1) American Interests: Strategic Control of the Region and Shaping Its Political Environment in Peace Time. U.S. naval presence in the Caribbean in the early years of the Twentieth Century constitutes the first sustained American attempt to shape a peacetime political environment. Naval presence throughout the region sought to achieve two distinct goals, one military and the other political. It was in the Caribbean during the Progressive era that the United States first made the direct linkage between its own national security and the economic and political stability in other states.
A) Military Goals Once the United States committed to the unilateral construction of the Panama Canal, naval preeminence in the Caribbean became a vital national interest. The prime concern was to prevent another great power from gaining influence in the region. Naval interventions by Britain, Germany, and Italy during the Venezuelan Debt Crisis of 1902 pointed out how indebtedness and domestic instability within Caribbean states might come to justify European intervention in the region.
B) Political and Economic Goals One way of denying European powers the justification for intervention was to accept responsibility for the political and economic stability in the region. This was largely the point of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. If the European powers were to be kept out of the Caribbean, the United States must promote a certain level of political and economic stability within the factious republics of the Caribbean. To help achieve these goals, the United States turned to its military, especially its naval forces.
2) American Power: The Sources of American Influence in the Region Three factors contributed to American ability to shape the peacetime environment in the Caribbean.
A) Military Power Military Power was overwhelming in favor of the United States in the Region. In any measure of material capabilities--especially in naval force levels--no regional power could approach the United States. In terms of other great powers, all had withdrawn any appreciable forces from the region. This left the United States as the only regional naval power.
B) Domestic Support In addition to military preeminence, intervention in the Caribbean was encouraged by domestic reformers who embraced a liberal internationalist foreign policy. The interventionism in the Caribbean fit nicely with the "activism" that was the hallmark for the Progressive era. American foreign policy in the Caribbean can be seen as a logical extension of Progressivism and therefore received a fair degree of support from American Progressives. There was a marriage of convenience between the military strategists who envisioned a strong naval presence in the Caribbean as a vital national interest and the liberal internationalists who envisioned a strong naval presence as a way to impose order and foster reform in the troubled Caribbean states.
C) International Law and Norms The third source of encouraging successful American intervention in the Caribbean rested on international law and norms. In its decision in the case of Venezuelan Debt Crisis, the Hague reiterated the right of states to intervene to protect property and nationals. The United States interpreted this as a right to intervene to bring stability and avoid damage to property. No other powers challenged this right for the United States to intervene in the Caribbean.
3) American Success and Failure in Shaping the Peacetime Environment in the Caribbean. While the United States succeeded in protecting entrance to the Panama Canal and successfully deterred the encroachment of any other major powers into the region, its efforts to bring democracy, political stability, and economic development to the region failed. The American experience in the Caribbean during the Progressive era should serve as a reminder of the difficulties inherent to a policy of fostering democracy and economic growth and stability abroad. Even when the United States possessed overwhelming material capabilities, near constant naval presence in the region, little international opposition, and strong domestic support, it was unable to transform the political institutions of nearby neighboring states.
[The full text of the article is available at <http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/rhe02/rhe02d.pdf>.] -- Yoshie
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