Enduring Ideas In US Foreign Policy Towards The Southern Hemisphere

Dr Sandra De Carvalho is a Teaching Associate at Queen Mary University of London and a tutor for Queen Mary Online's MA in International Relations. Her main areas of interests are Latin American politics (with a focus on Brazil’s foreign policy), US Foreign Policy, and International Security (with an emphasis on nuclear proliferation and nuclear international norms).

In the article below, she discusses two enduring ideas influencing US policy towards its Latin American and Caribbean neighbours since the early 19th Century: the Monroe Doctrine and the belief in Manifest Destiny.

The Good Neighbour Policy

Throughout the 20th Century, US foreign policy towards its Latin American and Caribbean neighbours mostly oscillated between interventions (through overt and covert operations) and sheer indifference. There were some exceptions, nonetheless, such as the Good Neighbour Policy (1933-1945), promoted by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945).

The Good Neighbour policy proclaimed a new phase of hemispheric relations. Washington would adopt a posture of ‘non-intervention’ and ‘non-interference’, and a greater wiliness to cooperate with countries in the region. Although the policy was driven primarily by US economic interests, it helped to strengthen hemispheric relations which were particularly important in the years leading to World War II.

However, under the Good Neighbour, the US supported authoritarian governments in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and in Cuba. Moreover, during the Cold War, Washington reverted to a policy of interference in the region, justifying the need to ‘protect’ the hemisphere from the growing threat of Communism.

It is interesting to point out that from 1898 to 1994, Washington intervened in the region 41 times with the aim of changing governments there - 17 times by playing a direct role (i.e. by sending troops), and 24 times indirectly, by encouraging, financing and supporting independent and opposition movements in the target country. It is also important to note that many of US-backed new governments were actually dictatorships, such as the cases mentioned above, and the Pinochet regime in Chile (1971-1990).

The Monroe Doctrine

Some of the ideological roots of US foreign policy towards the Southern Hemisphere can be traced back to the 19th century’s Monroe Doctrine. On the 2nd of December 1823, President James Monroe (1758-1831), announced to Congress that the United States would not interfere in the affairs of European states and that it would strongly react to any attempt of their interference in the Western Hemisphere. The doctrine was largely ignored outside American territory, but it would later become a core tenet of US foreign policy. It reflected American concerns that Britain, France and Spain would attempt to recolonise newly independent nations of the Americas.

It also reflected US growing ambitions of leadership, claiming to be the protector of the entire Western hemisphere. At the time, however, the US did not possess the military and economic strength to prevent European powers from recolonising the continent, if they wished to do so. By the end of the 19th Century, however, the Monroe Doctrine would be revived and receive different interpretations and additions, reflecting US regional prominence.

The Roosevelt Corollary

In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) launched the Roosevelt Corollary to the doctrine, announcing that the US would intervene in Latin American nations, in case of disorder, unrest, and unpaid loans to international creditors. Again, the policy reflected both a concern with a potential European intervention in the Western Hemisphere and the US growing hegemonic ambitions. Roosevelt popularised the big stick policy (or diplomacy) towards Latin America and the Caribbean. The US would increasingly take on a self-assigned role of hemispheric ‘policeman’. The Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine would be invoked and serve as the justification for interventions in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Haiti.

Manifest Destiny

Underpinning the Monroe Doctrine was the idea of Manifest Destiny, a belief that the US was destined by God to territorially expand, to extend its domains from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, and to eventually become a ‘model’ to others, and global power. The concept was formally coined by journalist John L. O’Sullivan in 1845 to justify American territorial claims to Texas and later Oregon. The belief, nonetheless, predated, promoted as well as justified US territorial expansion, which was achieved throughout the 19th Century by purchases of territories from European powers (France, Spain, Britain) - the Louisiana Purchase (1803) was the first in a trend - as well as through annexations, agreements, settlements, border disputes, and wars.

The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) was a clear illustration of how US political elites firmly believed in Manifest Destiny. The conflict resulted in US victory, with the peace settlement (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848) adding to US territory the present-day states of California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming (including Texas, Mexico lost over half of its territory in the process of American expansion).

The Westward expansion was fuelled by ideas of Americans as performing a ‘civilising’ and ‘Christianising’ mission over ‘uncivilised’ peoples. The ‘Empire of Liberty’, like Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) put it, was predestined to spread ‘liberal’ values such as individuality, freedom and representative government throughout the world (it is worth noting that most believers in Manifest Destiny saw no contradiction between those values and slavery).

Manifest Destiny was a tradition very much based on assumptions of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority. Mexicans, Native Americans, black people, and other ethnic groups that lived in territories seen as important to American mission were not considered part of that ‘divine’ plan. They were either assimilated, excluded, forcefully removed from their land or exterminated. Of course, economic factors were important contributors to that expansion, such as population growth and the need for new lands to farm, as well as the search for easy fortune - illustrated by the California Gold Rush (1846-1855).

The discovery of gold and other resources drew large numbers of migrants to newly acquired territories, lead to the displacement, forced removal, as well as to the genocide of Native American populations. Political factors were also important drivers of the Westward expansion. US political leaders sought freedom from further interference from Britain and to forge a sense of national unity - in a country sparsely populated, where communities were disconnected and fragmented (slavery was a major divisive issue) and with strong localised identities.

Territorial Expansion

By the end of the 19th Century, the US emerged as a major naval power. US support for independence movements in Cuba towards Spain resulted in the Spanish-American War (1898). US victory in the conflict led to the acquisition and control of overseas territories in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines (Hawaii was also annexed during that time). The 19th Century came to a close with the ‘predestined’ plan of territorial expansion fulfilled. The belief in Manifest Destiny and the US role as playing a ‘civilising’ mission in the world and acting as the hemisphere’s ‘policeman’ would, nonetheless, endure (albeit variations) and become one of the core tenets of US foreign policy for years to come.

We will explore the main ideas - as well as economic, political and security factors - behind Washington’s policy towards the Southern Hemisphere and the world in general in the module “Themes and Cases in US Foreign Policy” of our online MA in International Relations. By exploring them, we can better understand as well as critically assess the past, present, and potential future of US foreign relations and its wider implications.