A Blanc Check for Intervention - the Evolution of the Monroe Doctrine and Its Significance in Contemporary U.S. Foreign Policy

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GRIN Verlag, 2007 - 28 páginas
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: USA, grade: 1,3, Indiana University (Political Science Department), course: American Political Traditions, 13 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The Monroe Doctrine will be 200 years old in 2023 and the world of today could not be more different than from the conditions of the world in which president James Monroe gave his speech, which would become so famous and significant for the direction of U.S. foreign policy. Yet the policies of the Monroe Doctrine are still very much alive. Especially after president Theodore Roosevelt announced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904 America's path of becoming a major player in world affairs with arbitrary power was paved for them. The argument of this paper is that the document known today as the Monroe Doctrine started out as a simple but efficient and bold proclamation, which dealt with the problems of its time and has been transformed into a tool for global involvement. Originally it attempts to keep Europeans out of the New World but it does not attack the already existing colonies in the Western Hemisphere. Over time various presidents altered this original phrasing. One of the more important examples of this tradition is Theodore Roosevelt's Corollary to the doctrine, which will serve as an illustration to outline the main argument. Roosevelt turned the meaning of the doctrine around and went from noninterference to active responsibility by the United States to intervene anywhere in the Western Hemisphere where chaos and violence ruled. Still limited on the Western Hemisphere and whatever was defined to fit into this category Roosevelt's definition of the "international police power" soon became just that. The United States would enter two World Wars on the basic justification that they were restoring order and justice and were only acting out of self-defense reasons. After World War II

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Contenido

Introduction
2
Origins language and historical context of the Monroe Doctrine
3
Manifest Destiny and Roosevelts vision
8
The Roosevelt Corollary
10
Extension and Reinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine
14
Conclusion
17
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Página 8 - With the existing colonies and 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...
Página 4 - Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation ? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground ? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
Página 5 - I told him specially that we should contest the right of Russia to any territorial establishment on this continent, and that we should assume distinctly the principle that the American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments.
Página 15 - Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the western hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.
Página 15 - If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States.
Página 4 - ... in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course.
Página 15 - It is not true that the United States feels any land hunger or entertains any projects as regards the other nations of the Western Hemisphere save such as are for their welfare. All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship.
Página 5 - Nothing that we could say or do would remove this impression until the world shall be familiarized with the idea of considering our proper dominion to be the continent of North America. From the time when we became an independent people it was as much a law of nature that this should become our pretension as that the Mississippi should flow to the sea.

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