ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 demonstrates that the United States prefers democracy in the Caribbean Basin in order to safeguard its geopolitical/strategic interests, and the object of its interventions is to uphold and assert its preference. The author summarizes the tools that the United States employs in concert with its allies to subject regional regimes to its will: assertive bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, economic restrictions, political and moral force, tools of the market and, ultimately, military pressure. In return, regional powers assert the concept of equality of states as the cornerstone of the relationship among states, and in the formulation of policy based on United States vital interests; it should also respect the vital rights of others, notably the equality of “sovereign” states. However, the author shows that when the geopolitical/strategic interests of a superpower are incompatible with the political aspirations of small states juxtaposed to them, the latter are expected to practice restraint and responsibility in the exercise of those rights. The Monroe Doctrine has had a continuing impact because it seeks to exclude from the Western Hemisphere all rival powers that pose a threat to U.S. national/geostrategic interests.
