SUPERPOWER DOCTRINES OF INTERVENTION: COMPARISONS AND CONTRASTS

Abstract

We have noted that the emergence of the Brezhnev Doctrine in 1968 stimulated a search by Western scholars for parallels and historical comparisons. Comparisons with the Monroe Doctrine (or rather its modern variants) positively invited themselves, for a multitude of reasons:¹ firstly, both the Monroe and Brezhnev Doctrines are explained in terms of ideological motivations and seek to exclude alien systems from protected zones (European monarchism and colonialism in the original version, and Marxism—Leninism in con-temporary variants, of the Monroe Doctrine; capitalism and im-perialism in the case of the Brezhnev Doctrine); secondly, both are, purportedly, defensive, antiinterventionist doctrines, formulated to prevent other powers from interfering in the internal affairs of weaker states; thirdly, they both derive from the geopolitics of regions (even though the Brezhnev Doctrine is unlimited in scope, it was widely thought until December 1979 to apply in practice exclusively to the Soviet bloc); fourthly, although both the United States and the Soviet Union formally repudiate ‘spheres of interest’, they have nevertheless claimed special roles within the regions of Latin America and Eastern Europe respectively; fifthly, both the Monroe and Brezhnev Doctrines are couched not in terms of self-interest, but rather in the altruistic vocabulary of duty and responsibility. As Connell-Smith has argued, the exclusion of extracontinental powers has been justified by the US in terms of its self-image as a‘benevolent paramount power in the Americas’;² sixthly, both hinge upon the assumption that the protector power is a special type of state, endowed with a‘manifest destiny’ or a special role in the ‘world revolutionary process’ (Duroselle refers to ‘American moralism’ as ‘the essence of American tradition in foreign policy’³); seventhly, they both assume an essential harmony of interests between protector and ward (reflected in solidarist doctrines of ‘pan-americanism’ and ‘socialist internationalism’ respectively): in both cases, relations between the protector power and the other states in the region have been presented as a new, superior, type of relations; eighthly, in neither case has the hegemonial power’s assumption of regional guardianship, or its doctrine of harmony of interests, been universally accepted by the ‘protected’ states.