Ah, so by not allowing Europeans to invade them and extract their debts by force, we were limiting their soverignty?
So, because there was one consequence that was not imperialistic, that means that all of it was not? That's truly horrible logic.
So, how exactly did we "control" these nations?
Economic domination. Our companies can sell at a cheaper price than theirs, so their own businesses are unable to compete; they collapse, and the country becomes tied to the US and US trade. Further, the US is the primary market for most of these nations, so we can dictate what happens to them economically without suffering too much on our own. Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, and Cuba are excellent examples. Each of these nations revolves (though Chile has stepped away from this in recent years) around trading raw materials with the US: the US formed 90% of the buyers of sugar, bananas, Nitrates and Copper, and other products, for Cuba, Guatemala, Chile, and Nicaragua, respectively. When those nations did something the US did not like, it simply embargoed them and strangled their economy until they went back to doing what we wanted them to. Or, in Guatemala's case, a CIA-organized coup against a democratically-elected government, which caused a 40-year civil war. Or, in Nicaragua's case, training and funding kleptocratic terrorist thugs to fight an insurgency that routinely targeted hospitals and schools, and killed thousands of innocent people, and strangled the economy of a nation that had done more for its people in a year than the insurgents had done in their previous thirty years in power. Or, in Chile's case, the CIA again helped Augusto Pinochet to power.
And surely I don't need to explain the Washington Consensus, and how the IMF and World Bank have tied most of Latin America to the whim of US with outlandish loan terms and strictly-enforced, immensely destructive neo-liberal policies. I think nearly every nation now has repaid more money just on interest on the loans than money they borrowed in the first place, but who dares default on it? The US indeed holds the leash on Latin America.
Through our nonexistant yet apparently overpowering military? Or was it through normally negotiated mutually agreed to trade agreements?
In 1823, it was merely a statement. But since then it has evolved into a comprehensive excuse for American imperialism in the Hemisphere.
I again suggest you look up the word imperialism, you are doing to wrong.
I am using the full definition of the word, not shaping it to mean what I want it to mean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_imperialism
Ah, there you go. You see, us negotiating with soverign powers for trade rights or whatever while competing with other powers for the same is not imperialism.
Yes, it is, as I explained above. Economic imperialism ties these nations to the industrial nations, most notably the US, because they can't afford to build the heavy industry required to refine their natural materials, they can only produce them and export them to the US for them to be refined and manufactured, then sold back to them again. That is
precisely what the European colonial powers did to their empires. The US is an Imperialist Power, and has been for a long time.
This is of course besides the point, as all those economic things you refer to ARE NOT THE MONROE DOCTRINE.
Not in writing, but in spirit. Surely you can understand the concept of nuance? Of implied meaning? You think the US honestly wanted to simply police the hemisphere from Europe, and not advance its own interests as well? Even more so, you don't think it
hasn't? And has the US not also changed the scope of the Monroe Doctrine to
specifically include military intervention? Sure, organizations like OAS give lip service to "respecting national sovereignty of all nations," but it has no meaning, again, unless the US opposes it.
Opening markets is not imperialism (the MD), I agree some of the nefarious other things done after that can be.
It is in the way that the US does, and always has, done so. That's Capitalism.
Thats because it is our backyard, geographically. They are our natural trading partners. And we competed openly with the likes of Britain and France even though we the advantage of geography. Are you now going to claim all trade is imperialism?
All trade that seeks to suppress rival trade in the places where it takes root, yes. You don't think, to use your example below, that the Belgian beer industry wouldn't love it if their rival Luxembourgian beer industry went under? It means more business for them, more money for them, more control over the beer market for them. Is that not the goal of Capitalism? Capitalism = Imperialism.
Yeah, but you forgot how they got that economic component, ie through military force and subjugation. Again, you defininition is not valid, according to you
The US has obtained that economic component because, as you noted, we are their natural trading partners. If they don't sell us their raw materials, they have nothing to sell on the market at all! And the US is the primary purchaser of those materials, so we naturally have huge leverage over the conduct of those nations. They have something that is remotely competitive and worth money, so they sell it. I've explained the rest of this already above.
Belgium is the imperial master of Luxembourg because the dare trade with them.
Only if Belgium could exercise political control over Luxembourg because of that economic relationship.
At no point have I said or argued America has not been imperialistic at many points in its history. All I have said is that the Monroe Doctrine itself is not imperialistic.
But it is, as I explained.
No they didn't. Most of the confiscated industry was never used, because it was too complex.
You want to see grown men do really silly stuff go to a comic book convention....
