President Theodore Roosevelt's assertive approach to Latin
America and the Caribbean has often been characterized as the "Big Stick," and
his policy came to be known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
President Theodore Roosevelt
Although the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was essentially passive (it asked that
Europeans not increase their influence or recolonize any part of the Western
Hemisphere), by the 20th century a more confident United States was willing to
take on the role of regional policeman. In the early 1900s Roosevelt grew
concerned that a crisis between Venezuela and its creditors could spark an
invasion of that nation by European powers. The Roosevelt Corollary of December
1904 stated that the United States would intervene as a last resort to ensure
that other nations in the Western Hemisphere fulfilled their obligations to
international creditors, and did not violate the rights of the United States or
invite "foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American
nations." As the corollary worked out in practice, the United States
increasingly used military force to restore internal stability to nations in the
region. Roosevelt declared that the United States might "exercise international
police power in 'flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence.'" Over the long
term the corollary had little to do with relations between the Western
Hemisphere and Europe, but it did serve as justification for U.S. intervention
in Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.
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