Our adversaries have only gotten more emboldened since Senator John Kerry declared the doctrine dead, making it difficult to see how announcing the United States would no longer oppose foreign meddling in Latin America didn’t encourage them to meddle even more.
On December 2, 1823, President James Monroe, only the fifth person to occupy the office, delivered one of the most audacious annual messages to Congress in American history. Though the United States was less than forty years old and was largely considered a backwater on the world stage, he declared the entire Western Hemisphere off limits to the European powers at the time, asserting America’s right to control the region around our shores. Framing it as a general principle whenever “the rights and interests of the United States are involved,” Monroe warned the world 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.” The proximate cause of what came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine was a series of revolutions and declarations of independence in South America, with Argentina, Peru, Columbia, and Mexico being officially recognized as sovereign countries in 1821, after expelling either Spain or Portugal. At the time, there were significant concerns that either might return, or Russia, which was a burgeoning new power, keen to flex its international muscles and pursue an empire, might decide to take their place. Though he originally considered partnering on the proclamation with Great Britain, his Secretary of State and future President John Quincy Adams convinced him that the founding of America represented a new age in international affairs and despite having no real means to enforce such a doctrine, he went ahead and proclaimed one anyway. Over the following few decades, it was invoked sporadically – in 1833, when the British occupied the Falkland Islands, for example – but it wasn’t until after the Civil War that we had the power to make it real. “Chronic wrongdoing…may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation,” President Teddy Roosevelt announced in his 1904 message to Congress, adding what became known as the Roosevelt Corollary. “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.”
Few knew of what they spoke better than Roosevelt, who first rose to national political prominence by leading the Rough Riders to victory at San Juan Hill, finally ejecting Spain from the Western Hemisphere forever. Two years before he formalized his Corollary, Roosevelt was confronted with his own European meddling crisis in Venezuela, ironically given the news last week and as we shall see, for the Doctrine as a whole until recently. In late 1902, Venezuelan President Cipriano Castro refused to pay foreign debts owed to Great Britain, Germany, and Italy, prompting the British and Germans to enact a blockade of the Caribbean nation. While Roosevelt was sympathetic to European concerns and believed Venezuela should pay their debts in principle, he was an American first and foremost, and refused to allow the blockade to escalate into the seizure of Venezuelan territory, something it was rumored the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II wanted to accomplish to expand his own burgeoning empire. Publicly, Roosevelt remained neutral throughout the conflict, offering only a show of force by conducting significant naval exercises in Puerto Rico before and during, but privately he leveraged his network of contacts in Britain and his personal relationship with the Kaiser to inform both countries that an incursion of any kind would not be tolerated and to force them into arbitrating the matter with the United States as the arbiter. In fact, Roosevelt had been preparing for this moment since before he even took office. Recognizing the potential for conflict and the importance of a modern navy in deterring them, he sought a rapid build up of our capabilities as Assistant Secretary to the Navy and Vice President. Sometime in late 1901, after ascending to the Presidency when William McKinley was assassinated, he received a report from Navy Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans urging him to seek “greater celerity in the completion of such vessels as are already authorized … while an equal or greater necessity for a further increase in our limited number of fighting ships should … be impressed upon Congress in the most emphatic manner,” which prompted him to comment, “I am straining nerve to keep on with the upbuilding of the Navy.”
Despite these limitations, he continued building up our forces in Puerto Rico and establishing an outpost in Cuba in anticipation that something potentially devastating may happen, which was far from a hypothetical concern even before the official blockade. In December 1901, a full year before the stand-off, a German communique claimed they might be compelled to force a “temporary occupation” of Venezuela and in early 1902, the Kaiser himself insisted “We will do whatever is necessary… even if it displeases the Yankees,” suggesting that the rumors Germany was seeking a bulkhead in Latin America were correct. By that December, shortly before the blockade began, when it was still merely a threat, the United States Navy was fully prepared for war, mustering some 53 ships in the region compared to Europe’s 29. Roosevelt also wisely placed the Caribbean forces under the command of the most legendary seamen at the time, Admiral George Dewey, who believed the threat of war was so great that his own wife said upon his departure, “I dread there may be war over Veequela [sic] . . . how can Georg [sic] get thru three wars unscathed,”. Even with Dewey at the helm and greatly superior forces at hand, the European powers proceeded with their blockade, engaged in several minor skirmishes with the Venezuelans, and refused arbitration until Roosevelt issued a private ultimatum to the German ambassador to either agree or face war. Previously, he had convinced the British to do the same, albeit without the need for an ultimatum and a veiled threat. Though the Germans had three days to agree to his terms, Roosevelt kept the fleet at the ready just in case the situation deteriorated, refusing to allow them to disperse for Christmas, letting them know that urgent action might be forthcoming, and gathering commanders “for consultation relative to the Venezuelan question.” Late that evening, however, the Kaiser accepted the ultimatum and agreed to arbitration in Washington, leading to Roosevelt declaring his Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which he asserted again in 1905 in the Dominican Republic, this time commandeering custom houses to force the repayment of foreign debt.
As a result of his efforts and those of his successors, the Western continent was kept largely free of foreign intervention until the rise of the Soviet Union following World War II, and even then it was not without a fight. In 1962, the Soviet Union attempted to stage nuclear missiles in Cuba, but in that more muscular era, even a Democrat President would not tolerate such a provocation. On October 22 of that year, President John F. Kennedy initiated a naval blockade of the island as a result of the incursion, referring to it as a “quarantine” to prevent the shipment of additional missiles from Russia, in what many consider the closest the world has ever come to all out nuclear war. The President addressed the nation at the time, restating key elements of the Monroe Doctrine and expanding upon them into a broad interpretation of the NATO Alliance when it came to the use of atomic weapons, saying “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.” He continued, “To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba, from whatever nation or port, will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948,” he added to differentiate our efforts from the Soviet’s prior attempt to starve West Germany into submission until President Harry Truman conducted one of the most ambitious humanitarian efforts in human history. Amid several tense stand offs, a secret settlement was reached. The United States would remove missiles from Italy and Turkey in exchange for the Soviet Union removing them from Cuba, but since the deal was kept secret for over two decades, only Russia appeared to have withdrawn at the time, dealing them a significant diplomatic blow, one which was believed to lead to the ouster of Russian Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev within two years.
Sixty years later, however, Secretary of State John Kerry announced to the United Nations that the era of the Monroe Doctrine was over. In November 2013, he described the doctrine itself, noting “In the early days of our republic, the United States made a choice about its relationship with Latin America. President James Monroe, who was also a former Secretary of State, declared that the United States would unilaterally, and as a matter of fact, act as the protector of the region. The doctrine that bears his name asserted our authority to step in and oppose the influence of European powers in Latin America. And throughout our nation’s history, successive presidents have reinforced that doctrine and made a similar choice” before declaring it dead, claiming the Obama Administration made a different choice. “Today, however, we have made a different choice. The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over. (Applause.) The relationship – that’s worth applauding. That’s not a bad thing. (Applause.) The relationship that we seek and that we have worked hard to foster is not about a United States declaration about how and when it will intervene in the affairs of other American states. It’s about all of our countries viewing one another as equals, sharing responsibilities, cooperating on security issues, and adhering not to doctrine, but to the decisions that we make as partners to advance the values and the interests that we share. As the old proverb says,La union hace la fuerza. The union – in unity, there is strength. Through our shared commitment to democracy, we collectively present a vivid example to the world that diversity is strength, that inclusion works, that justice can reject impunity, and that the rights of individuals must be protected against government overreach and abuse. We also prove that peace is possible. You don’t need force to have fuerza. The vision that we share for our countries is actually within our grasp, but we have to ask ourselves some tough and important questions in order to secure our goal.”
Incredibly, he made this claim even as the situation in Venezuela in particular had been deteriorating for almost a decade and the very things Secretary Kerry claimed to care about, our shared commitment to democracy, that diversity is strength, that inclusion works, that justice can reject impunity, and that the rights of individuals must be protected against government overreach and abuse, were gravely at risk, subject to the whims of foreign incursions in the hemisphere as a new generation of countries sought empires of them own, some familiar, some new on the world stage. Starting in 2005, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez began closely aligning himself with Russia, purchasing some $4 billion in arms. In 2008, Russia provided training to Venezuelan troops and conducted joint naval exercises in the same Caribbean that Roosevelt worked so hard to defend. That same year the two countries identified 46 potential cooperation agreements future Venezuelan President, then foreign minister, now deposed drug dealer, Nicolas Maduro claimed were specifically designed to offset American power, insisting “the unipolar world is collapsing and finishing in all aspects, and the alliance with Russia is part of that effort to build a multipolar world.” Russia also agreed to help Venezuela become a nuclear power, a deal that was signed in 2010 and by 2011, Venezuela had grown into the largest purchaser of Russian arms. The alliance between the two countries was so strong that President Maduro insisted he strongly supported Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Before President Maduro was captured, CNBC described Russia as having its “most prominent” relationship in Latin America with Venezuela. Simultaneously, President Chavez deepened relationships with another American adversary, Iran, cooperating across construction, oil, gas, and infrastructure projects to “prepare the road for peace, justice, stability and progress for the 21st century.” In 2007, Iran and Venezuela declared they would form an “axis of unity” against Western imperialism, meaning the United States, and by 2009 the countries formed a joint bank. The relationship only accelerated from there. As of 2014, they had “signed 265 agreements deriving from 58 projects in the industrial, environmental, agricultural, commercial, educational, sports, housing, cultural, energy and scientific and technology areas.” In 2015, they were promising to “thwart world powers’ strategies” because oil prices were falling, threatening their ability to build to pursue their ambitions of being a world power. Nor was the relationship conducted entirely in public. It is believed that Venezuela helped launder money for Hezbollah, provide false passports, support illegal weapons manufactures, and even build a joint naval base.
Russia’s plans for a multipolar world were not limited to Venezuela in Latin America, either. In 2009, they helped form BRICs, an alliance at the time between Brazil, Russia, India, and China, which has since grown to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates, specifically designed to offset Western power. China has also gotten increasingly involved in Latin America, forming the Belt and Road Initiative and recruiting Panama to the cause in 2017. Since then, China has taken control of key ports into and out of the critical Panama Canal (ironically, a canal that began under Roosevelt and was one of his crowning achievements) including Balboa and Cristobal, and has rapidly increased investment in the country, building even more infrastructure. Considering that many of these events and more were in motion before Secretary Kerry declared the Monroe Doctrine dead, the proclamation becomes even more bizarre, an almost impossible to understand appeasement bordering on national suicide. While correlation is not causation, our adversaries have only gotten more emboldened since, both in our own hemisphere and around the world, making it difficult to see how announcing the United States would no longer oppose foreign meddling in Latin America didn’t encourage them to meddle even more. In a world of instant communications, incredibly fast travel, and nuclear weapons, this meddling becomes even more of a threat to national security. When Roosevelt faced off against the British and German blockade, it took about a week to cross the Atlantic. There were no such things as ballistic missiles or missiles of any kind. No fighter jets, no long range bombers, no aircraft carriers. Today, a ballistic missile crosses the Atlantic in about 20 minutes. From Venezuela to Miami is even shorter. A fighter jet can make it in about two hours. As a result, the time we have to respond should a global calamity begin is shorter than ever even as our adversaries are closer than ever while being just as intent on empire as ever. If you think this is a far-fetched hypothetical with no real impact on our national security, US arms are currently in the field against Russia in Ukraine, meaning we are closer to a direct conflict now than we were in Roosevelt’s day. Russia has, in fact, insisted it has the right to use nuclear weapons should it be attacked, weapons that could conceivably be launched from Venezuela. Whatever the specific odds and whatever the establishment may insist, recent history more than amply demonstrates that President Donald Trump is correct and it’s more important than ever to protect our hemisphere, both to prevent foreign powers from building empires in our backyard and for our own national security.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 