So the Monroe Doctrine
was articulated in 1823, right at the-- in
the immediate wake of Latin American independence. After a decade or so of a pretty
brutal war, most of the region had managed to extricate
itself from colonial rule. So the Monroe Doctrine did
a few different things. First, it declared a
policy of non-interference in European affairs. Second, it declared
respect for the sovereignty of the newly independent
Latin American countries. But it also said that
the Western hemisphere would be closed off from
further colonization from European powers. If European countries
were to come and try to colonize countries in
the Western hemisphere, the United States would
see this as a direct attack on the United States. It declares a kind
of sovereignty or a kind of authority over
the entire Western hemisphere. Interestingly, in 1823, when
this policy was articulated, the United States didn't
really have the military juice to back this up. Like, they didn't
have the kind of Navy that really would have been able
to enforce this kind of policy. So it was a policy
that was articulated without any real teeth to it. When Roosevelt
states his corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine, of course the world is vastly different
than it was in 1823. So by the beginning
of the 20th century, the United States has emerged
onto the global scene as itself a kind of colonial power,
with colonies in the Pacific, with the Philippines, and
Hawaii, these new territories, territory in Guam, and of
course in the Caribbean, with Puerto Rico. As a new colonial power that has
emerged onto the global stage, the United States is able
to exert its authority in a new kind of way. In 1904, what Roosevelt does
during his State of the Union address is that he articulates
what he calls the corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. While officially it could
be seen as an elaboration upon the Monroe Doctrine,
really, in some ways it represents a clear
divergence from the provisions of the Monroe Doctrine. So gone is language of
respect for the sovereignty of independent countries
in the Western hemisphere, and you have the emergence
of a new kind of language of civilization, that the
United States sees itself as having the authority
of a police power. Roosevelt states that
independence should not be separated from the
responsibility of making good use of your independence. And so what that
means in practice is that the United States
begins taking up this authority to determine whether or not
a country is, quote unquote, "making good use" of
their independence. And in cases where the United
States feels that a country is not making good use
of its independence, has given itself the authority
to intervene directly in that country's
internal affairs and to protect the economic
interests of the United States, particularly as well as
the economic interests of European powers. What's important, really,
about the Roosevelt corollary is that it provides
a new foreign policy rationale for the United
States to exert much more direct influence over the
internal affairs of countries in the region, particularly
in the Caribbean and Central America. And it begins this new period
of both direct military intervention and
often the threat of military intervention,
which would sometimes do the job of making
sure that countries in Central America
or the Caribbean would do right by US investors
or European investors. So this marks a real shift in
US policy towards the region and a much more aggressive
period of direct US military and economic
interventionism in the greater Caribbean region.