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placed all of North and South America off limits for new European colonization. Asserted that the United States might resort to war against any European nation that interfered with the independence of newly formed states in Central and South America that had emerged from rebellions against Spanish or Portuguese colonization
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President James K. Polk justified the war to expand our borders by falsely asserting that an American soldier had been killed on American soil by the Mexican military. General Ulysses S. Grant condemned the war as “wicked” in his War Memoirs.
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In 1893, the United States collaborated in the overthrow of Hawaii’s monarchy. Annexation followed five years later.
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Fought to expand our sphere of influence in the Caribbean and the Pacific. We acquired the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. We occupied Cuba militarily until it enshrined the conditions of the Platt Amendment in the Cuban Constitution. Among other things, they required granting the United States a permanent naval base at Guantanamo Bay, and authorizing us to intervene in Cuban affairs for “the preservation of Cuban independence
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In 1954, the United States overthrew the Socialist government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz in favor of a genocidal military dictatorship.
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The United States launched the ill-starred Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro.
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the United States quarantined the shipment of Soviet offensive missiles to Cuba to force the dismantling of Soviet missiles already there when the United States had Jupiter nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles aimed at the USSR along its border with Turkey.
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The United States dispatched troops to the Dominican Republic to prevent the restoration to power of a political leader we opposed, Juan Bosch.
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We collaborated in the overthrow and killing of Chilean President Salvador Allende because we opposed his Marxist-Socialist politics.
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we supported the Contras militarily to fight the Sandinista government of Nicaragua because of its political hostility to the United States.
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we invaded Grenada to oppose a Marxist government.
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The United States dispatched troops to Haiti in the name of restoring democracy. “Haitian democracy,” however, has been an oxymoron for two centuries.Contrary to conventional wisdom or intuition, spheres of influence claimed by great powers are superfluous to their national security. Its backbone is the willingness of peoples to fight and die for their country.
