"Our little region over here that has never bothered anyone..."

- Henry Stimson, U.S. Secretary of War

Increasing numbers of illegal migrants from the Dominican Republic cross the Mona Passage each year to Puerto Rico to find work

President Wilson strongly advocated the notion of a nation's right to self-determination. However, he also believed that although "all people might want freedom…whether they could gain and preserve it depended on race." This racist view undoubtedly extended to Latin America resulting in Wilson's "moralistic concern for teaching Latin Americans how to govern themselves."

Walter LeFebre calls the "Wilson Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine: "only American oil interests receive concessions. President Wilson intervened in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, leaving both countries in ruins.

It is important to recognize that at this point in history, U.S. hegemony in the hemisphere was unquestionable. "The dominant position the United States had built up in the Caribbean region enabled the president to eschew gunboat diplomacy and inaugurate the Good Neighbor Policy." U.S. decision-makers could now afford to explore non-military means of sustaining security in the Caribbean.

However, security for whom is subjective -- while the US is good at blowing things up, it is less skilled at providing basic resources to nurture long-term democracy. It's as if we only have weed killer, and expect prize tomatoes to grow without care and feeding.

On 28 April 1965, U.S. military forces found themselves in the Dominican Republic protecting U.S. interests for the fourth time in 58 years. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy and the actions of three U.S. administrations (Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson respectively) resulted in the eruption of hostilities in the Dominican Republic in April 1965.

December 1981: Reagan signs an executive order that authorizes a covert operation by the CIA to support the contras, rebels who are fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua, popularly called the Sandinistas, who replaced the despotic, but US-friendly, regime of Anastasio Somoza. The administration hopes its secret backing will bolster the contras' appearance as an indigenous independent force, although the contras are largely Nicaraguan exiles and former businessmen who profited handsomely under Somoza and have little citizen support. (Iran-Contra Timeline)

U.S. President Ronald Reagan takes strong stand against communism
The presidential term of U.S. president Ronald Reagan brought with it strong opposition to communism in Central America, specifically in Nicaragua. President Reagan was instrumental in assisting a group of counter-revolutionaries called "contras". These contras fought against the power of Sandanistas who were bringing "Cuban-style communism"2 into Nicaragua. On November 23 of 1981, President Reagan authorized the CIA to assist the Contras in destabilizing and overthrowing the Sandinista regime by aiding them with $19 million of military assistance. These words from one of Reagan's speeches in May of 1984 say it best, as he stated:
"Central America is a region of great importance to the United States . . . It's at our doorstep, and it's become the stage for a bold attempt by the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua to install communism by force throughout the hemisphere. . . .I want to tell you. . . about the real nature of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. The Sandinistas, who rule Nicaragua, are Communists whose relationship and ties to Fidel Castro of Cuba go back a quarter of a century. . . we Americans should be proud of what we're trying to do in Central America, and proud of what. . . we can do in Central America to support democracy, human rights, and economic growth while preserving peace so close to home. Let us show the world that we want no hostile Communist colonies here in the Americas—South, Central, or North."3
By studying these U.S. acts and their consequences, we may observe a general historical trend of the United States lessening the influence of communism. Certainly the U.S. acted inappropriately at times due to to such monetary incentives as the UFCO, yet this paper chose not to focus on those wrongdoings. The United States did play an instrumental role in preventing the spread of communism and socialistic-type policies in Central America. By trying to protect private property and lives of its citizenship, the U.S. often worked against left-wing liberals having connections to communists. Thus by examining several U.S. interventions in Central America, we see that the outcomes and motives for these activities were varied. The United States often acted only because of their interests and property. However, God in His sovereignty allowed the U.S. interventions to benefit His heart for all the nations to know Him. Psalm 67:1-2 provides evidence for this: "God be merciful to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us, Selah. That Your way may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations." Thus, throughout the twentieth century, the U.S. has often been instrumental in preventing and discouraging communist takeover of these lands. This has in turn allowed doors to remain open for the gospel instead of building walls of hatred and animosity.

From 1930 to 1945, the U.S. shifted from Dollar Diplomacy and intervention to the Good Neighbor Policy. Rather than seeing the Good Neighbor Policy as a totally new departure from our previous policies since 1823, Smith sees the Good Neighbor Policy as the culmination of these previous trends. He sees it as the culmination and triumph of imperial conquest. The same goals persisted: protection of U.S. geostrategic and economic interests. The goals of economic penetration, security, and hegemony continued but what changed were the means used to achieve those goals.

There were costs incurred in the policy of dollar diplomacy. The U.S. had troops stationed in Nicaragua and fought a guerrilla war there. U.S. interventions in Cuba were also costly. Troops were stationed in the Domincan Republic and in Haiti. Latin Americans saw U.S. intervention as imperialism and stated so at Pan American Conferences such as those in Havana in 1928 and Montevideo in 1933. The Latins favored the juridical equality of states, opposed U.S. intervention, rejected the idea of protecting corporations through military means, and rejected the unilateralism of U.S. policy (where the U.S. did whatever it wanted without consultation with Latin American countries)

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What made the good neighbor policy possible was the changes in the international system. In the aftermath of World War I, Europe was devastated and European countries were not in a position to challenge the U.S. in the western hemisphere. The United states had become dominant economically as direct and portfolio capital investment increased rapidly from 1919 to 1929. U.S. security interests were not as tthreatened. Also, WWI had taught a lessons to the U.S. about the possible perils of having hostile neighbors to the south while fighting in Europe or elsewhere in the world (e.g., the Zimmerman note to Mexico just prior to WWI). Better to emphasize cooperation, multilateralism, trade, non-intervention. As the 1929 depression hit and as war loomed in the horizon in the 1930's, Latin American cooperation became even more critical in sustaining U.S. economic and geostrategic interests.

Smith points out that the good neighbor policy was applied unevenly and that the U.S. used economic leverage to achieve its policy objectives. For example, in Cuba we opposed a democratic revolution in 1933, declaring it communist and supporting a military regime by Batista. This Batista was the same dictator Fidel Castro would remove from power in 1959. In the countries where we applied Dollar Diplomacy (Nic., D. Rep., Haiti), we worked hand in hand with dictatorships which we left in place after U.S. troops departed (the Somozas in Nicaragua, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic). We used loans to protect $5 billion in investments in Latin America. We created the Export-Import Bank whereby we made loans to Latin American countries for the purchase of U.S. goods (really a subsidy to American producers). The Reciprocal Trade Acts were used to create inducements and to tie Latin countries to U.S. objectives such as military preparedness, coordinating security against domestic Nazi groups, providing U.S. military bases once the Second World War began (e.g., Brazil), etc. The sugar quota with Cuba and coffee agreements with Brazil and Colombia gave the U.S. great leverage with those countries whose economies depended on those agreements with the U.S.

In short, Smith argues the Good Neighbor Policy reflected changes in the international system that allowed the United States to shift to economic means to achieve its policy objectives rather than naked and direct military intervention and control. In that sense, there is a parallel between the Good Neighbor Policy and the policy of the U.S. towards Latin america in the post-Cold War era of the 1990's.

Besides this overall understanding of Smith's argument, you need to know the specifics of U.S. policy during the Good Neighbor era. Focus on knowing the means used to achieve U.S. ends between 1930 and 1945. There is no substitute for a close reading of the Smith text Talons of the Eagle.