The U.S. and the Caribbean: The Power of the Whirlpool

Abstract

The Spanish-American War heralded the beginning of America's global role and its preoccupation with the Caribbean area. There are a host of theories to explain U.S. involvement in the Caribbean, but over time, the whirlpool pattern of intense involvement followed by disinterest suggests that security considerations have remained paramount. U.S. policy in the twentieth century can be divided into three periods: the protectorate era (1898-1933); the Good Neighbor Policy (1933-53); and the Cold War (1953-90). Whether the United States will be able to escape the unproductive and erratic relationships of the past depends on whether it uses the post-Cold War era to develop a collective defense of democracy and a social safety net for the poor people in the countries of the region.

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References

1. “The President's News Conference, January 29, 1981,” in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1981 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1982), p. 59.

cited in Samuel Flagg Bemis , Latin American Policy of the United States: An Historical Interpretation (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943), p. 408n.

3. Robert A. Pastor , Whirlpool: U.S. Foreign Policy toward Latin America and the Ca-ribbean (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).

4. Theodore Roosevelt , “Annual Message from President Theodore Roosevelt to the United States Congress, December 6, 1904,” reprinted in The Evolution of Our Latin American Policy: A Documentary Record, ed. James W. Gantenbein (New York: Octagon, 1971), pp. 361-362.

5. Letter from Robert Lansing , former Secretary of State, to Senator Medill McCormick, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Haiti and Santo Domingo, 4 May 1922, in Evolution of Our Latin American Policy, ed. James W. Gantenbein , p. 636.

6. Bemis , Latin American Policy of the United States, pp. 185-189.

7. Franklin D. Roosevelt , “Our Foreign Policy: A Democratic View,” Foreign Affairs, 6:584-585 (July 1928).

Bryce Wood , The Making of the Good Neighbor Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961).

9. For an excellent account of U.S. policy toward Cuba when Welles was ambassador, see Wood , Making of the Good Neighbor Policy, chaps. 2, 3.

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10. The literature on the Guatemalan revolution is diverse in interpretation. The best recent book that incorporates much of the evidence of the previous works is by Piero Gleijeses , Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

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11. See Abraham F. Lowenthal , The Dominican Intervention (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972).

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12. For an analysis of the Carter, Reagan, and Bush administrations, see Pastor , Whirlpool, chaps. 3-5.

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13. Quoted in Ronnie Dugger , On Reagan: The Man and His Presidency (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983), p. 353.

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14. Time for Action: The Report of the West Indian Commission (Barbados: West Indian Commission, 1992), pp. 457-458.

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15. For a strategy for both the United States and the Caribbean, see Robert A. Pastor and Richard Fletcher , “Twenty-First Century Challenges for the Caribbean and the United States: Toward a New Horizon,” in Democracy in the Caribbean: Political, Economic, and Social Perspectives, ed. Jorge I. Domínguez , Robert A. Pastor , and Delisle Worrell (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), pp. 255-276.