REGINALDO NASSER*

An analysis of the transformation of the Monroe Doctrine reveals how the United States moved from regional isolationism to global interventionism based on the power of trade expansion and economic sanctions.

We see that the different interpretations of the Monroe Doctrine, made by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, should not be understood as vague pillars of the false distinction between isolationists and internationalists, but as the expression and practice of American foreign policy on ideas against the national order.

The restoration of US relations with Cuba and the peace agreement in Colombia were the main events that allowed Secretary of State John Kerry to declare at the OAS in 2013 that "the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over".National Security Adviser John Bolton as guide for US operations in Latin America.While President Joe Biden did not mention the Monroe Doctrine, he did warn in a pointed critique of President Trump that "the American continent . . .

For more than a century, the Monroe Doctrine was considered a glorious symbol of the American nation with a status equivalent to the Declaration of Independence, but after the First World War consensus among elites ceased to exist and the doctrine began to be seen, mainly by members of the Democratic Party, as a symbol of military interventionism in the Western Hemisphere.In any case, since it was announced in 1823 by John Adams, Secretary of State of President Monroe, the Monroe Doctrine has always been present, explicitly or implicitly, in the debates about the strategies of international action of the United States and points out that it still does not have an appropriate importance in the literature of the American Foreign Policy.

The Monroe Doctrine was created when the independence of the Latin American countries was recognized and its purpose was to oppose the colonial period of the Quadruple Alliance continent, the conservative European alignment was committed to maintaining order and the status quo.The American Government has declared that it will not accept any effort by the European countries to "extend their system in all parts of the hemisphere", and has warned that the intention in this direction is considered a threat to the peace and security of the continent.Using the principles of negotiation, the message also emphasized that the United States will not interfere in European political affairs.

Originally formulated as a principle of foreign policy that guarantees the sovereignty of states without allowing any form of intervention by continental powers in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere, this doctrine took on new dimensions in the early 20th century with the aftermath of Roosevelt's restatement of the doctrine by then-President Theodore Roose to the right to intervene in US affairs.etc.not only when the nations of the hemisphere were sensitive to some form of European intervention, as initially contemplated, but also when the American government judged that there was an imminent danger of political upheaval or some kind of "disorder".

The doctrine later incorporated interventionist traits into its principles, and the term "sphere of influence" has been widely used in international politics to describe relations between the United States and other countries on the American continent. In this way, the Monroe Doctrine became the most striking example of a unilateral declaration by a major power, clearly stating that a particular region should be its exclusive responsibility, and set an important precedent for other major powers to do the same in their respective territories.

A new change of the Monroe Doctrine happened when President Woodrow Wilson announced, on January 22, 1917, that it should become a doctrine for the world.According to the president, it is not a question of the transfer of the special non-interfering space contained in the Monroe Doctrine to other regions of the world.On the other hand, its political subjects have no borders and can be anywhere in the world under the leadership of the US, with the aim of interfering economically and militarily in other continents.But this "uniqueness" of America will be based, in turn, on the integration of the Monroe doctrine and other doctrines and principles.

In our opinion, the interpretations of President Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson of the Monroe Doctrine are not, as is often done, by placing them in the abstract classes of a false dichotomy between isolationists and internationalists, but should be understood more as a set of discussions and practices of the foreign policy of the United States of America that are related to opposing concepts of world order.

Aspects of influence or hegemony?

Theodore Roosevelt was the first American President to propose that the United States play a significant role in international politics beyond the Western hemisphere.For example, I wanted to avoid the presence of a major power in China that would deny the United States access to trade in that country.Theodore Roosevelt was certainly involved in the negotiations for the end of the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905), as well as in the dispute agreement between the French and Germany over the presence in Morocco (1905-1906).Through the Taft-Katsura Treaty (1907), Japan agreed to respect the US presence in the US Islands.This will not create any embarrassment from the presence of Japanese military units in Korea.In other words, the United States should have used an "international police force" to protect the internal order of countries that turned out to be "unstable" in the Western Hemisphere, while in other parts of the world it should have sought the balance of power, recognizing the existence of cycles of influence.[ii]

After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, Japan's special representative in Washington met with US Secretary of State Robert Lansing, when he proposed what would then become the Monroe Doctrine for Asia.Just as the United States had a special position in the Western Hemisphere, especially Mexico and Central American countries, the Japanese government believed that its "special interests" should be recognized in China and neighboring countries such as Korea and Mongolia.and expressed concerns about the influence and/or interference of foreign powers in the region.President Theodore Roosevelt himself had expressed his support for the "Japanese Monroe Doctrine" for Asia in 1905 and had already agreed with the rationale that Japan was "defending" the East from European attacks.US Secretaries of State Bryan and Lansing also formally recognized in 1915 and 1917 respectively, the fact that Japan had "special interests" in China, especially where its possessions were disputed.

For the philosopher and lawyer Carl Schmidt, the Monroe Doctrine was the first and most successful example of the Großraum[iii] principle, which the US defended as an “expression of the inalienable right of self-defense” and which began to gain international importance, formally recognized in Article 21 of the League of Nations.According to this interpretation, the Monroe Doctrine set a precedent that justified both the German Großraum in Central and Eastern Europe and the Japanese Großraum in Asia; it was far from an abstract or diffuse principle, as it contained recognizable (territorial) boundaries for its application.After Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, the then Foreign Minister of the German Empire, Ribbentrop, explained that the action of the German government was nothing more than the application in Europe of the principles originally established by the Monroe Doctrine, the legitimate exercise of its power within the Grossraum, that is, the order in which mutual recognition should be the order of traditional recognition of the Eurosphere.

During the sessions of the League of Nations, North American congressmen from the Republican Party pressured President Wilson to agree to the special clause request because they believed that the League of Nations was in conflict with the Monroe Doctrine and would force the US to become involved in conflicts outside the continent.Local agreements, such as doctrine, conflict with the terms of this Agreement.

The fact that the Monroe Doctrine was expressly protected in the League of Nations and placed on the same level as international treaties and obligations caused Japan to again request a similar doctrine for Asia.In a proposal to the League of Nations Assembly, the Japanese delegation stated that "Japan is responsible for maintaining peace and order in the Far East".Japan's foreign minister praised the League of Nations treaty because it provides respect for "regional understandings" and asserted that Japan would "preserve tranquility in this part of the world."

From these demonstrations, it can be concluded that the US and Japan have assumed the responsibility of maintaining order in the region and ultimately have the legitimacy to use force to prevent any kind of intervention or intervention by other extra-regional powers.However, the prevailing position within the League was that the Monroe Doctrine could not be transferred to other geopolitical situations without US approval and consent.Thus, although the League became a global organization with universalist principles, apart from avoiding proposing a global order in space, recognizing the Monroe Doctrine, it ultimately legitimized the concept of spatial ordering in the Western Hemisphere, guaranteeing the US exceptionalism.

New frontiers in international trade

We understand that any analysis of the Monroe Doctrine can only be understood if it takes into account the various ways in which it was articulated with other doctrines.That is, the consistency of the Monroe Doctrine held at a time when US economic and geopolitical power was on the rise, made it possible to incorporate interpretations of the Open Door Doctrine aimed at guaranteeing commercial expansion and the peaceful resolution of international rivalries in areas outside the Western Hemisphere.

President McKinley's Secretary of State John Hay's 1899 Open Door Policy Memorandum marked a milestone in the history of American international relations, opening the stage for questioning the United States' "hemispheric isolation" policy and China's colonial economic zone.At first, the Open Door Policy in Asia can be seen as the first attempt by the United States to respond to the failure of the international system based on European colonialism.In line with the importance of applying rules based on moral equality to resolve international conflicts, Open Door advises China that all countries and foreign companies should be treated equally.The main difference between China's "Open Door" and America's "big stick" lies in the way the United States builds world order.Roosevelt's open-door policy was based on a realistic assessment of the limits of American power and respect for spheres of influence, especially because, in contrast to the situation in the Western Hemisphere, Asia lacked the military resources to pursue a policy based on the use of force.

When Roosevelt left office in 1909, analysts, policymakers, and businessmen hailed his reform as a model solution to economic and political stability in the Western Hemisphere, as it foresaw peaceful hemispheric trade and the United States could benefit from geographic proximity to the Latin American market.

Through Frederick Turner's "The Meaning of the Border in American History," the interpretations of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, another idea to join the teachings of Monroe and the Open Door came, starting a major campaign for American international action.Broadly speaking, the book describes the rise of national democracy and prosperity in terms of westward expansion.

A reinterpretation of the Open Door Doctrine emerged as a new strategy after the end of the continental frontier at the end of the 19th century, which ended a model based on territorial expropriation and integration.During the 1912 presidential campaign, Wilson advocated the frontier doctrine: "The westward march has stopped on the slopes of the Pacific; now the conspiracy has thickened. . . . Unless we can find free outlets into world markets, our industries will destroy their structures."have expanded," in other words, the US market should be seen as a new market.[iv]

President Wilson's church public affairs officer, William Jennings Bryan, regularly announced to various sections of American society that the president's policy was to "open the doors of the weakest countries to the invasion of American capital and corporations."These declarations, in this historical context, meant a new meaning in the diplomatic partnership with industry, trade and finance, which was reflected in the expansion of corporate capitalism in expansion around the world.

Although the doctrine emphasized the need for all nations to have equal access to trade and business networks, it did not mention the elimination of national protective tariffs, especially since this would require the US to open its own market. Wilson's open door lacked the regional specificity of Roosevelt's Monroe Doctrine, so its proponents often clashed with US strategic goals because it represented a new vision of world trade.

World War I raised questions about the legitimacy of the Open Door, but Woodrow Wilson sought to revitalize a doctrine based on the belief that the American people could not live isolated from the problems of the world.Although opposition in the Senate overcame Wilson's proposal for U.S. participation in the League of Nations, open-minded ideas continued in a number of Republican administrations in which diplomacy began to function to expand trade opportunities for America's largest exporters.Not least because it serves the political interests of American elites.[IN]

Proponents of the Open Door, starting with Wilson, finally began to think that US international intervention should be guided, above all, by taking economic imperatives into account.In other words, the trend of overproduction and underconsumption at home required an escape valve that would lead to economic activity abroad and thus political intervention and, eventually, the use of the military.the absence of such a foreign policy.

Wilsonianism not only advocated changes in the Monroe Doctrine, which, instead of referring only to a historically determined geographic area, became a general and universal way of reforming world politics.In the case of China, the use of the open door and the interpretation of “new frontiers” in diplomacy meant economic expansion in the colonial agrarian world, territorial integrity and sovereignty.The government would rely on governance guarantees, punishing aggressor states.

The legal and diplomatic mechanism underlying the application of economic sanctions, since the end of World War I, has been presented to the League of Nations as a peaceful alternative to war.In his speech to the nation, President Wilson tried to convince public opinion that the use of economics, rather than military force, was a powerful instrument of international diplomacy that could prevent armed aggression.[vi] To do this, he used as an example the economic isolation of Germany as the main reason for surrender.According to Wilson, the economic boycott was a "peaceful, silent and deadly medicine" that would replace war.Since then, the sanctions mechanism has had an ambivalent history until now: "peaceful" and "dead", "strong" but not using force;Unlike military actions, these actions are considered civilized, but if severe, they may be intolerable.[vii]

Woodrow Wilson's ideas were incorporated into Article 16 of the League of Nations, which forced states to set economic sanctions against any Alliance member who turned to an aggressive or conquest war.The assumption was that economic sanctions would have a preventative effect, stimulating aggressive countries to reason before launching any kind of war -like action.

The source commandment of 1919 and further is a sign that after the first world war has the international decision led to the indicial incurational organization, which has been promptly promptly prompted the "international procuration" of the world for the war.The rise of sanctions is therefore associated with the change General exchange of war, democracy, international law and, more importantly, the new world order which was created.

We have already seen that during the 200 years of its existence, the Monroe doctrine took on many different meanings, depending on the historical context and the interests of the political forces seeking the correct interpretation of their respective interpretations.Assuming that the form of ideology, theory, law, culture, politics, or geopolitics, the Monroe doctrine is organized according to circumstances, and the consequences that are added to it mean that it can be interpreted from different perspectives, even with opposing proposals.Adaptations and different interpretations of doctrine show not only general diplomatic guidance, but also in a specific way what strategies the political forces in conflict want to offer to US foreign policy. [Viii]

The Monroe Doctrine clearly stated that the New and Old Worlds were to remain separate and autonomous spheres of influence.With Theodore Roosevelt, the proposal that bears his name carries the meaning of the doctrine in two directions: the United States has the right to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries in the Western Hemisphere on the grounds of maintaining order and stability, and areas of influence known in other areas of the world, with the goal of World Order based on the balance of international relations based on the balance of international relations.Like Theodore Roosevelt, President Wilson Wilson referred to the Monroe Doctrine as a model of a new world order, but on the contrary, he categorically rejected the idea to recognize other spheres of influence.The international theory of the Monroe Doctrine, together with the Open Door and the 14 points defended by Wilson, became the basis of the international liberal ideology, i.e. the United States should take responsibility for ensuring the security of the world governed by the principles of liberal capitalism.

However, the use of the Monroe Doctrine as an international strategy was not limited to political disputes in the United States, but began to be used by rising powers, which usually always express some kind of demands and protests against the current world order, which inevitably leads to fierce competition for territorial dominance.

Rather than criticizing the interventionism associated with the Monroe Doctrine, it is not unusual for Russia and China to attempt to draw analogies with the United States in the area of ​​related regional forecasts.Just as the United States used the Monroe Doctrine as a rising power in the Western Hemisphere in the 19th century, major powers also openly or covertly promote the Monroe Doctrine to obtain the same rights as the United States claims.There are in hemispheres.That is, they have the right to intervene militarily in areas of conflict where the presence of “external forces” is observed threatening their national interests.In the context of the collapse of the Soviet Union, political advisors and analysts published a number of policy documents and memorandums explicitly referring to the Monroe Doctrine, arguing that the geopolitical space of the former Soviet Union should be regarded as "Russia's area of ​​vital interest."

The disputes over the South China Sea have become the focus of regional tensions and concerns since the moment China declared its maritime territorial jurisdiction in that region.In May 2014, Xi Jinping defined what the "New Asian Diplomacy" would be: "Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the people of Asia to manage the affairs of Asia, to solve the problems of Asia, and to maintain the security of Asia. For the people of Asia to manage the affairs of Asia" as a Japanese version of "New Asian Diplomacy".The Monroe Doctrine from the beginning of the twentieth century.

In a speech given to the UN General Assembly on the issue of Ukraine, Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, warned: "The famous Monroe Doctrine is reaching the world" and added that Washington is trying to expand its sphere of influence around the world[ix].Similarly, in a recent book, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the United States, in order to promote democracy, has adopted the "Neo-Monroe Doctrine" in Latin America, promoted "ethnic revolution" in Eurasia and planned the "Arab Spring" in West Asia and North Africa with the aim of overthrowing a tyrannical or inconsistent government.

In other words, great powers use different meanings from the Monroe doctorous to build their stories that demand properly, respected spheres of influence, or reject the monroe doctrin when seen as a proposed tool from US.

A prominent historian of American foreign policy has aptly said that the Open Door "is a metaphor, and that, like all metaphors, it derives its power from the fidelity with which its images present the reality they seek to describe."By absorbing fundamentally different varieties of ideological experience into the field of its images, the doctrine tends to stifle analysis and prevent the formulation of new questions.We would add that, in addition to the Open Door, the Monroe doctrine can also be seen as a metaphor in which all the above-mentioned characteristics are manifested, but we strongly disagree with the author when he claims that the ideological concept that guides the doctrine only "hides the ideological deviations in the foreign policy of the United States and obscures the difficult choices".On the contrary, as we try to argue, touching on the different interpretations of the doctrines and their fusions clearly reveals not only the historical tensions and contradictions that exist in American foreign policy, but also in relation to how other powers interpret it.

Wilson's interpretation of various historical doctrines of the United States changed the way liberalism began to understand the relationship between geopolitics and international economics and became hegemonic among state elites.The most important threat to international stability is not actually a war between countries, but, most important of all, the possible consequences that may arise from these conflicts, such as the collapse of the institutions that maintain the functioning of the world trade system.To maintain the economic freedom of world capitalism, liberal internationalism began to use economic tools as a new weapon in international politics.

Liberal internationalism is as alive as ever.Although there was a significant change in the political tone under the Biden administration, he did not encourage coups like Trump, but maintained the embargo on Cuba and sanctions against Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran and Russia.There is no serious disagreement with its efforts to combat European spheres of influence.That is, there is a consensus among the American elite that the United States and its allies should use all available economic tools to punish governments that challenge their global dominance or are allied with other powers such as Russia and China.it is necessary to find out.

*Reginaldo Nasser is Professor of International Relations at PUC-SP.Author of, among other books, Countering Terrorism: The United States and the Taliban's Partners (Editora Contracurrent).[https://amzn.to/46J5chm]

[i] "The act of dishonesty may, in the final analysis, justify in the United States, and elsewhere, the interference of civilized society, and, in the West, the interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, involuntarily and in cases of dishonesty, to exercise international police power."Available at https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/roosevelt-corollary

[ii] James R. Holmes. "Theodore Roosevelt e l'ordine mondiale" Potomac Books.2006.

[iii] Groaram.It actually means "large area", but it also means "sphere of influence" or "political sphere". It is intended to cover the area or territory, the extent of the security zone (in the sense of self-defense) and the claim related to territorial sovereignty that goes beyond the state's borders.

[iv] Walter LaFeber, “The Evolution of the Monroe Doctrine from Monroe to Reagan,” in Redefining the Past.Essays in Diplomatic History in Honor of William Appleman Williams, ed.Lloyd Gardner (Corvallis, Oregon: Oregon State University Press, 1986

[v] Michael Patrick Cullinane & Goodall, Alex.Time to Open the Door: American Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century.Edinburgh University Press.2017

[vi] Irina Bogdanova.Unilateral sanctions in international law and human rights enforcement

Consequences for the principle of the common interest of mankind. Brill Nijhoff. 2022

[vii] Joy Gordon.Peaceful, Quiet and Deadly Medicine: The Ethics of Economic Sanctions.University of Cambridge 2012

[viii] Gretchen Murphy.Hemispheric Imaginings: The Eng Monroe Doctrine and Narratives of US Empire.Duke University Press, 2005

[ix] Lavrov: United States is trying to convert the entire world into its "butthole".https://news.am/eng/news/721956.html 25.09.2022