THE MONROE DOCTRINE AFTER 200 YEARS: A Strategic Hinge Period in American History
By Thomas E McNamara
Our
oldest remaining national policy, the Monroe Doctrine, is 200 years old
this December. Historically, it was an anchor in the ever-changing
currents of world events for over a century and its influence continues
into its third century. It is worth looking at its origins and early
history.
The World of Monroe and Quincy Adams: Monarchy vs. Republic
The
Western world in 1823 was recovering from the tumult and tragedy of the
French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, which tore apart the social,
economic, and political fabric of Europe. In reaction, the Congress of
Vienna in 1814-15 established a “Concert of Europe” to, inter alia, define
borders and spheres of influence, restore “legitimate” monarchy,
abolish republics, and stabilize Europe. Eighteenth century monarchs
opposed republics but felt no threat from them. After Robespierre and
Napoleon, their nineteenth century successors feared republics and
revolution, vowing to destroy them.
In
Latin America, rebellions had begun during the wars and the Holy
Alliance (Austria, Prussia, Russia), assisted by France, agreed in
Vienna to help a weak Spanish monarchy recover its American colonies.
The pragmatic United Kingdom, in contrast, saw the Americas through
commercial, not monarchical, lenses and favored independence because
recolonization threatened British trade and finance.
In
North America, less violent struggles were underway. The War of 1812
ended with the Treaty of Ghent, which for the first time showed Britain
respected United States’ independence – for the same commercial reasons.
Yet, it adamantly opposed US westward expansion beyond the Louisiana
Territory. Thus, as a lever, Britain refused in the treaty to define the
US-Canadian border west of the Great Lakes. Meanwhile, Russia was
assisting its Spanish partner by extending its Alaskan colonial claims
down the Pacific coast to California. This was the scene the Monroe
administration faced on taking office in 1817. Russia, Spain, France,
British Canada, and the British navy surrounded the US with monarchical
powers, intent on extinguishing or containing the United States.
A New US Foreign Policy
By
1817, President James Monroe had substantial diplomatic experience, but
he was not a strategic thinker. Fortunately, he chose as secretary of
state America’s first and greatest career diplomat, and its most
successful and consequential secretary of state, John Quincy Adams. The
brilliant Quincy Adams began his career in 1779 in Paris with his
father, John Adams. In 1794 Washington named him, at age 27, minister to
the Netherlands. By 1817 Quincy Adams had spent almost half his life as
a diplomat abroad; been minister to six European nations; was chief
negotiator of the Treaty of Ghent; and was not yet 50 years old.
John Quincy Adams
For
the next 12 years, he was the tough-minded statesman-strategist who
guided American policy, establishing republican security and legitimacy
by keeping the monarchs from organizing against him. He started with
British Foreign Secretary Castlereagh and settled the western border
with Canada in the Treaty of 1818. He also negotiated the
Transcontinental Treaty of 1821 with Spain (with France’s acquiescence).
That treaty ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast to the US and defined the
western border of the Louisiana Territory to the Pacific. Next, in
parallel with Castlereagh’s successor, George Canning, he objected in
1822 to Russia’s Pacific claims, which would have closed the Pacific
coast to access, settlement, and trade. The Tsar soon abandoned his new
claims.
This
five-year (1817-22) diplomatic tour-de-force by Adams gained for the
US, for the first time since independence, internationally agreed
borders, and republican legitimacy by four of the six monarchies that
opposed republicanism. With Spain gone, Mexico independent, Russia
pushed north, and US-UK exploring common interests, Adams demonstrated
the new US approach by recognizing the American republics.
Also,
in the sonorous but nuanced voice of a small nation still facing
larger, antagonistic powers, Adams, in a 1921 July 4th speech in the
House of Representatives, declared a new synthesis of American policy
which became the nation’s diplomatic center of gravity for a century.
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be her [the USA’s] heart,
her benedictions, and her prayers. But she goes not abroad in search of
monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and
independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her
own…. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners…she
would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication….
The Monroe Doctrine and The Atlantic Barrier
By
the 1820s, the Atlantic Ocean was a barrier. Those on its west coast
hoped it would keep European emperors away. The emperors saw it as a
barrier limiting their control of the new world. Despite increasing
commerce across the ocean throughout the nineteenth century, it remained
a barrier. After World War I, the barrier fell as empires collapsed and
republican governments emerged in Europe. However, two prescient
statesmen – Adams and Canning – ignored the Atlantic Barrier by using
the British navy in 1823 to support the first long-term transatlantic
political agreement to advance common strategic interests. Following
the 1818 treaty negotiations, Adams suggested to Castlereagh the idea of
a “common understanding” to support Latin American independence. The
cautious Castlereagh did not respond. But his successor did. In August
1823, Canning approached the US about a simple, three-part, bilateral
declaration:
1. Spain could make peace with rebellious colonists and the UK and US would not interfere.
2. The UK and US would, however, oppose “transfer” of any parts of those territories “to any other Power.”
3. The UK and US would not “…aim at the possession of any portion of [those territories] ourselves.”
Monroe,
Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison agreed to the proposal, as did
Monroe’s cabinet, with one exception. Adams dissented. He knew Canning
would tell other powers of British policy, making a joint statement
unnecessary. Indeed, Canning did not wait for Adams to respond before
doing so. The powers knew the UK navy would keep them at bay because
the British fleet was stronger than their combined navies. Adams
interpreted the second point as intending to involve the US in European
politics. Finally, he saw the last point as a “pledge against ourselves”
to stop westward expansion into Spanish territories even if they
“solicit a union with us.” Finally, a joint statement would make the US
“subordinate” to the UK. His powerful metaphor was “a cockboat in the
wake of the British man-of-war.”
Instead,
Adams argued for the method he and Canning used for Russia’s overreach
in the Pacific, separate statements of a common policy. Adams’s
statement also had three main points:
1. The US had not and would not interfere in existing colonies.
2. The
US would consider any attempt by “the allied powers… to extend their
system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and
safety.”
3. For
colonies that “have declared their independence and maintained it, any
interposition…by any European power… for the purpose of oppressing them…
[will be viewed as a] manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward
the United States.”
This
defined the political agreement with the UK as a common interest in
seeing hemispheric nations become independent. Gone was any hint of
involvement in European intrigues, or limiting westward expansion, or
being a “cockboat.” Both sides benefitted, but Adams’s clever maneuver
turned a page in US diplomatic history. Canning was pleased enough to
boast that he had called “the new world into existence to redress the
balance of the old."
In
December 1823, Monroe agreed and delivered his address to Congress. As
historians have noted, the Doctrine’s intellectual author was Adams.
Samuel Elliott Morison asserted that Monroe “never really understood the
significance, or grasped the essential principles, of the message that
bears his name.” Instead, two statesmen drove the issue to conclusion
with minimal support of their governmental colleagues. Canning got no
support from Tory leaders for his forward-looking American policies.
The Monroe Doctrine at 200 Years: A Barrier Becomes a Community
Monroe’s
statement can be seen as an addendum to Washington’s Farewell Address,
in which Washington foresaw progression towards “…strength and
consistency, which is necessary to give [the US] …the command of its own
fortunes.” Adams’s wise diplomacy gave the nation that command, which
Washington and Jefferson longed for, but which the nation did not have
in its first fifty years.
The
Monroe Doctrine was the capstone of strategic diplomacy of a remarkably
high order by Adams, Castlereagh, and Canning. They knew good relations
between the most powerful European monarchy and the most powerful
American republic would make both nations stronger. It is not a stretch
to say that this is the unnoticed foundation stone of what became the
“special relationship” that has endured to this day despite many
differences.
Additionally,
the outcome was a major factor keeping the Western Hemisphere nearly
untouched by the flood tide of nineteenth century colonialism. Monroe’s
statement was highly praised by Bolívar and other Latin American
liberators and gave some, not yet victorious, a long-awaited boost.
Given the conflict-filled history of nineteenth century Latin America,
it is impossible to explain the absence of recolonialization without
growing US power and the British navy’s Atlantic fleet. We can note that
when the US was weakest, during the Civil War, the monarchies struck
hardest and created Maximilian’s Mexican monarchy -- briefly.
The
crack in the Atlantic Barrier made by this transatlantic understanding
had even longer, unforeseen benefits. The development of conflict-free
transatlantic commerce and communication, made possible by the British
fleet and later the US fleet, transformed the Atlantic Barrier into a
two-way commercial “highway” by 1914. Also, beyond the imagination of
anyone in 1823, by mid-twentieth century the Atlantic became a
super-highway of trade, industry, finance, politics, and culture,
unifying the West in what Walter Lippmann in 1917 named “the Atlantic
Community.”
Most
criticism of the Doctrine by commentators is due, not to the Doctrine,
but to American military interventions after the Roosevelt Corollary of
1904. Roosevelt announced a corollary in reaction to a German-led naval
attack on Venezuela in 1902-03. By then, the weakened British Navy was
no longer dominant. This worried Roosevelt, who wanted to keep
non-hemispheric powers out and have hemispheric nations police
themselves. The policy failed due to Roosevelt’s lack of understanding
of weak, divisive Latin American relationships, and excessive
interventions by Roosevelt’s successors, Taft and Wilson, who intervened
in Caribbean nations over a dozen times in ten years.
After
World War I, Secretary of State Hughes, followed by Presidents Hoover
and Franklin Roosevelt instituted “Good Neighbor” policies to replace
the Corollary. From 1933 until the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, no
military interventions took place. Since that crisis, three
non-consensual military interventions have occurred (Dominican Republic,
Granada, Panama), the last one in 1989. Other activities, not
addressed in the Doctrine or the Corollary, involving political,
economic, military assistance/training, etc. are practiced by
hemispheric and non-hemispheric nations alike.
The
Monroe Doctrine should hold an honored place in the history of the
Americas. Its importance today is greatly reduced because the Atlantic
Community and its regional embodiment, the Organization of American
States (OAS), have moved beyond the simple dicta of Adams and Canning.
We now have new structures of policies and institutions that better
manage the relationships of millions of citizens on both sides of the
Atlantic. But the Monroe Doctrine was the start.