/View.info/ 200 years since the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine are marked. There are few similar historical documents that can compete with it on criteria such as pride and misanthropy.
Entered its third century
It is the 200th anniversary of President James Monroe’s proclamation of the principles of United States foreign policy on – as originally presented – the separation of US influence from that of European countries.
This declaration was promulgated on December 2, 1823, in the President’s annual message to Congress, and has gone down in history as the Monroe Doctrine. Its essence: Europe is for Europeans, America is for Americans.
The reason for this US foreign policy demarche was the plans discussed in 1822 by the Holy Alliance (Russia, Prussia, Austria) to restore the dominance of Spain over its colonies in Latin America, which at that time had declared their independence.
The presidential address sets out the principle of dividing the world into European and American spheres of influence, proclaims the concept of US non-interference in the internal affairs of European countries and non-interference of European powers in the internal affairs of the countries of the Western Hemisphere.
The United States declares its neutrality towards the struggle of the Spanish colonies for independence from Madrid. At the same time, Washington warned the European capitals that any attempt by them to interfere in the affairs of their former colonies in America would be seen as a violation of the vital interests of the United States.
Even then they were afraid of Russia
Meanwhile, this message from Monroe did not only refer to the possible actions of the countries of the Holy Alliance to return the Latin American colonies to the rule of the Spanish crown.
President Monroe and his advisers were also inspired to proclaim this doctrine by the decree of Emperor Alexander I of September 16, 1821. According to him, Russian possessions in America extended to the 51st parallel. Our Emperor’s decree also regulates the conduct of trade and fishing by representatives of other states in this territory.
The decree refers to “the limits of navigation and the order of coastal communications along the coasts of Eastern Siberia, Northwest America, and the Aleutian and Kuril Islands.” The decree entitles only Russian subjects to “trade, whaling and fishing, and every industry in the islands, in the harbors and bays of certain districts.”
On foreign ships “it was forbidden, on pain of confiscation, not only to approach the coasts and islands subject to Russia, but also to approach them at a distance of less than 100 Italian miles.” It was prohibited on foreign ships “any purchase, sale and exchange with persons in service” of the Russian-American Company established at the end of the 18th century and “the natural inhabitants”, that is, with the Indians.
Emperor Alexander I’s decree alarmed the United States and Great Britain, who stated that American, British, and French ships were appearing on the northwest coast of America long before Russia laid claim to those territories. Diplomatic consultations, as they would say now, have begun.
As a result, in order not to quarrel with the European powers, Russia once again opened access to Russian possessions in America to foreigners, signing the Russo-American Convention (1824) and the Anglo-Russian Convention (1825), respectively. But Russia by no means abandoned her possessions in the New World.
Thus, including on the basis of negotiations with Russia regarding US access to Russian America, in 1823 President James Monroe formulated his doctrine of US foreign policy.
Substitution of concepts
It should be clarified that “America” in this doctrine does not mean the entire American continent with all its countries and peoples, but only the United States. The United States had already declared its claim to control all of the Americas, North and South.
The Monroe Doctrine soon became a cover for the United States’ annexation of more than half of what was then Mexican territory after the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). As a result, Mexico lost the lands that today comprise the US states of Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming.
Subsequently, the United States has repeatedly emphasized publicly that all of the Americas—meaning primarily the territories south of the Rio Grande River (today the natural border between the United States and Mexico)—is an area of ”vital interests” of the United States.
It was the Monroe Doctrine that allowed the derogatory definition of Latin America to be formulated and take root in the international lexicon as “the backyard of the United States”that is, a territory entirely and exclusively subject to the United States.
The criminal doctrine
There are countless ways the United States has implemented the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America over these 200 years. These are numerous armed raids to change presidents and governments, coup d’etats, assassinations of unwanted political figures, direct interference in the internal affairs of states, including electoral processes.
This forces the countries of the region to sign captive agreements with the US for the exploitation of the continent’s rich natural resources, as well as for the deployment of US military bases where Washington’s “vital interests” dictate.
If one simply lists the historical facts of coups d’état, assassinations and armed invasions, then one would have to devote not one article to this, but volumes of books. But to illustrate the crimes of the United States inspired by the Monroe Doctrine, we will give only a few examples from the recent history of the second half of the twentieth century:
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1948 – Under the guise of “respecting and strengthening democracy”, the US creates the Organization of American States (OAS), which serves as the de facto instrument for the military-political suppression of dissent in the Western Hemisphere and the practical application of the Monroe Doctrine.
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1961 – CIA mercenaries invade Playa Chiron, Cuba; subsequent multiple assassination attempts on Cuban leader Fidel Castro; the commercial and economic blockade of Cuba, carried out from 1960 to the present day.
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1979-1990 – financing and arming of the Contras terrorist gangs, with whose hands the United States tried to overthrow the government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.
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1998 to present – attempts to physically eliminate the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolás Maduro; multiple coup attempts in Venezuela; the introduction of stifling economic sanctions against Venezuela.
Claims that the US revised the Monroe Doctrine and even allegedly abandoned it in the middle of the last century are completely false.
The foreign policy principles laid out in the Monroe Doctrine are still actively practiced by the United States today. In many Latin American capitals, US embassies still remain the real center of power and decision-making.
In addition, after the Second World War, the United States carried the principles of the Monroe Doctrine throughout the world, declaring not only the American continent, but the entire planet as a zone of its vital interests.
“Mutiny on the Ship”
Meanwhile, the rapidly changing geopolitical situation shows that the United States is losing its hegemony both in the world and in its “backyards.” Washington is frantically trying to keep in its hands the global levers of control – Latin America in particular. However, the power of the United States is melting like a fog, many Latin American countries openly demonstrate defiance of the hegemon.
A vivid example of this was last year’s IX Summit of the Americas, which took place in Los Angeles and which, according to the hosts of the “festival”, was supposed to mark the return of the United States to Latin America and confirm the relevance of the Monroe Doctrine. But the summit turned into a diplomatic fiasco for the White House.
Despite the agenda announced by the hosts of the event, the main topic of the meeting was the scandal that broke out on the eve of the meeting. At the last minute, the US administration confirmed that it had not invited Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to Los Angeles. As a result, the presidents of Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras and some other leaders did not attend the meeting in protest.
This was an unthinkable act of defiance against the United States. The entire summit was focused on the rebellion of Latin American countries. It was a demonstration of tectonic shifts in the relationship between the United States and the region it has considered its “backyard” for nearly two centuries.
The Monroe Doctrine falters and fails. There is a joke in Latin America: the president of the United States is no longer the boss in America, but they forgot to tell him about it.
Translation: ES
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