In the
history of United States foreign policy
History of United States foreign policy is a brief overview of major trends regarding the foreign policy of the United States from the American Revolution to the present. The major themes are becoming an "Empire of Liberty", promoting democracy ...
, the Roosevelt Corollary was an addition to the
Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine was a United States foreign policy position that opposed European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. It held that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile ac ...
articulated by President
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
in his
State of the Union address
The State of the Union Address (sometimes abbreviated to SOTU) is an annual message delivered by the president of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress near the beginning of each calendar year on the current conditi ...
in 1904 after the
Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903. The
corollary states that the United States could intervene in the internal affairs of Latin American countries if they committed flagrant and chronic wrongdoings.
Roosevelt tied his policy to the Monroe Doctrine, and it was also consistent with his foreign policy included in his
Big Stick Diplomacy. Roosevelt stated that in keeping with the Monroe Doctrine, the United States was justified in exercising "international police power" to put an end to chronic unrest or wrongdoing in the Western Hemisphere. President
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
in 1930 endorsed the
Clark Memorandum The Clark Memorandum on the Monroe Doctrine or Clark Memorandum, written on December 17, 1928 by Calvin Coolidge's undersecretary of state J. Reuben Clark, concerned the United States' use of military force to intervene in Latin American nations. ...
that repudiated the Roosevelt Corollary in favor of what was later called the
Good Neighbor policy
The Good Neighbor policy ( ) was the foreign policy of the administration of United States President Franklin Roosevelt towards Latin America. Although the policy was implemented by the Roosevelt administration, President Woodrow Wilson had prev ...
.
Background
The Roosevelt Corollary was articulated in the aftermath of the Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903. In late 1902, Britain, Germany, and Italy imposed a naval blockade of several months against Venezuela after President
Cipriano Castro refused to pay
foreign debts and damages suffered by European people in a recent Venezuelan civil war.
[Maass, Matthias (2009), ''Catalyst for the Roosevelt Corollary: Arbitrating the 1902–1903 Venezuela Crisis and Its Impact on the Development of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine'', ''Diplomacy & Statecraft'', Volume 20, Issue 3, p383-402] The dispute was referred to an international court for arbitration, which concluded on 22 February 1904 that the blockading powers involved in the Venezuela crisis were entitled to preferential treatment in the payment of their claims.
[ This left a number of other countries which did not take military action, including the United States, with no recourse. The U.S. disagreed with the outcome in principle, and feared it would encourage future European intervention to gain such advantage.][ To preclude European intervention, in December the Roosevelt Corollary asserted a right of the United States to intervene in order to "stabilize" the economic affairs of small states in the Caribbean and Central America if they were unable to pay their international debts..
]
Content of Corollary
Roosevelt's annual message on 6 December 1904, to Congress declared:
While the Monroe Doctrine had warned European powers to keep their hands off countries in the Americas, President Roosevelt was now saying that "since the United States would not permit the Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an powers to lay their hands on, he had an obligation to do so himself."
Use
Though the Roosevelt Corollary was an addition to the Monroe Doctrine, it could also be seen as a departure. While the Monroe Doctrine said European countries should stay out of Latin America, the Roosevelt Corollary took this further to say the United States had the right to exercise military force in Latin American countries to keep European countries out. Historian Walter LaFeber
Walter Fredrick LaFeber (August 30, 1933March 9, 2021) was an American academic who served as the Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History at Cornell University. Previous to that he served as t ...
wrote:
Roosevelt first used the Corollary to act in the Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...
in 1904, which at the time was severely indebted and becoming a failed state
A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly (see also fragile state and state collapse). A state can also fail if the ...
. The United States dispatched two warships and demanded the customs house be turned over to U.S. negotiators, who then used a percentage of the proceeds to pay foreign creditors. This model—in which United States advisors worked to stabilize Latin American nations through temporary protectorates, staving off European action—became known as "dollar diplomacy
Dollar diplomacy of the United States, particularly during the presidency of William Howard Taft (1909–1913) was a form of American foreign policy to minimize the use or threat of military force and instead further its aims in Latin America and ...
". The Dominican experiment, like most other "dollar diplomacy" arrangements, proved temporary and untenable, and the United States launched a larger military intervention in 1916 that lasted to 1924.
U.S. Presidents also cited the Roosevelt Corollary as justification for U.S. intervention in Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
(1906–1909), Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
(1909–1910, 1912–1925 and 1926–1933),[Bailey, Thomas Andrew. "A Latin American Protests (1943)." ''The American Spirit: Since 1865''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 199. Print.] Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
(1915–1934),[ and the Dominican Republic (1916–1924).][
]
Shift to the "Good Neighbor" policy
In 1928, President Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...
issued the Clark Memorandum The Clark Memorandum on the Monroe Doctrine or Clark Memorandum, written on December 17, 1928 by Calvin Coolidge's undersecretary of state J. Reuben Clark, concerned the United States' use of military force to intervene in Latin American nations. ...
, often seen as a partial repudiation of the Roosevelt Corollary, which stated that the US did not have the right to intervene when there was a threat by European powers. Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
also helped to move the US away from the imperialist tendencies of the Roosevelt Corollary by going on good-will tours, withdrawing troops from Nicaragua and Haiti, and abstaining from intervening in the internal affairs of neighboring countries.
In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
further renounced interventionism and established his "Good Neighbor policy
The Good Neighbor policy ( ) was the foreign policy of the administration of United States President Franklin Roosevelt towards Latin America. Although the policy was implemented by the Roosevelt administration, President Woodrow Wilson had prev ...
" that led to the annulment of the Platt Amendment
On March 2, 1901, the Platt Amendment was passed as part of the 1901 Army Appropriations Bill.[Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (; ; born Rubén Zaldívar, January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as its U.S.-backed military dictator ...](_blank)
in Cuba,[''American foreign relations: a history. Since 1895'', Volume 2, 7th Edition, Wadsworth, pp. 162–168, 2010] Rafael Leonidas Trujillo
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( , ; 24 October 189130 May 1961), nicknamed ''El Jefe'' (, "The Chief" or "The Boss"), was a Dominican dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961. He ser ...
in the Dominican Republic, Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, and François Duvalier in Haiti were each considered to be "Frankenstein dictators" due to the mishandlings of the American occupations in the countries.
The era of the Good Neighbor policy ended with the start of the Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
in 1945, as the United States felt there was a greater need to protect the Western Hemisphere from Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
influence.
In 1954, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles (, ; February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American diplomat, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. He served as United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and was briefly ...
invoked the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary at the Tenth Pan-American Conference in Caracas
Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...
, denouncing the intervention of Soviet communism in Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
. This was used to justify Operation PBSuccess
Operation or Operations may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity
* Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory
* ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...
that deposed the democratically elected president Jacobo Árbenz
Juan Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán (; 14 September 191327 January 1971) was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as the 25th President of Guatemala. He was Minister of National Defense from 1944 to 1950, and the second democratical ...
and installed the military regime of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of military dictators in the country.
Criticism
The argument made by Mitchener and Weidenmier in 2006 in support of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine has been criticized on the grounds that it "represent the one-sided approach that some scholars bring to the study of imperialistic and hegemonic interventions and also highlight how arguments for the general utility of imperialism are increasingly made and accepted." Christopher Coyne and Stephen Davies argue that a foreign policy modeled on the Roosevelt Corollary leads to negative consequences both in national security terms and in terms of its effect on domestic politics.
Critics, such as linguist Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
, have argued that the Roosevelt Corollary was merely a more explicit imperialist threat, building on the Monroe Doctrine, indicating that the US would not only intervene in defense of South America in the face of European imperialism but also use its muscle to obtain concessions and privileges for American corporations.[Chomsky, Noam. ''Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance''. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004] Frenchman Serge Ricard
Serge Ricard, a former Fulbright Scholar, is professor of American Civilization at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris 3, Sorbonne Nouvelle. Ricard specializes in both American foreign policy and civilization. He is co-director with Pierre Mel ...
of the University of Paris
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
goes even further and states that the Roosevelt Corollary was not merely an addendum to the earlier Monroe Doctrine through which the US pledged to protect the Americas from European imperialist interventions. Rather, the Roosevelt Corollary was "an entirely new diplomatic tenet that epitomized his ' big stick' approach to foreign policy."[Ricard, Serge]
"The Roosevelt Corollary"
''Presidential Studies Quarterly'' 36 (2006) 17–26
In other words, while the Monroe Doctrine sought to bar entry to the European empires, the Roosevelt Corollary arguably indicated the United States' intention to take their place.
See also
* Big stick ideology
* Bush Doctrine
The Bush Doctrine refers to multiple interrelated foreign policy principles of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. These principles include unilateralism, preemptive war, and regime change.
Charles Krauthammer first used ...
* Dollar diplomacy
Dollar diplomacy of the United States, particularly during the presidency of William Howard Taft (1909–1913) was a form of American foreign policy to minimize the use or threat of military force and instead further its aims in Latin America and ...
* Drago Doctrine
The Drago Doctrine was announced in 1902 by Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs Luis María Drago in a diplomatic note to the United States.
Perceiving a conflict between the Monroe Doctrine and the influence of European imperial powers, and rai ...
* History of the United States (1865–1918)
The history of the United States from 1865 until 1918 covers the Reconstruction Era, the Gilded Age, and the Progressive Era, and includes the rise of industrialization and the resulting surge of immigration in the United States. This article foc ...
* New Imperialism
In historical contexts, New Imperialism characterizes a period of colonial expansion by European powers, the United States, and Japan during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Com
The period featured an unprecedented pursuit of ove ...
* Territorial evolution of the United States
The United States of America was created on July 4, 1776, with the U.S. Declaration of Independence of thirteen British colonies in North America. In the Lee Resolution two days prior, the colonies resolved that they were free and independent ...
Citations
General bibliography
* Coyne, C. J., Davies, S. (2007). "Empire: public Goods and Bads." ''Econ Journal Watch'', 4(1), 3–45.
* Glickman, Robert Jay. ''Norteamérica vis-à-vis Hispanoamérica: ¿opposición o asociación?'' Toronto: Canadian Academy of the Arts, 2005. .
* Meiertöns, Heiko (2010). ''The Doctrines of US Security Policy – An Evaluation under International Law'', Cambridge University Press, .
* Mitchell, Nancy. ''The Danger of Dreams: German and American Imperialism in Latin America'' (1999).
* Mitchener, Kris James, and Marc Weidenmier. "Empire, public goods, and the Roosevelt Corollary", ''Journal of Economic History'' (2005) 64#5 pp. 658+
* Rabe, Stephen G. "Theodore Roosevelt, the Panama Canal and the Roosevelt Corollary: Sphere of Influence Diplomacy", ch. 16 in Serge Ricard, ed., ''A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt'' (2011)
* Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary". ''Presidential Studies'' 2006 36(1): 17–26. Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
* Ricard, Serge. "Theodore Roosevelt: Imperialist or Global Strategist in the New Expansionist Age?" ''Diplomacy & Statecraft'' (2008) 19#3 pp. 639–657.
* Sexton, Jay. ''The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America'' (Macmillan, 2011.)
External links
*
{{United States intervention in Latin America
1904 in international relations
1904 in the United States
Banana Wars
Foreign policy doctrines of the United States
Hegemony
History of United States expansionism
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
Monroe Doctrine