Mahanth is Editor

While the US government is mired knee-deep in serious concurrent conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Pacific Rim- three separate tinderboxes in their own right with US national security resources and interests dangerously at risk from the Donbass to the Red Sea, from a Gaza beachhead to the Taiwan Strait- the timing is, let’s say, not exactly convenient for new dumpster fires raging in Uncle Sam’s own backyard. But foreign actors don’t march to the beat of Washington’s drum of convenience; such is the burden facing We the People of an already overstretched superpower today. But now more than ever we need to keep our head in the game while recognizing these harsh realities.

During tests like this we find out if we are still the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Distraction and difficult problems are no excuse for delaying swift and decisive action any longer, especially considering that all of these far-flung global events actually tie together into one wicked tangle of crossed wires.

As if the deadly stakes of what we are about to dissect below weren’t already high enough, the developments actively unfolding in the Caribbean also figure heavily into still another distinct, ongoing and out of control domestic crisis on the leaky Southern US border, a migration of mayhem that the Republican party led by a Pervert Orangutan is gleefully, effectively and rationally brandishing as a cudgel to bash the Biden administration in a pivotal election year.

More alarmingly if you can believe it, that’s all small potatoes in the grand scheme. Unfolding events in Haiti and Guyana threaten to upend far, far more than adding to America’s immigration problems or even wresting control of the White House and Congress from an incumbent political party in November. Far worse, we could very well witness the violent overthrow of the cornerstone of US foreign policy for over two centuries, and if this domino falls, it’s time to break out the whiskey to pair with apt analogies to the fall of Rome.

In 1823 President James Monroe declared a thunderous warning squarely aimed at the mightier European colonial monarchies across the Atlantic. In a seminal State of the Union speech Monroe unveiled a world order-altering policy that would come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine, stating (I paraphrase here): Do not f*** with the internal affairs of the Western hemisphere, which is our turf now. Arguably bold, admirable, dumb, premature or all of the above, history tells us that three things are not up for debate about the Monroe Doctrine. (1) in 1823 a very young second-tier country did not yet have the power to back up its leader’s aspirational words, which invited substantial risk. (2) Ever since, the posture laid out by the Monroe Doctrine has guided US foreign policy like a North Star as American clout steadily rose. (3) Remarkably, the Monroe Doctrine has largely held strong for 201 years with the combination of US grit (or meddling over-reach depending on your point of view), giant protective oceans blanketing both sides of the Western hemisphere, and the gradual decline of European empires headed by white men caked in makeup and powdered wigs, their fat asses on thrones paid for by centuries-long rampages of raping and pillaging darker skinned folks in overseas colonies.

Today the doctrine faces its biggest test since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It’s mind-boggling to think of all that happened during this long era in history that is in danger of unraveling before our very eyes in 2024. For better or for worse, through ups and downs, the vast lands and waters and the millions of people of countless tribes and races that make up this thing named after this random Italian cartographer and navigator Amerigo Vespucci, the AMERICAS, has been led in some ways by the United States ever since Monroe’s warning. For the most part this era has been marked by peace, and notably shielded from the brunt of two world wars coming ashore. The loosely united people of the Americas make for a ridiculously motley bunch, if you try to consider what an Indian-American in Wisconsin like me has in common with, say… an Eskimo living in an igloo in the Arctic Circle or… a half-Caucasian Peruvian in the Andes. We are all Americans. North America, Central America, South America… the reach extends from near the North Pole with Canada’s Ellesmere Island in the Arctic Ocean all the way down to the Aguila Islet belonging to Chile near Antarctica.

Nominally holding all this together, through the good times and bad has been the United States. The Europeans eventually left the New World for good, in most cases leaving a big mess behind, which brings us to the topic of today. The last 201 years in the Americas saw alliances formed, alliances broken, wars, peace, coups, dictatorship, democracy, communism, a nuclear missile crisis, rising wealth, abject poverty, multiracial marriages, migrations, and much more. How could this glorious era come to an end?

HAITI. Without question the foremost example of a country in the Americas that has had a very, very bad 201 years is Haiti. Haiti’s history is nothing but a parade of unending poverty, corruption, misery, and just plain bad luck that rages on today, and should cause immense shame to very single American for failing this country just a short hop away from Florida at every turn. The facts are sickening. It all started inauspiciously well before 1823 as France imported more slaves from Africa to this tiny island nation than the white monster/masters did in the rest of the Americas combined, and possibly treated them worse than anywhere else as well if one can dare believe it. Then and now no country has had it worse than these folks when it comes to exploitation by France and then the United States who also choked the Haitians under the colonial yoke and cruel debt traps. French and US persecution crippled Haiti so badly for centuries that the nation has never had its head above water for a single moment to take a breath, let alone recover, with white soldiers’ boots on their throats and Citibank robbing the country blind. Throw in a string of earthquakes, hurricanes, repeated foreign military and clandestine spy meddling from many other countries, corrupt dictators, sanctions and embargoes, and rampant disease outbreaks, all of this without functional governance or infrastructure, and it is no wonder that Haiti never stood a fighting chance. Haiti is not just becoming a failed state today; it has always been a failed state from wire to wire.

Shockingly today things are even worse than usual in Haiti. It was only a matter of time before people got fed up by the government and foreigners robbing them blind, there is barely an economy or jobs to speak of and the thugs with guns and machetes emerged to the fore. Violence is never far behind desperation. There’s anarchy in the streets, the gangs are nominally in charge, the president gave up pretending he did any governing and quit, there is no governance to speak of except outright turf warfare in the streets, and in this maelstrom predictably thousands are dying from random killings, illness, and starvation. Shamefully for a country trying to shore up alliances on other continents, all of this is unfolding right in Uncle Sam’s backyard, and tragically we deserve a great deal of blame, well beyond abdication of responsibility.

While the United States with its Monroe Doctrine warned off foreign great powers from meddling in the Americas, and much good resulted from it, the flip side of that coin is that Americans should have done a better job of managing their neighbor’s affairs, which could have been done with minimal funds and efforts. All we can hope for now is that despite failing at this in the past, the United States will wake up to the urgent need, for its own security if nothing else, to help make Haiti a functioning state for the first time in its history. Haiti is not going anywhere after all.

There is hope. Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, also with an unbelievably brutal and checkered past, which has emerged into a booming economy with a strong civil society.

Americans can only prosper in the future if Haiti prospers, and here’s why. Nobody else can fix this, not the UN, and not Kenya who are part of the discussion. If the United States continues to fail in getting Haiti under control, the growing void presents an opening for the end of the Monroe Doctrine, a window for US adversaries, and the defeat of US influence in its own neighborhood.

Today it is not European meddling that the US government needs to worry about when there is a failed state ripe for chicanery in the hemisphere. And good riddance, I wouldn’t want France or any of them involved anyway unless it was to provide Haiti the $26 billion in reparations Paris owes them for the debt trap they laid through armed coercion that lasted for over a century. It is China and Russia who are closely watching the drama, and plotting how to take advantage of America’s failure. More on this below.

VENEZUELA/GUYANA. But first, let’s sail just a bit further South along the Caribbean to the top of South America where lies another country in danger of being a failed state, and to boot a major contributor to the migration crisis just like Haiti. Venezuela is another epic basket case marred by poverty, corruption, and runaway inflation. Poorly executed US interventions in the past such as sanctions and covert activity have, as with Haiti, only made things worse. Evil dictators like Chavez and Maduro who robbed their citizens of billions have not helped the cause. Sadly, Venezuela has vast untapped oil wealth that under competent management, could quite easily lift the country from teetering on the brink of collapse to a prosperous petro-state, with enough revenue to grow and diversify its economy. And, like Haiti, the many beautiful tropical beach landscapes hugging the Caribbean would be prime tourist destinations if they weren’t so violent and corrupt, all the more is the irony of these paradises under the palms.

Of even more immediate concern is Maduro’s threat to annex half of neighboring Guyana, a much smaller sovereign nation which thanks to massive offshore oil prospecting projects is on the rise. Venezuela has declared, without the consent of anyone in Guyana, that they intend to take the land and essentially steal the rich oil fields. For the first time in recent memory, a new war threatens to break out on the hemisphere, and it would not be pretty. Guyana has a tiny army with hardly any weapons. It has zero chance of defending itself from the larger Venezuelan Army without help.

The United States has already let this situation go too far. This madness must be stopped. I do not advocate for US military intervention, though every option should be on the table. Rather than fighting, which has been Washington’s ineffective foreign policy fallback position for too long for too many crises around the world, the United States should use whatever muscle it has to prevent a war from breaking out instead.

By no coincidence, Maduro has been engaging steadily with China, Russia, and other autocracies as any South American petro-state strongman would. And this means big trouble.

HOW THE MONROE DOCTRINE DIES. If moral duty does not move us then I hope self-interest will. We all know how this story ends for Haiti and Guyana if the United States does not stop dithering on these two major crises, at a time it can ill afford to allow these vortexes to spiral further out of control. The endgame in this great power race comes down to spheres of influence. Russia or China, backed up by the military forces, intelligence agencies, mercenary armies, state-owned oil companies, and proxies under their control would only too gladly step in to fill the voids that America leaves unfilled in the community of the Americas. We only have to look to Africa to see how they operate. Either or both countries sinking their teeth into Haiti or backing a Venezuelan invasion of Guyana would not only be a grave violation of the Monroe Doctrine by autocratic rivals, it would mark the end of the doctrine as we know it once and for all. China and Russia would both be acting entirely rationally, especially considering their disdain for US support to Taiwan and Ukraine in their own respective backyards.

HOW TO SAVE THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

It’s not too late to prevent James Monroe from rolling over in his grave. Russia and China are further away and would need more time to mobilize than the United States does.

In Haiti the United States has pledged $100 million to support a UN peacekeeping mission led by Kenya. This is not a plan, only a Band-Aid for a broken leg. The United States, so close by, should offer far more support and not just for peacekeeping. We urgently need to organize an unprecedented surge of resources by taking leadership of a massive international relief coalition encompassing food, water, healthcare, and infrastructure. And we have to stay for the long term to invest in rebuilding the economy, educational institutions, and civil institutions brick by brick. We have to stay until free and fair elections are held for the first time in years. This is not only in Haiti’s interests, but in US interests. For too long we have been too short sighted to see that sustainable, sustained development is for our own good, and that Haiti is no less than a critical frontline in the global battle between democracy and autocracy that can go either way.

The Venezuela/Guyana conundrum is even easier to solve. A furious round of diplomacy with Venezuela must be held, presenting both a carrot and a stick. The US government instead of isolating a warmongering Venezuela must engage with it. On the one hand, offer to help unlock the billions of gallons of crude oil reserves Venezuela already has and the monetization potential that could come with it through competent governance. Then audit the money from exports to make sure it gets to a desperate population instead of the pockets of Maduro and his cronies. The stick is making sure the Maduro regime fully understands that the US military will not allow an invasion of Guyana if diplomacy fails.

The United States seeks stability in various corners of the world erupting in conflict. If it hopes to achieve any of it, the country must demonstrate that it is capable of putting out the fires closer to home. It is all related. There is no better way to show US rivals and allies alike the superiority of our ideals and the strength of our resolve than to deploy anything and everything it takes for as long as it takes to decisively take care of business closest to home first. Let’s not let the Monroe Doctrine die in the slums of Haiti or the oilfields of Guyana.

As goes the Monroe Doctrine, so goes America.