The New American Gunboat Diplomacy: Will This Century Be Any Different?

This Trump administration’s recent Latin American chevauchées are old school. But the world has moved on since Monroe, and regional actors may well respond in more modern manners to the egregious treatment of Venezuela.

‘Gunboat diplomacy’ was the name awarded, perhaps most famously, to the actions of US Commodore Perry in the 1850s. The USA gained access to the closed-off Japanese economy by pounding Japanese infrastructure from the sea until it got its way. Though this infamous use concerned East Asia, the cousin of such gunboat diplomacy, the amphibious landing, made its name to the south of the states. 

Leveraged to maintain the Monroe doctrine – the foreign policy orientation of 1823 holding that European powers would not be permitted to meddle in the Western Hemisphere – the assertive élan of gunboat diplomacy effectively gave the USA free reign and a guarantee against other great power involvement in the Americas. 

These military, and diplomatic ‘red line’, tools have been used to afford Washington control over key regional commodities and industries such as Cuban sugar, Hawaiian pineapples, Honduran bananas, Venezuelan oil, Columbian and Panamanian shipping routes – to name but a few. But they have also been employed whenever an administration has felt their more abstract political interests needed protecting or pursuing, for example to stop various Mexican revolutionary leaders from staying in office or achieving certain goals.

States usually do not have many available responses to unilateral US actions; militarily and economically, the US dwarfs its neighbours. Appealing to another great power is of limited use, America having denied rivals meaningful footholds in the region. Resultantly, throughout modern history Columbia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela (to name but a few) have buckled under the pressure and made concessions to US interests, or simply embraced the preferred outcome of the USA. The ‘bipolarity’ of the cold war may have counterbalanced US influence in these states, but this was merely a suspension of the regional norm.

To understand the relevance this history has for the current administration, it is worth reflecting on how the administration judges unilateral actions of other major powers. The substance of Trump’s criticism of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, for example, seems to be not that it was wrong – morally or legally – but that it was executed poorly and did not wrap up quickly. ‘If you’re going to do it, do it swiftly and decisively’ seems to be the lesson this Trump administration has learned about violating the sovereignty of your neighbours.

The various justifications on offer for its recent actions in Venezuela range from stopping drugs reaching the USA, to bearing down on paramilitary-style gangs, to making more efficient (read: American) use of Venezuela’s oil. Nevertheless, these reasons sit in a second tier of importance; the primary reason behind the US’s actions in Venezuela today remains that the Oval Office deemed it in the US’s interest, and the US has the capability to pull it off.

Of course, the US government has the right to defend its territory and people, but what do the likes of Mexico, Columbia, and Brazil – the other powerful states in the hemisphere – see as their choices for response? The USA is a crucial partner to all these countries in their – more than justified – bids to be rid of violent paramilitary style gangs. Mexican, Colombian, Brazilian, and Venezuelan officials all welcome the help of the USA in stabilising their state, but how far can they trust the US to remain a true partner in this regard? 

Brazilian President Lula has sparred with Trump about freedom from interference, tough talk about the Darien Gap has already had Colombia in the sights of this current US administration, and the US foreign terrorist list has recently been updated to include Mexican gangs – a sure sign of intent that the USA will take unilateral military actions against Mexican targets if it decides it wants to. Indeed, Trump is already teeing up US actions in these states.

With the certainty of a US veto in the UN Security Council on any condemnation of its actions, these countries will have to make a clear choice: a continuation of history as we have known it, or a dangerous attempt to band together to chip away at a central pillar of American statecraft that has stood for centuries, bringing with it as yet unimagined consequences for regional stability. When the USA is your neighbour and has you in its sights, there are normally few good plays to make.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Vicepresidencia de Venezuela

Licence: public domain.

No image changes made.