How the Monroe Doctrine Led to America Occupying Cuba, Panama, Hawaii, and Haiti

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2023

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Following the Napoleonic Wars, a tidal wave of independence movements hit the Western Hemisphere. The United States was afraid that expansionist powers—namely Britain, France, Germany, and Japan—might extend their empires into these regions, threatening the growth of fledgling republics in the Americas. This kicked off a century of American launching well-intentioned but bloody imperialism in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, with the annexation of Hawaii, the Spanish-American War, and military occupations of Cuba, Haiti, Panama, and other countries as a firewall against European expansion.

Only after making these preemptive incursions to restore order and support democracy in its “mortal combat” against imperialism, as Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan put it, did the U.S. get bogged down in interventionist quagmires.

Today’s guest is Sean Mirski, author of “We May Dominate the World: Anxiety, and the Rise of the American Colossus.” Mirski examines a lost chapter of American foreign policy, the century following the Civil War in which the United States carved out a sphere of influence and became the only great power in modern history to achieve regional hegemony.

By understanding what drove the United States’ behavior, it offers a window into the trajectory that other regional powers—including China, Russia, and Iran—may take in the coming decades.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This guy here with another episode of the History Unplugged Podcast.
0:08.1	Why does the United States have territorial possessions in the Caribbean, like Puerto Rico
0:11.8	and the Virgin Islands?
0:13.4	Why does it also have the territories of American Samoan Guam?
0:16.1	It all has to do with a long but forgotten period of American foreign policy, kicked off
0:20.7	after the War of 1812 and them enrobed doctrine but forbade European military intervention in
0:25.9	the New World.
0:27.2	This policy got much stronger in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the US didn't
0:31.5	just prevent but would militarily intervene in affairs between European and Latin American
0:36.0	governments, leading to the annexation of Hawaii, the Spanish-American War, military occupation
0:40.8	of Cuba, Haiti, Panama, and other countries.
0:43.1	This was all part of a master plan to achieve regional hegemony where no outside power
0:48.1	could threaten the United States, but it got the US bogged down in interventionist quagmires
0:52.1	where in attempts to stabilize neighbors, it just as often destabilized them.
0:56.1	To look at this forgotten period of the US foreign policy as today's guests, Sean Merzky,
0:59.9	author of We May Dominate the World, Ambition, Exitity, and the rise of the American Colossus.
1:04.8	We look at the growing pains of American military power, how the United States went from
1:08.6	barely being able to keep European powers away from the New World, to being confident that
1:13.0	no foreign intervention would happen after World War I, to being the global superpower
1:17.2	after World War II, and having, by the America, being such an afterthought that people like
1:21.3	Henry Kissinger are saying that it doesn't matter when it comes to foreign policy.
1:24.9	So understanding this period is a great exploration of power politics, real politics, and where
	...

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