Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T16:54:24.581Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Concept of the Caribbean in the Latin American Policy of the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Harold Molineu*
Affiliation:
Department of Government, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio

Extract

During the past twenty years, the United States has been involved in three cases of armed intervention in Latin America: Guatemala in 1954, Cuba in 1961, and the Dominican Republic in 1965. In addition, there was the naval blockade and possibility of intervention in Cuba in 1962 during the missile crisis. Each of these episodes occurred in the Caribbean region (defined as including those areas either in or adjacent to the Caribbean Sea). There were no similar armed interventions elsewhere in Latin America during this period, and in fact, all of the incidents of United States armed intervention in the Twentieth Century have taken place in the Caribbean area. Therefore, in its actions in Latin America, the United States appears to distinguish between the Caribbean area and the rest of the continent. The Caribbean is treated as a special region where military intervention is apparently more justifiable than elsewhere in Latin America. Only in the area outside the Caribbean has Washington found it possible to abide by its inter-American treaty commitments to nonintervention.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bemis, S. F. (1959) “A way to stop the Reds in Latin America.” U.S. News & World Report (December 28): 7780.Google Scholar
Curtin, P. (1955) “The United States and the Caribbean.” Current History 29 (December): 364370.Google Scholar
Dozer, D. (1965) “The inter-oceanic canal problem in the Americas,” pp. 5178 in Bailey, N. (ed.) Latin America. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Gerberding, W. (1966) United States Foreign Policy: Perspectives and Analyses. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Gil, F. (1971) Latin American-United States Relations. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Gillan, J. and Silvert, K. H. (1956) “Ambiguities in Guatemala.” Foreign Affairs 34 (April): 469482.Google Scholar
Hilsman, R. (1967) To Move a Nation. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Lieuwen, E. (1965) U.S. Policy in Latin America. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Mecham, J. L. (1965) Survey of United States-Latin American Relations. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Morgenthau, H. (1951) In Defense of the National Interest. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Perkins, D. (1966) The United States and the Caribbean. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pike, F. (1955) “Guatemala, the United States and communism in the Americas.” Review of Politics 17 (April): 232261.Google Scholar
Plank, J. (1965) “The Caribbean: intervention, when and how.” Foreign Affairs 44 (October): 3748.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roche, J. P. (1961) “Confessions of an interventionist.” New Leader 44 (May 15): 56.Google Scholar
Roucek, J. (1960) “Washington's Panama headache.” Contemporary Review 197 (March): 156159.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, A. Jr., (1965) A Thousand Days. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Sherlock, P. (1963) “Prospects in the Caribbean.” Foreign Affairs 41 (July): 744756.Google Scholar
Slater, J. (1970) Intervention and Negotiation: The United States and the Dominican Revolution. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Spanier, J. (1962, 1971) American Foreign Policy Since World War II. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Stebbins, R. (1963) The United States in World Affairs. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Travis, M. and Watkins, J. T. (1959) “Control of the Panama Canal: an obsolete shibboleth?Foreign Affairs 37 (April): 407418.Google Scholar
U.S. Congress (1962) The Congressional Record. 87th Congress, 2nd Session (September 26). Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State (1965a) Department of State Bull. 53 (July 5, September 13).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State (1965b) Department of State Bull. 52 (May 17).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State (1962) Department of State Bull. 47 (September 24, October 1, December 17).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State (1961) Cuba. Inter-American Series, 66. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State (1960) Department of State Bull. 43 (July 25).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State (1954) Department of State Bull. 31 (July 5, 12).Google Scholar
U.S. House of Representatives (1954) Select Committee on Communist Aggression. Communist Aggression in Latin America. Hearings. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Whitaker, A. (1954) The Western Hemisphere Idea. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Williams, E. J. (1971) The Political Themes of Inter-American Relations. Belmont, Calif.: Duxbury Press.Google Scholar
Wright, Q. (1963) “The Cuban quarantine.” Amer. J. of International Law 59 (July): 546565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar