ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 reviews the broad and arbitrary applications of the Monroe Doctrine to justify American territorial expansion and imperial ambitions in the American hemisphere. Between 1890 and 1915, the U.S. exercised hegemony in the Caribbean Basin; it intervened in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Haiti and it created a protectorate over Cuba. This was a new signal to Europe that the U.S. had assumed responsibility to ensure civilised behaviour and good governance in the hemisphere – a manifestation of increasing power and the ideology of the U.S. mission. However, this new policy was a distortion of the original doctrine and inconsistent with the principle of political, commercial and cultural cooperation among the countries of the Americas. In accordance with the policy of the Good Neighbour, the U.S. signed a number of treaties on non-intervention in the internal affairs of regional states. Thereafter, the Monroe Doctrine ceased to be a unilateral declaration of United States interest and policy; it became a multilateral compact, with regional states sharing responsibility for the defence of the hemisphere.
