Is history "more or less bunk," as Henry Ford maintained? Many Americans think so. "In current American usage," observes Princeton scholar Bernard Lewis, "the phrase 'that's history' is commonly used to dismiss something as unimportant, of no relevance to current concerns." This is not so elsewhere in the world. Rising Asian titans such as China and India are scrutinizing U.S. diplomatic and military history for relevant lessons. "That's history" means something different in Beijing or New Delhi than in Washington or New York.
Henry Ford Was Wrong
Many Asia-watchers assume that the sort of balance-of-power politics practiced in 19th-century Europe will prevail as the rise of China and India reorders regional politics. Some scholars maintain that lesser powers—in Asia as in the West—will band together to counterbalance a new great power with the capacity to threaten their national security.1 If such scholars are right, the coming years will see Asian statesmen jockey for geopolitical advantage in the same manner Austrian foreign minister Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich or German chancellor Otto von Bismarck did in the 19th century.2
Others dispute whether balance-of-power politics is universal. Dartmouth professor David Kang foresees a revival of Asian hierarchy, with China resuming its place as the region's "central kingdom."3 Beijing has skillfully encouraged such notions, pointing to the voyages of 15th-century Chinese explorer Zheng He and suggesting that a China-centric order would benefit all Asian peoples. Their message: Predatory Western powers such as the United States are no substitute for a capable, benevolent China.4
But there is another alternative. James Monroe and John Quincy Adams, the architects of the Monroe Doctrine, and Theodore Roosevelt, who gave the doctrine a forceful twist, may exercise as much influence in Asia—particularly South Asia—as Bismarck or Zheng He. Indian statesmen from Jawaharlal Nehru forward have cited the doctrine to justify intervening in hotspots such as Goa, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.5 Whatever the vagaries of domestic politics, opinion-makers in India uniformly favor regional primacy for their nation. Practitioners and scholars of foreign policy take a wary view of external involvement in the Indian Ocean basin, which they deem their rightful domain.6
Whether balancing or hierarchy prevails elsewhere in Asia, then, an India intent on its own version of the Monroe Doctrine will have considerable say in regional affairs.7 American leaders can glimpse the future of South Asia by understanding their own history.
What Was the Monroe Doctrine?
Like most foreign-policy doctrines, notes the historian Dexter Perkins, the Monroe Doctrine arose from specific events. It nonetheless derived from "general principles that played an important part in the thinking of the President and his advisers."8 Each generation of Americans has imparted its own substance to the doctrine, depending on the nation's needs, aspirations, and capabilities. Likewise, Indians will filter Monroe's precepts through their own traditions, geopolitical circumstances, and growing national power. It is unclear how closely Indian strategists have studied the doctrine. So, to gain some analytical traction, let's assume that they are not simply invoking it as a slogan to justify Indian dominance of South Asia.
Clearly, tracing the impact of ideas on real-world statecraft—especially ideas imported from abroad—is no simple matter.
Monroe enunciated his policy in two separate passages of his 1823 annual message to Congress. The United States was quarreling with Russia over its colonial claims in the Pacific Northwest. President Monroe and his secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, took the opportunity to deny any territorial claims lodged by European powers: "The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subject for future colonization by any European power."9
Revolt in Spain—and, more importantly for Monroe and Adams, in Spain's American possessions—fostered the second part of the doctrine. Spain's fellow great powers had vowed to suppress liberal revolution on the Continent. To U.S. leaders it seemed that this alliance might carry the battle across the Atlantic, dividing Spanish holdings in Latin America among themselves and reimposing absolutist rule on nations that had just won their independence.
Both potential security threats and U.S. sympathies toward the revolutionaries goaded Monroe and Adams into action. The President declared that the United States would regard any attempt on [the European powers'] part to extend their political system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies and dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it . . . we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States.10
Roughly speaking, the 1823 message forbade any expansion of European control over American territory beyond that which they already exercised. This is an appealing precedent for India, which under its doctrine of "nonalignment" has traditionally resisted outside domination of the Indian Ocean region.
What the Monroe Doctrine Wasn't
First and foremost, it was not international law but unilateral U.S. policy. International law gains its force from the consent of states, something the European governments determinedly withheld. British foreign secretary Stratford Canning declared, "We cannot acknowledge the right of any power to proclaim such a principle; much less to bind other countries to the observance of it." Second, Monroe and Adams made no claim to U.S. political or military control of the hemisphere. They considered their handiwork a defense of all American republics against European encroachment. Third, the doctrine did not demand that Washington abstain from European affairs altogether. Indeed, elsewhere in the message, the President reported that the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy were jointly combating the slave trade in Caribbean waters. Limited, informal cooperation was permissible.
Certain aspects of the doctrine touched off lively debate. For instance—and this is especially relevant for Indian thinkers surveying the Indian Ocean region—did Monroe's principles extend throughout the Western Hemisphere? The 1823 message certainly appeared to say so. But if the doctrine did not qualify as international law, the United States would have to build the wherewithal to enforce it—meaning a navy able to defeat hostile European fleets that ventured into Western Hemisphere waters. Fortunately for the United States as it turned inward during the 19th century, shunning foreign political entanglements, Great Britain also had an interest in preventing its rivals from making new inroads in the Americas—and its navy could make good on British policy. This allowed the United States a free ride on the maritime security furnished by the Royal Navy for most of the century, conserving its own resources for internal development.
The Roosevelt Corollary
The Monroe Doctrine underwent a metamorphosis over the course of the 19th century as the United States subdued a continent, waged a bloody Civil War, and emerged from that great struggle possessed of growing confidence and physical might. Less and less did Washington need to entrust the security of the Western Hemisphere to outside sea powers whose goodwill might prove fleeting.
The United States' options multiplied as its economic and military power surged. Many U.S. citizens inferred new prerogatives from Monroe's principles. An injunction against transferring American territory from one European imperial power to another was added. The conviction took hold that any canal dug across the Central American isthmus must be in U.S. hands, not those of France or Great Britain. The doctrine took on clear preventive overtones.11 In 1895, in fact, Richard Olney, President Grover Cleveland's secretary of state, injected himself—uninvited—into a territorial dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana. The United States' "fiat is law" on matters it deemed of national interest, proclaimed Olney—primarily because the U.S. Navy could enforce Washington's will.12
Despite his reputation for bombast, Theodore Roosevelt construed the doctrine more narrowly than had Olney. TR's aims were first and foremost defensive. A common practice among the great powers of his day was to dispatch warships when weak governments in the Americas defaulted on their foreign debts. They often occupied customhouses in those nations, using tariff revenues to repay aggrieved creditors.
This left Europeans in possession of American territory—anathema to Roosevelt, who worried that they would use debt repayment as an excuse to establish naval footholds in the Caribbean, astride the approaches to a proposed Nicaraguan or Panama canal. Keeping the great powers, especially the Kaiser's Germany, from menacing these waterways was crucial to U.S. economic and military fortunes.
In 1904, accordingly, Roosevelt fashioned a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. When Santo Domingo defaulted on its foreign debt and European intervention seemed imminent, TR informed Congress that "chronic wrongdoing" or "governmental impotence" preventing Caribbean governments from discharging their foreign obligations warranted preventive U.S. intervention.13 The United States would forestall violations of the Monroe Doctrine by stepping in itself. "If we are willing to let Germany or England act as the policeman of the Caribbean," vouchsafed Roosevelt, "then we can afford not to interfere when gross wrongdoing occurs. But if we intend to say 'Hands Off' to the powers of Europe, then sooner or later we must keep order ourselves."14
Washington thus claimed for itself the right to deploy an international police power when governmental incompetence in the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico threatened to leave American territory in the hands of European powers, especially Germany.
The Corollary and India
Three aspects of TR's brawny version of the doctrine bear on Indian politics today. First, geopolitics was central to his corollary. Safeguarding U.S. security interests—namely maritime security along the approaches to the canal—was his paramount concern. Roosevelt quietly dropped Olney's language, making no attempt to police the Western Hemisphere beyond these vital waters. The United States had neither the need, the naval power, nor the forward bases to police the entire hemisphere.
Second, despite his characteristically high-handed language, TR exercised the police power with tact and circumspection. The enterprise in Santo Domingo amounted to little more than sending a warship as a deterrent, negotiating a treaty empowering the U.S. administration to superintend the repayment of the Dominican Republic's foreign debts, and stationing a U.S. customs agent on the island to collect and distribute tariff revenue among its creditors. Roosevelt in essence saw the United States playing a mediating role between weak Caribbean governments and the great powers, denying Europeans any pretext to infringe on U.S. geopolitical interests.
And third, the United States no longer needed British help to fend off European threats to the Americas. London and Washington reached a tacit bargain under which the United States tended to British interests in the Americas under the aegis of the Roosevelt Corollary, while the Royal Navy withdrew from Western Hemisphere waters to address more pressing concerns—namely the German High Seas Fleet. Having become a sea power in its own right, the United States could usher foreign sea powers out of the New World.
Monroe or Roosevelt
Two models of the Monroe Doctrine may commend themselves to New Delhi: one founded on Monroe, the other on Roosevelt. Over the longer term, events could move India toward a third, heavy-handed model derived from Richard Olney's reading of the Monroe Doctrine. For now, though, it is probably safe to discount such a scenario. Barring a great-power threat comparable to Imperial Germany—from, say, a growing Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean—it is doubtful that any Indian leader would seriously maintain that India's "fiat is law" throughout its environs. Which model will Indian leaders adopt, and which is more relevant to their nation's circumstances? At least three indicators of Indian policy and strategy in the region are worth monitoring:
- How Far Should India's Monroe Doctrine Go? Geography—in particular maritime geography—will bound New Delhi's efforts to achieve regional primacy, just as it did for the 19th-century United States. The Indian Ocean is vast, and it offers few island bases for southward power projection. By contrast, vital sea lanes crisscross the northern reaches, connecting the South China Sea and the Red Sea with Persian Gulf energy suppliers.15 The Monroe model would prod New Delhi to declare a regional doctrine that extends throughout the Indian Ocean region but can stay largely unenforced for now, while the U.S. Navy continues to guarantee free navigation and any serious Chinese naval presence remains years in the future. The Roosevelt model would see India claim outright supremacy now, looking askance at joint action with outsiders.
- What Tools Are in the Toolkit, and When Should They Be Used? The Monroe model would have India concentrate on domestic economic development for the time being, husbanding its resources until it can launch a more assertive regional policy and strategy. Diplomacy, efforts to amass goodwill among its neighbors, and limited military efforts along the lines of the 2004-05 tsunami relief operation would allow India to prosecute an active diplomacy at modest cost. The Roosevelt model would impel New Delhi to take a more assertive stance now, using the full panoply of diplomatic tools, from mediation to a blue-water navy, to uphold its claim to regional predominance.
- What—If Any—Part Should Outsiders Play? If India feels confident enough and prosperous enough to base its foreign policy on Roosevelt, it may well take a prickly attitude toward outsiders—particularly its perennial nemesis, China, but also the United States. If New Delhi inclines toward Monroe, it will assume a more cooperative stance, working with external great powers such as the United States on maritime security and other functional matters while it bides its time. In either case it will shun formal alliances with outside powers, as it has for decades.
For now, something resembling Monroe's discreet vision seems to prevail in Indian strategic thought. While India's Monroe Doctrine could be applied throughout the region, New Delhi has confined its diplomatic efforts to mediating conflicts around its geographic periphery and furnishing public goods such as disaster and humanitarian relief. More importantly from the U.S. standpoint, it welcomes cooperation with the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard as a means for improving its own sea services. This accommodating attitude may not last as Indian diplomatic, economic, and military power grows, letting New Delhi take a more forceful view of its surroundings.
Now is an auspicious time for the United States to work toward a durable seagoing partnership with India—much as Great Britain struck a rapprochement with the United States a century ago.
1. For an overview of realist analyses, see Kenneth N. Waltz, "The Emerging Structure of International Politics," International Security 18, no. 2 (fall 1993): pp. 44-79; and Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979). For a sample of other realist analyses, see Aaron Friedberg, "Ripe for Rivalry," International Security 18, no. 3 (winter 1993/94): pp. 5-33; Richard K. Betts, "Wealth, Power, and Instability: East Asia and the United States after the Cold War," International Security 18, no. 3 (winter 1993/94): pp. 34-77; Avery Goldstein, "Great Expectations: Interpreting China's Arrival," International Security 22, no. 3 (winter 1997/98): pp. 36-73.
2. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), pp. 78-136.
3. David C. Kang, "Getting Asia Wrong: The Need for New Analytical Frameworks," International Security 27, no. 2 (spring 2003): pp. 57-85; David C. Kang, "Hierarchy in Asian International Relations: 1300-1900," Asian Security 1, no. 1 (January 2005): pp. 53-79; Chen Jian, The China Challenge for the Twenty-first Century (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1998), pp. 4-8.
4. James R. Holmes, "Zheng He Goes Traveling—Again," Education About Asia 11, no. 2 (fall 2006): pp. 19-25.
5. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's Foreign Policy: Selected Speeches, September 1946??April 1961 (Delhi: Government of India, 1961), pp. 113-115.
6. Stephen F. Cohen concludes that certain core principles unite disparate schools of foreign-policy thought. Uppermost among these: the conviction that India is a status quo power entitled to regional preeminence. Stephen Philip Cohen, India: Emerging Power (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2001), esp. pp. 63-65.
7. C. Raja Mohan, a leading Indian commentator on international affairs, discerns such a doctrine. In a similar vein, an American scholar, Devin Hagerty, presents a convincing case for its existence. C. Raja Mohan, "Beyond India's Monroe Doctrine," The Hindu, January 2, 2003,
8. Dexter Perkins, A History of the Monroe Doctrine, rev. ed. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1963), p. 29.
9. J. D. Richardson, ed., Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents (New York: Bureau of National Literature, 1917), vol. 2, p. 287.
10. Richardson, Compilation, vol. 2, p. 287.
11. Perkins, History, pp. 168-169.
12. Richard Olney to Thomas F. Bayard, July 20, 1895, in Ruhl J. Bartlett, ed., The Record of American Diplomacy: Documents and Readings in the History of American Foreign Relations, 4th ed. (New York: Knopf, 1964), pp. 341-345.
13. Theodore Roosevelt, "Message of the President to the Senate and the House of Representatives," December 6, 1904, in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1904 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1905), xli; Perkins, History, pp. 228-275. For more on the Roosevelt Corollary, see my Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations (Dulles, VA: Potomac, 2006).
14. Theodore Roosevelt to Elihu Root, June 7, 1904, in Letters, vol. 4, pp. 821-23.
15. K. M. Panikkar, India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power on Indian History, 2d ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1951), pp. 12-16; K. M. Panikkar, Geographical Factors in Indian History (Chaupatty: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1955), pp. 11, 53, and 70.
