The American Spectator

home
ADVERTISEMENT
Print Email
Text Size

The Spectacle Blog

OK Jeff, I'll bite. If the Monroe Doctrine is neoconservative, when did the United States intervene militarily to spread a particular form of government throughout Latin America? Or pursue regime change in the hemisphere? Or wage preventive war, with or without regime change, against the European powers who might conceivably ignore the doctrine's warning?

It took until the Polk administration for the Monroe Doctrine to be applied in an especially expansionist fashion. After that there was talk of forcibly removing the Spanish from Cuba and the movement of U.S. troops to encourage an end to the French occupation of Mexico. It wasn't really interpreted as justifying U.S. intervention in the internal affairs  of Latin American countries until Theodore Roosvelt -- a good bit after the founding generation.

I'll grant that the Roosevelt Corollary is a precursor to neoconservatism. But the Monroe Doctrine was mainly a statement against European intervention in the region, later invoked against Soviet intervention during the Cold War. Noam Chomsky saw it as a statement of U.S. hegemony, however.

View all comments (2) | Leave a comment

Dai Alanye| 12.13.11 @ 12:13PM

Is bringing up Noam Chomsky supposed to strengthen your agument?

Red Phillips| 12.13.11 @ 9:42PM

Dai, Antle is suggesting that Lord is reading the Monroe Doctrine in the same way Chomsky does. But of course Woods, Gutzman et al are the "leftists" in Lord's feeble mind.

Leave a Comment

N.B. We encourage readers to share and discuss their thoughtful and relevant comments about this Spectator article. Comments are routinely monitored and will be deleted if profane, bigoted, or grossly impolite. Please be respectful. (And don't feed the trolls!) Thank you.

More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III

http://spectator.org/blog/2011/12/12/the-neocon-monroe-doctrine

ADVERTISEMENT

SPONSORED LINKS

Special Feature

Better that we become a nation of choosers rather than beggars. Our symposium on choice from the May, 2012 issue:

A Time for Choosing

James Piereson

The Road from Serfdom

Stephen Moore and Peter Ferrara

FLASHBACK TO: 1984

Clip of the Day

Most Popular Articles

Meet the Flukes!

F. H. Buckley | 5.25.12

The Wisconsin Turning Point

Peter Ferrara | 5.23.12

In Search of Muhammad

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi | 5.25.12

Age and Kyl

Quin Hillyer | 5.25.12

Follow Me

Jay D. Homnick | 5.25.12

A Test of National Honor

Hal G.P. Colebatch | 5.25.12

How About the Record of DOE Capital?

William Tucker | 5.25.12

The Great Debate

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. | 5.24.12

ADVERTISEMENT