Monroe Doctrine

From dKosopedia

Although unenforceable when it was issued in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine is seen by some as a cornerstone of American foreign policy. Articulated by President Monroe's Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, the Monroe Doctrine declared the Americas were off-limits to further European influence and colonization. By implication, the entire hemisphere is under the imperial hegemony of the United States because other countries are deprived of the sovereign right to make miltiary alliances with other great powers.

Background

Spain's colonial empire in South American began to break up in the late 1810's/early 1820's, with successful independence movements in Argentina, Chile and Venezuela. This led to a split between the European powers- Spain, urged on by France and Russia, considered retaking its former colonies by force, but Britain opposed, as such a move would bring French influence back into the New World. Secretary Adams worried about the alliance, not only for the French and Spanish resurgence but for Russia, who could use its alliance to build influence on the West Coast and in Mexico.

Britain broached the idea of a joint American-British warning against France and Spain, but Adams thought this would needlessly tangle American foreign policy in European power politics. Instead Adams convinced Monroe to choose a middle ground. The Monroe Doctrine was issued in a message to Congress on December 2, 1823, informing the European powers that attempts to further influence or colonize in the Western Hemisphere would be considered detrimental to American interests. Backed by British support, the doctrine held France, Spain and Russia at bay.

In Practice

Over time the Monroe Doctrine became a permanent part of American foreign policy, thought it was not originally intended as such. President James Polk cited it as part of the justification behind Manifest Destiny; Theodore Roosevelt's Roosevelt Corollary both reinforced and rejected the original aims of the doctrine by substituting European imperialism for American power in South American affairs. And in the 1980's Reagan Administration officials used the doctrine to defend their financial and logictic support of the rightist Contra terrorists against the government of Nicaragua.