Roosevelt Corollary
Roosevelt Corollary
The Roosevelt Corollary is a corollary to
the Monroe Doctrine that was articulated by
President Theodore Roosevelt in his State of
the Union Address in 1904. The corollary
states that the United States will intervene in
conflicts between European Nations and
Latin American countries to enforce
legitimate claims of the European powers,
rather than having the Europeans press their
claims directly.
Background
In late 1902, Britain, Germany, and Italy
implemented a naval blockade of several
months against Venezuela because of
President Cipriano Castro's refusal to pay
foreign debts and damages suffered by
European citizens in a recent Venezuelan
civil war. The incident was called the
Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903, and led to
Political cartoon depicting Theodore Roosevelt using the Monroe Doctrine to keep
the development of the Roosevelt
European powers out of the Dominican Republic.
Corollary.[1] An
international
court
concluded on 22 February 1904 that the blockading powers involved in the Venezuela Crisis were entitled to
preferential treatment in the payment of their claims.[1] The U.S. disagreed with the decision in principle, and feared
it would encourage future European intervention to gain such advantage.[1] In order to preclude European
intervention, the Roosevelt Corollary asserted a right of the United States to intervene in order to "stabilize" the
economic affairs of small states in the Caribbean and Central America if they were unable to pay their international
debts.
Content of Corollary
Roosevelt's December 1904 annual message to Congress declared
All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country
whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows
how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its
obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which
results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require
intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the
Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or
impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.
While the Monroe Doctrine had warned European powers to keep their hands off countries in the Americas,
President Roosevelt was now saying that "since the United States would not permit the European powers to lay their
hands on, he had an obligation to do so himself. In short, he would intervene to keep them from intervening."[2]
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Roosevelt Corollary
Use of the Corollary
The Roosevelt Corollary was supposed to be an addition to the Monroe Doctrine, however, it could be seen as a
departure. While the Monroe Doctrine said European countries should stay out of Latin America, the Roosevelt
Corollary took this further to say that the United States had the right to exercise military force in Latin American
countries in order to keep European countries out. Historian Walter LaFeber wrote
[Roosevelt] essentially turns the Monroe Doctrine on its head and says the Europeans should stay out, but the
United States has the right, under the doctrine, to go in in order to exercise police power to keep the Europeans
out.
It's a very neat twist on the Monroe Doctrine, and, of course, it becomes very, very important because over the
next 15 to 20 years, the United States will move into Latin America about a dozen times with military force, to
the point where the United States Marines become known in the area as "State Department troops" because
they are always moving in to protect State Department interests and State Department policy in the Caribbean.
So what Roosevelt does here, by redefining the Monroe Doctrine, turns out to be very historic, and it leads the
United States into a period of confrontation with peoples in the Caribbean and Central America, that was a
really important part of American imperialism.[3]
U.S. Presidents cited the Roosevelt Corollary as justification for U.S. intervention in Cuba (1906–1909),[4]
Nicaragua (1909–1910, 1912–1925 and 1926–1933),[5] Haiti (1915–1934),[5] and the Dominican Republic
(1916–1924).[5]
Shift to the "Good Neighbor" policy
In 1928, under President Calvin Coolidge, the Clark Memorandum stated that the U.S. did have the right to intervene
when there was a threat by European powers, reversing the Roosevelt Corollary. Herbert Hoover also helped move
the U.S. away from the imperialist tendencies of the Roosevelt Corollary by going on good-will tours, withdrawing
troops from Nicaragua and Haiti, and generally abstaining from intervening in the internal affairs of neighboring
countries.[6] In 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt further renounced interventionism and established his "Good Neighbor
Policy", leaving unchallenged the emergence of dictatorships like that of Batista in Cuba or Trujillo in the
Dominican Republic.[7] Three highly oppressive dictators-Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo, Nicaraguan
dictator Anastasio Somoza, and Haitian dictator François Duvalier- were each considered to be "frankenstein
dictators" due to the mishandlings of the American occupations in the countries.[7]
Criticism
The argument made by Mitchener and Weidenmier (2006)[8] in support of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine has been criticized on the grounds that it "represent[s] the one-sided approach that some scholars bring to
the study of imperialistic and hegemonic interventions and also highlight how arguments for the general utility of
imperialism are increasingly made and accepted." Christopher Coyne and Stephen Davies, in their article "Nineteen
Public Bads of Empire, Nation Building, and the Like" [9], argue that a foreign policy modeled on the Roosevelt
Corollary leads to negative consequences both in national security terms and in terms of its effect on domestic
politics.
Critics, such as Noam Chomsky, have argued that the Roosevelt Corollary was merely a more explicit imperialist
threat, building on the Monroe Doctrine, and indicating that the U.S. would intervene not only in defense of South
American states in the face of European imperialism, but would also use its muscle to obtain concessions and
privileges for American corporations.[10]
Serge Ricard of the University of Paris goes even further, stating that the Roosevelt Corollary was not merely an
addendum to the earlier Monroe Doctrine, through which the U.S. pledged to protect the Americas from European
imperialist interventions. Rather, the Roosevelt Corollary was "an entirely new diplomatic tenet which epitomized
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Roosevelt Corollary
his 'big stick' approach to foreign policy".[11] In other words, while the Monroe Doctrine sought to bar entry to the
European empires, the Roosevelt Corollary announced America's intention to take their place.
A recently published book, The Imperial Cruise: The Secret History of Empire and War,[12] documents that in 1905
Roosevelt imagined that his "international police powers" extended to North Asia.[13] Unable to use American force
in North Asia, Roosevelt believed that Japanese expansionism into the area would further U.S. interests. In July 1905
Roosevelt secretly agreed a "Japanese Monroe Doctrine for Asia."[14]" that allowed the takeover of Korea by Japan.
With this secret and unconstitutional maneuver,[15] Roosevelt inadvertently ignited the problem (Japanese
expansionism in Asia) that Franklin Delano Roosevelt would later confront during World War II in Asia.[12] The
New York Times wrote, "The Imperial Cruise is startling enough to reshape conventional wisdom about Roosevelt's
presidency."[16]
Bibliography
• Coyne, C.J., Davies, S. (2007). "Empire: Public Goods and Bads". Econ Journal Watch, 4(1), 3-45.
• Glickman, Robert Jay. Norteamérica vis-à-vis Hispanoamérica: ¿opposición o asociación? Toronto: Canadian
Academy of the Arts, 2005. ISBN 0-921907-09-5.
• Meiertöns, Heiko (2010) The Doctrines of US Security Policy - An Evaluation under International Law,
Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-76648-7.
• Mellander, Gustavo A. (1971) The United States in Panamanian Politics: The Intriguing Formative Years.
Daville, Illinois: Interstate Publishers. OCLC 138568.
• Mellander, Gustavo A. ; Nelly Maldonado Mellander (1999). Charles Edward Magoon: The Panama Years. Río
Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Plaza Mayor. ISBN 1-56328-155-4. OCLC 42970390.
• Nancy Mitchell. The Danger of Dreams: German and American Imperialism in Latin America (1999),
• Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies 2006 36(1): 17-26. ISSN: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in
Swetswise and Ingenta
References
[1] Maass, Matthias (2009), Catalyst for the Roosevelt Corollary: Arbitrating the 1902-1903 Venezuela Crisis and Its Impact on the Development
of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Volume 20, Issue 3, p383-402
[2] Bailey, Thomas Andrew. "Roosevelt Launches a Corollary." The American Spirit: Since 1865. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 198. Print.
[3] Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President. Prod. David Grubin. By David Grubin and Geoffrey C. Ward. Perf. Walter LaFeber. David Grubin
Productions, Inc., 1996. Transcript (http:/ / www. pbs. org/ wgbh/ amex/ presidents/ 26_t_roosevelt/ filmmore/ ra_lafecoro. html)
[4] Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: a Concise History of the American People. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008. 596. Print.
[5] Bailey, Thomas Andrew. "A Latin American Protests (1943)." The American Spirit: Since 1865. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 199. Print.
[6] Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: a Concise History of the American People. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008. 706. Print.
[7] American foreign relations: a history. Since 1895, Volume 2, 7th Edition, Wadsworth, pg. 162-168, 2010
[8] Kris James Mitchener & Marc D. Weidenmier, 2005. "Supersanctions and Sovereign Debt Repayment", NBER Working Papers 11472,
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[9] http:/ / www. independent. org/ publications/ tir/ article. asp?a=648
[10] Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004
[11] Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary" (http:/ / www. jstor. org/ stable/ 27552743). Presidential Studies Quarterly 36 (2006) 17-26
[12] The Imperial Cruise: The Secret History of Empire and War. Little, Brown, & Co., 2009. ISBN 0-316-00895-8
[13] North Asia—includes Northern China, Siberian Russia, Korea and Japan. In Theodore Roosevelt's presidency, London and Washington
were players in North Asia. North Asia—includes Northern China, Siberian Russia, Korea and Japan. In Theodore Roosevelt's presidency,
London and Washington were players in North Asia.
[14] Japanese Monroe Doctrine for Asia http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ Japanese_Monroe_Doctrine_for_Asia
[15] The Constitution requires presidents to submit treaties to the Senate for approval. Through his Secretary of War William Howard Taft,
Roosevelt agreed a secret treaty with Japanese Prime Minister Katsura in 1905.
[16] "The Queasy Side of Theodore Roosevelt's Diplomatic Voyage" (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2009/ 11/ 19/ books/ 19book. html), by Janet
Maslin, Nov. 18, 2009.
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Article Sources and Contributors
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Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors
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