{"id":1443001,"date":"2023-12-09T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1443001"},"modified":"2023-12-09T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T09:00:00","slug":"americas-best-strategy-for-cold-war-ii-is-200-years-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/americas-best-strategy-for-cold-war-ii-is-200-years-old\/1443001\/","title":{"rendered":"America’s Best Strategy For Cold War II Is 200 Years Old"},"content":{"rendered":"

America’s Best Strategy For Cold War II Is 200 Years Old<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Hal Brands, op-ed via Bloomberg.com,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Monroe Doctrine is disparaged in Washington and Latin America, but it remains the foundation of the\u00a0liberal international order the US leads today…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI believe strictly in the Monroe Doctrine, in our Constitution and in the laws of God,\u201d one American religious leader\u00a0declared\u00a0<\/a>in 1923. That same year, 10 million American schoolchildren were subjected to a centennial recitation of President James Monroe\u2019s famous doctrine in class.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>Monroe\u00a0said\u00a0<\/a>in December 1823. For generations thereafter, that statement was a cardinal principle of US policy. It fused America\u2019s founding ethos of anti-imperialism to the fierce nationalism and outrageous ambition that ultimately allowed the country to surpass every empire on Earth. It even became central to the America\u2019s understanding of itself.<\/p>\n

There have been no such celebrations this weekend to mark the 200th birthday. Most Latin American observers consider the Monroe Doctrine an imperial imposition. Even US officials now see it as an embarrassing anachronism. \u201cThe era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0<\/a>Secretary of State John Kerry in 2013. Yet two centuries after it was issued, that policy remains more relevant than many might like to admit.<\/p>\n

The Monroe Doctrine is a reminder that America\u2019s strategic interests have always been intertwined with its revolutionary values.<\/strong> It represents the regional foundation of the liberal international order the US leads today. And although American policymakers often say the Monroe Doctrine is dead, they don\u2019t \u2014 or shouldn\u2019t \u2014 really mean it.<\/p>\n

The Western Hemisphere was once an imperial battleground. At the start of the 1820s, Spain\u2019s empire stretched from California to the Tierra del Fuego. Britain had territories and interests from Canada to Chile. France was clinging to imperial fragments around the Caribbean; Portugal was trying, vainly, to keep Brazil. Russia\u2019s holdings included Alaska and outposts farther south. Powerful empires sought advantage in the Americas \u2014 and tried to keep a subversive republican newcomer well contained.<\/p>\n

In 1823, America\u2019s strategic landscape was\u00a0menacing<\/a>. The collapse of Spanish and Portuguese empires in Latin America was birthing new nations. But a\u00a0coalition<\/a>\u00a0of European monarchies \u2014 the Holy Alliance of Austria, Prussia and Russia \u2014 was considering intervention to recolonize those countries; just two years earlier Russia had threatened a push down North America\u2019s Pacific Coast. The Western Hemisphere was potentially facing a two-pronged absolutist assault. The US would then be surrounded by hostile, antidemocratic empires, foreclosing its future expansion and perhaps threatening its survival.<\/p>\n

Monroe\u2019s\u00a0answer<\/a>, drafted by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, combined self-assertion with self-denial. Monroe warned European powers not to seek new colonies in the Western Hemisphere (implicitly counting on Britain, which also opposed its rivals\u2019 expansion, to enforce that ban), pledging that America, in return, would steer clear of Old World conflicts. After a\u00a0slow<\/a>\u00a0start<\/a>, Washington ultimately honored the first part of the doctrine more faithfully than the second.<\/strong><\/p>\n

By the mid-19th century, the US had foreclosed European expansion in North America by taking much of the continent itself. Washington then began pushing European powers out of its neighborhood, forcibly evicting Spain from the Caribbean in 1898. During the early 20th century, the US intervened in unstable nations from Nicaragua to Haiti, primarily to\u00a0deprive<\/a>\u00a0prowling Europeans of chances to meddle. Over the subsequent decades, Washington beat back challenges from countries \u2014 Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union \u2014 that sought Latin American\u00a0footholds<\/a>\u00a0amid the epic global clashes that defined the age.<\/p>\n

No other country in the modern era has dominated its surrounding region so thoroughly, and for so long, as the US. In this sense, America denied imperial prerogatives to its rivals, only to claim them for itself. But it is ironic that the doctrine is now considered a historical relic \u2014 because it continues to influence the long arc of US statecraft around the globe.<\/p>\n

First, the Monroe Doctrine asserted an enduring principle of US strategy \u2014 that America requires a balance of power that favors liberalism.<\/strong> \u201cIt is impossible,\u201d Monroe\u00a0declared<\/a>, \u201cthat the allied powers should extend their political system\u201d \u2014 monarchy \u2014 to the Western Hemisphere \u201cwithout endangering our peace and happiness.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t some rhetorical flourish. America\u2019s founding struggle had been a revolt against monarchy. Its republican government cast it,\u00a0immediately<\/a>, into sharp ideological conflict against Europe\u2019s absolutist regimes. So Monroe was simply explaining that the US could not flourish in an environment ruled by regimes that were inherently, even existentially, hostile to its liberal experiment. Nearly a century later, President Woodrow Wilson\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0more or less the same thing in calling on his country to make a \u201cworld safe for democracy\u201d in World War I.<\/p>\n

The Monroe Doctrine also enshrined a related American tradition \u2014 hostility to rival spheres of interest.<\/strong> The modern era has seen the astounding growth of a US sphere of interest that began in North America and now reaches around the globe. Yet American leaders have never been as\u00a0comfortable<\/a>\u00a0with other powers, especially autocratic powers, carving out their own domains.<\/p>\n

Such arrangements, Monroe\u00a0said<\/a>, could be established only by coercion: Free peoples would never accept them \u201cof their own accord.\u201d Autocratic empires, whether in the Americas or elsewhere, would serve as platforms for subversion, intimidation and aggression against the world beyond. Since the early 20th century, America has fought hot wars and cold wars to keep Eurasian autocracies from establishing globe-threatening spheres of interest in their own regions \u2014 an extension of Monroe\u2019s doctrine, but one he and Adams would have understood.<\/p>\n

Finally, the Monroe Doctrine established the regional primacy that underpins America\u2019s global power.<\/strong> If the US\u00a0faced<\/a>\u00a0serious threats close to home, it would have to deploy vast armies to defend its long land borders. But if America faced no major threats within the Western Hemisphere, it would be free, eventually, to roam the world. Which means that the quasi-imperialistic Monroe Doctrine was vital to the liberal order the US eventually built.<\/p>\n

A country plagued by nearby challenges could not have intervened three times, in the two world wars and the Cold War, to prevent autocratic powers from dominating Eurasia. It could not have secured overseas regions through globe-spanning alliances after 1945. It could not have anchored a thriving international economy and helped democracy spread more broadly than ever before.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s enemies understood this:<\/strong> Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union\u00a0all<\/a>\u00a0meddled<\/a>\u00a0in the Western Hemisphere because they knew that keeping the US preoccupied was essential to imposing their own, darker visions on the world.<\/p>\n

The Monroe Doctrine cast its share of darkness, of course. <\/strong>The tools of US primacy included military interventions in Central America and the Caribbean; coups, covert action and aid for ugly counterinsurgencies in countries throughout the region; and land grabs in strategic points like Puerto Rico and the Panama Canal Zone. Hegemony is a messy business. No country can dominate a vast region while keeping its hands entirely clean.<\/p>\n

When other powers pursued regional empires, in fact, they invoked US policy as their guide. Japan portrayed its aggression in China in the 1930s as a\u00a0sort<\/a>\u00a0of Asian Monroe Doctrine. Today, when Chinese expansionists\u00a0advocate<\/a>\u00a0\u201cAsia for Asians,\u201d or\u00a0call<\/a>\u00a0Central Asia \u201cChina\u2019s Latin America,\u201d they are making, explicitly or implicitly, a similar claim. The truth is a bit more complicated.<\/p>\n

Whatever its failings, the Monroe Doctrine did \u2014 with tacit support from the British Royal Navy \u2014 gradually curtail formal European colonialism in Latin America, an achievement of real value to the independent countries of the region.<\/strong> In the 20th century, moreover, a hemisphere free of US imperialism might well have been more susceptible to fascist or communist influence.<\/p>\n

True, during the Cold War especially, the US\u00a0protected<\/a>\u00a0its regional position through cooperation with friendly dictators. But preventing countries from going communist at least preserved the possibility they would later evolve toward democracy \u2014 as many\u00a0eventually<\/a>\u00a0did, once their economies matured and the politics stabilized, in the 1970s and 1980s. The US placed itself\u00a0firmly<\/a>\u00a0behind this democratic movement: Which of America\u2019s great-power rivals would have done that?<\/p>\n

American primacy has had other benefits. The fact that Latin America \u2014 a region suffused, sadly, with internal violence \u2014 has seen\u00a0so little<\/a>\u00a0interstate conflict in the past century might, perhaps, testify to the role of US power in enforcing a hegemonic peace. Not least, insofar as Latin America has benefitted from the larger liberal order \u2014 one in which trade has surged, living standards have increased and global wars have been avoided for the last 80 years \u2014 it has also benefitted from the US regional supremacy that has enabled a degree of global progress.<\/p>\n

Whatever the costs and benefits, the Monroe Doctrine long ago came to look like an imperial remnant in a post-imperial age.<\/strong> US officials mostly\u00a0stopped<\/a>\u00a0publicly invoking the doctrine after a regionally polarizing CIA intervention in Guatemala in 1954. When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson mentioned the doctrine favorably in 2018, his comments were\u00a0mostly<\/a>\u00a0treated<\/a>\u00a0as a costly gaffe. A policy Americans had once venerated now seemed painfully out of date.<\/p>\n

True, after the Cold War, it had certainly seemed unnecessary. With US power unchallenged, with markets and democracy sweeping the region, everything was going Washington\u2019s way. That\u2019s no longer the case.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For years, the region\u2019s politics have been\u00a0deteriorating<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n

In Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries, illiberal populists have set about destroying democratic norms and institutions. Democracy is fragile and political instability is rising across much of the region.<\/p>\n

Peru is on its fourth president in the last three years; Argentina has elected a Donald Trump acolyte who\u00a0promises<\/a>\u00a0to take a chainsaw to the political system. Mexico, which not long ago was moving toward stronger democracy and better ties with Washington, has\u00a0regressed<\/a>\u00a0in both dimensions under Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador. Economic challenges often exacerbate political problems: Covid battered societies that were already suffering from high levels of economic insecurity.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the US \u2014 which, since the 1990s, has seen the region primarily through the lens of illegal drugs and immigration \u2014 has been\u00a0bleeding<\/a>\u00a0influence. And given that every great-power rivalry of the modern era has ensnared the Western Hemisphere, the bill for that strategic neglect is coming due.<\/p>\n

One US antagonist, Russia, is forging anti-American alliances by making common cause with the region\u2019s most thuggish leaders. <\/strong>When, in 2019, there was talk of US intervention in Venezuela to end the humanitarian catastrophe of Nicolas Maduro\u2019s repressive rule, Russian military contractors\u00a0raced<\/a>\u00a0to the country to protect his regime.<\/p>\n

Russian weapons and intelligence support have bolstered another anti-American dictator, Nicaragua\u2019s Daniel Ortega. Russian sniper rifles were used to\u00a0kill<\/a>\u00a0pro-democracy protestors in 2018; Moscow and Managua have pursued cyber-cooperation to surveil and\u00a0suppress<\/a>\u00a0Nicaragua\u2019s opposition. Russian propaganda and disinformation fuel anti-US sentiment in Latin America and around the globe.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s presence in Latin America remains modest in comparison to the Cold War. But it is supporting states that brutalize their people and oppose US influence as part of a\u00a0larger<\/a>\u00a0\u201craiding strategy\u201d meant to keep Washington off balance by making it play defense around the globe.<\/p>\n

There is also a Chinese challenge. <\/strong>Beijing is building\u00a0influence<\/a>\u00a0for the long term by inserting itself into Latin American economies, infrastructure and communications networks. Through its Digital Silk Road strategy, China is\u00a0proliferating<\/a>\u00a0surveillance technology that bolsters illiberal governments. Its larger Belt and Road Initiative features investments in nuclear power plants, space stations and other significant projects. Under its\u00a0Global Security Initiative<\/a>, Beijing is expanding internal security and intelligence programs in the region, as well.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a military component to Chinese policy, one that has, so far, remained somewhat disguised. From Cuba to Argentina, Beijing has been seeking \u2014 and sometimes\u00a0acquiring<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 access to \u201cdual-use\u201d facilities with potential military uses. US officials reportedly\u00a0worry<\/a>\u00a0that these facilities, such as the Amachuma Ground Station in Bolivia, could enhance China\u2019s global military surveillance network, or eventually lay the basis for power projection in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s autocracies aren\u2019t recolonizing Latin America or supporting communist insurgencies. But the strategic implications of their behavior are real.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 20th century, Eurasian powers stirred the pot of political instability and anti-Americanism in Latin America in hopes of putting Washington on the defensive in its own backyard. Present-day US rivals know that playbook well.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s regional immunity underpins its global influence: A US fending off enemies in its own region will struggle to confront them in Eastern Europe or the Western Pacific. And if Russia or, more likely, China someday dominates its own region, it will have greater leeway to reach into the Western Hemisphere. If anything, the premium on preserving US sway may be higher today than it was in the past, given that pervasive Chinese economic influence in Latin America could spoil\u00a0plans<\/a>\u00a0to nearshore critical supply chains.<\/p>\n

The core of the Monroe Doctrine is as important as ever; another epoch of competition foretells another struggle for influence in the region to America\u2019s south.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say US officials should start waxing nostalgic about James Monroe and John Quincy Adams. There\u2019s no profit in rhetoric that reminds even generally sympathetic Latin American observers of the region\u2019s sometimes-humiliating experience with US power. The best way of obtaining a negative objective \u2014 denying America\u2019s rivals strategic advantage in the Western Hemisphere \u2014 is through a positive program of regional cooperation.<\/p>\n

The US will fare best at countering Chinese economic influence if it pursues a deeper\u00a0regionalization<\/a>\u00a0of trade, manufacturing and financial relationships in the Western Hemisphere. If Washington wishes to turn countries away from Chinese digital and physical infrastructure deals that entrench debt, repression and corruption, it must find ways \u2014 whether alone or with democratic allies \u2014 of financing less-corrosive alternatives.<\/p>\n

Alerting Latin American populations to the downsides of engagement with Moscow or Beijing requires helping governments and private citizens shine\u00a0greater light<\/a>\u00a0on the role of Russian disinformation or China\u2019s tightening grip on some of the region\u2019s most vital resources. Investments in democratic institutions and civil society are good value amid political backsliding; so are efforts to rebuild long-atrophied relationships with the region\u2019s militaries.<\/p>\n

Containing hostile states, in the region and beyond it, entails consolidating relationships with friendly ones. The tighter the bonds of integration within the Americas, the better positioned the US will be within a fragmenting world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s admittedly a tall order right now. Rather than sensibly discussing strategic challenges in Latin America, Republican presidential candidates are\u00a0fantasizing<\/a>\u00a0about fighting the drug war by bombing Mexico. Neither major US political party has the courage to promote trade deals that might meaningfully increase economic integration with Latin America. Generating resources for the region has been a challenge for decades.<\/p>\n

The problem, alas, goes well beyond Washington: From Mexico to South America, many once-reliable partners have been replaced by leaders who view the US with ambivalence at best. But the effort is worth making, because the more America struggles to secure its hemispheric position through positive policies, the more it may eventually rely on harder-edged measures instead.<\/p>\n

Would the US really be more tolerant of its adversaries establishing military bases in Latin America today than it was during the Cold War? If it seems unthinkable that Washington might engage in covert meddling against an authoritarian strongman inviting America\u2019s enemies into the region, or try to sway the outcome of a pivotal election in a pivotal state, that\u2019s only because a generation of easy post-Cold War primacy left the US\u00a0less reliant<\/a>\u00a0than it once was on such distasteful remedies.<\/p>\n

As the longer history of US involvement in Latin America reminds us, even relatively respectable democracies will \u2014 when their strategic vitals are sufficiently threatened \u2014 do some dirty things.<\/p>\n

Two centuries ago, the Monroe Doctrine asserted that the US must keep its rivals at bay within its own hemisphere. In the present era of rivalry, America will need to pursue the same policy, by one means or another.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 12\/08\/2023 – 23:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/americas-best-strategy-cold-war-ii-200-years-old<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America’s Best Strategy For Cold War II Is 200 Years Old Authored by Hal Brands, op-ed via Bloomberg.com, The Monroe Doctrine is disparaged in Washington…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1443001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1443001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1443001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1443001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1443001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}