What happened to the Monroe doctrine — is it still in the books?
I forgot — no nads to support or enforce it.
The Monroe doctrine was never “on the books”. It was a foreign policy doctrine espoused by Monroe that was essentially the idea that the entire western hemisphere was an American sphere of interest and that European intervention in the Western Hemisphere would be opposed by the US. Obviously, Monroe lacked the power to implement this. There was still plenty of European intervention in the Western US, the Carribean, Alaska, and Latin America at that time. It became more of a reality after the Latin American countries gained independence, but even then was never really fully implemented, as the French invasion and occupation of Mexico in the 1860’s as well as Soviet actions in Cuba and Nicaragua attest.
At a time when the Middle East, Afghanistan and
China monopolize U.S. foreign-policy, Latin
America hasn’t received much attention. Until
today, that is, when Secretary of State John
Kerry declared the expiration of the nearly 200-
year old lodestar of U.S. diplomacy in the
Americas.
“The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,” Mr.
Kerry said in a speech at the Organization of
American States in Washington, D.C.-Nov 18 2013