Roosevelt Corollary

Can a Nobel Peace Prize winner use military means to intervene in foreign countries? This was the "Big Stick" diplomacy of President Teddy Roosevelt in the Western hemisphere. This form of diplomacy was linked to the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine proposed by the President in 1904. From that point forward, the U.S. perceived itself entitled to interfere in the affairs of Latin America and the Caribbean to defend its interests.

Roosevelt Corollary: History

The purpose of the Roosevelt Corollary (1904) was for the United States to defend its own perceived interests in the western hemisphere by meddling in the domestic politics of Latin American countries. The corollary was an extension of the Monroe Doctrine (1823), which defined the western hemisphere as an exclusive U.S. sphere of influence.

Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine

In December 1823, President James Monroe (1758-1831) announced what came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine in an address to Congress. This doctrine became essential to early American foreign policy and is still relevant today. The immediate circumstances of the announcement were the interest in the Pacific Northwest expressed by the Russian Empire and a concern for the Spanish re-colonization of countries like Mexico.

Fig. 1 - Uncle Sam, representing the U.S., stands between the Europeans and Latin Americans from Nicaragua and Venezuela, Victor Gillam, 1896.

Since the U.S. was a young country, Monroe perceived the doctrine as a defensive strategy to prevent further European expansion into the region:

The President effectively declared the Western hemisphere an exclusively American sphere of influence and argued that the U.S. would:

Today, the American government still considers Latin America and the Caribbean its "backyard."

President Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt (1858-1919) served as the 26th President of the United States between 1901 and 1909. Roosevelt took part in the Spanish-American War (1898) in the U.S. Army. His political career included working as the Civil Service Commissioner and the Governor of New York state. Eventually, he served as Vice-President, and after President William McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt became President in 1901.

Fig. 2 - President Theodore Roosevelt, ca. 1904.

Roosevelt was in power during the early days of American imperialism and its vital turning point, the Spanish-American War. The United States acquired Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Roosevelt's foreign policy in Latin America was somewhat aggressive, as evident in his 1904 Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.

At the same time, the President acted as a peacemaker. He received the Noble Peace Prize when he brokered the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905), which concluded the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).

Roosevelt Corollary: Significance

The Monroe Doctrine (1823) sought to prevent further European colonization in the western hemisphere. The Roosevelt Corollary (1904) extended this idea by justifying U.S. interventionism in the Americas, including direct military and indirect economic means.

Fig. 3 - Theodore Roosevelt used the Monroe Doctrine to keep Europeans out of the Dominican Republic, Judge Company Publishers, 1904. The caption reads, "Hands Off! This, in reality, entails no new obligations upon us, for the Monroe Doctrine means precisely such a guarantee on our part."

Roosevelt Corollary: Imperialism

Some historians argue that the Roosevelt Corollary was part of American imperialism.

Big Stick Diplomacy

In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt made a famous statement that was then used to describe his style of foreign policy:

This type of foreign policy relied upon:

• the military, especially the Navy, with significant capability used both as a deterrent and for direct enforcement of American interests;
• a pragmatic, realist approach to international relations.

Fig. 4 - Theodore Roosevelt and his Big Stick in the Caribbean, by William Allen Rogers, 1904.

Roosevelt Corollary: Examples

There are many examples of using the Roosevelt Corollary.

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal was built to decrease the travel time between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. In the early 20th century, Panama was part of Columbia. The United States fostered unrest in Panama to avoid the high fees of canal construction. The U.S. Navy provided the military backing for Panama's successful revolt against Columbia. As a result, Panama became an independent country and received large sums of money from the U.S. In turn, the U.S. obtained rights to the canal. Only in 1999 did the Americans return the canal ownership to Panama.

Roosevelt Corollary: Dollar Diplomacy

"Dollar diplomacy" refers to using economic methods, such as loans, in foreign policy. The term came from President William Howard Taft (1857-1930), who was in power between 1909 and 1913, in his December 1912 message to Congress:

The link between diplomacy and trade predated the Taft administration. However, at this time, the American government became more involved in fostering international trade relations. In theory, such ties were to benefit all parties involved. In practice, it was not always so. Sometimes American corporations practiced neo-colonialism.

United Fruit Company and Neocolonialism

The United Fruit Company (1899-1970) was a prominent American business thrived until the mid-20th century. It sold fruit, such as bananas, from Latin America to Europe and the United States.

The corporation was so large that it significantly influenced the entire Latin American region. The United Fruit Company owned not only vast amounts of land but also controlled transportation routes.

Fig. 5 - United Fruit Company Steamship Line advertisement in Scribner's Magazine, 1916.

Powerful multinational corporations like the United Fruit Company gave rise to the derogatory term "banana republic."

Thanks to the monopoly of the United Fruit Company, countries like Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Honduras came to be known as "banana republics." Therefore, some historians consider the impact of this U.S. corporation a form of neocolonialism.

Aftermath

The Roosevelt Corollary and the Monroe Doctrine stayed relevant in American foreign policy.

The United States still relies on some of the principles of the Roosevelt Corollary to this day.

Good Neighbor Policy

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the Good Neighbor Policy. The initiative sought to mend the relations between the United States and Latin America. This relationship deteriorated, in part, because of American meddling in the internal affairs of foreign countries in the region.

Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis took place in October 1962. It followed the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961 in an attempt to overthrow that country's leader Fidel Castro. In 1959, Cuba had a successful revolution, and the Americans feared the spread of Communism in their "backyard" in the context of the Cold War.

Fig. 6 - CIA report on the Bay of Pigs Invasion was declassified in 1998.

The U.S. placed missiles with nuclear capability in Turkey, on the border of the Soviet Union. In response, the Soviet Union sought to house nuclear missiles in Cuba. By late October, the two superpower leaders, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, deescalated the situation. However, this incident was the closest that the world came to a dangerous nuclear exchange during the Cold War.

These events had global implications. They were also partly the result of the U.S. perception of Cuba as a country in its sphere of influence, where the Americans were entitled to intervene without concern for the Cubans' choosing their path.