The Monroe Doctrine and United States National Security in the Early Twentieth Century (Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World)

This book demonstrates that during the early twentieth century, the Monroe Doctrine served the role of a national security framework that justified new directions in United States foreign relations when the nation emerged as one of the world’s leading imperial powers. As the United States’ overseas empire expanded in the wake of the Spanish-American War, the nation’s decision-makers engaged in a protracted debate over the meaning and application of the doctrine, aligning it to two antithetical core values simultaneously: regional hegemony in the Western Hemisphere on the one hand, and Pan-Americanism on the other. The doctrine’s fractured meaning reflected the divisions that existed among domestic perceptions of the nation’s new role on the world stage and directed the nation’s approach to key historical events such as the acquisition of the Philippines, the Mexican Revolution, the construction of the Panama Canal, the First World War, and the debate over the League of Nations. Acknowledgements......Page 6 Contents......Page 8 List of Figures......Page 9 Introduction: A Cluster of Loyalties......Page 11 The Empire of the Monroe Doctrine......Page 29 Out of Line with American History......Page 32 A General Principle of Living Policy......Page 45 Regional Hegemony and Pan-Americanism......Page 55 Ordered Liberty......Page 58 Fellow Sponsors......Page 70 The German Peril......Page 81 Navies and Islands......Page 91 The Japanese Peril......Page 98 A Shibboleth and a War......Page 103 An Obsolete Shibboleth?......Page 107 Divorced from the Old World......Page 118 Conflicted Diplomacy......Page 132 The Trichotomy of the Treaty Fight......Page 140 A Defence of the Monroe Doctrine......Page 145 A Monroe Doctrine for the World......Page 155 Regional Organisation......Page 162 Recognition, Reservation, and Rejection......Page 168 One Hundred Years and Still Going Strong?......Page 179 Fiasco at Santiago......Page 183 Fittingly Observed......Page 188 Defects in Its Own Nature......Page 203 Conclusion: Anything or Nothing......Page 209 Bibliography......Page 217 Index......Page 245