“Over the last 200 years, administrations of all stripes have used the Monroe Doctrine as a way to frame their foreign policy, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, but globally as well,” says Stam, who also serves as a faculty senior fellow at UVA’s Miller Center.
According to the U.S. State Department, the doctrine includes three tenets: nonintervention, noncolonization and separate spheres. These tenets can be broken down into four core principles.
What are the four principles of the Monroe Doctrine?
The four principles of the Monroe Doctrine are:
A U.S. commitment to stay out of European conflicts
An American pledge to not disturb existing European colonies in the Western Hemisphere
A ban on new colonization in the Americas
A warning that European interference in the Americas would threaten U.S. security
Against a backdrop of European tumult and democracy’s spread across the Americas, Monroe framed each of these points as follows.
1. A US commitment to stay out of European conflicts
Monroe declared that America would not “interfere in the internal concerns” of European powers. Europe in 1823 was still sorting out the wreckage of the Napoleonic Wars and dealing with revolutions, and staying out of wars and conflicts, Stam notes, was both ideological and practical for the U.S. “The United States is sort of militarily quite weak at this point,” he says. Neutrality kept the young republic from being pulled into Old World rivalries.
Beyond that, it underscored the ideological differences on each side of the Atlantic. The Americas embraced democratic republics, whereas monarchy ruled in Europe. This principle made clear, as the Miller Center states, “European powers should not attempt to impose their form of government in the Americas, and the United States would, in turn, not involve itself in European politics.”
From the doctrine: “Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto as the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none.”
2. An American pledge to not disturb existing European colonies in the Western Hemisphere
Monroe said the U.S. would not interfere with “the existing colonies or dependencies” of European nations. This encompassed Britain’s control of Canada and several Caribbean territories, at the time. Even if the U.S. had wanted that to change, its small Navy was not capable of challenging America’s former colonizer. “Great Britain still has the world’s strongest navy,” Stam says, explaining the strategy as, “We’re going to let Britain be Britain, but we’re not going to let anybody build anything new.”
From the doctrine: “With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere.”
3. A ban on new colonization in the Americas
With independence movements surging in Latin America, Monroe made it clear that the Western Hemisphere was closed to outside claims. At the time, there were fears that European powers, especially Spain and France, would attempt to reclaim territories. Monroe, Stam says, was “astutely observing these changes and [other] changes coming down the pike.”
From the doctrine: “The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”
4. A warning that European interference would threaten US security
Monroe warned that the U.S. would see efforts by European powers to oppress or control independent republics in the Western Hemisphere as “dangerous to our peace and safety.” Over time, presidents have stretched this idea into an enforcement clause. The Monroe Doctrine, Stam says, has become “a Rorschach for presidencies,” invoked to justify everything from resisting Soviet missiles in Cuba to broader U.S. influence in the Caribbean and Latin America.
From the doctrine: “We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.”
