The January 3rd military assisted extraction of Venezuelan President Maduro from Caracas, Venezuela, to New York City to face criminal charges has caused the Monroe Doctrine to be in the news. To better understand President Trump’s military actions, we need to consider the Monroe Doctrine.

President James Monroe, the fifth President of the still young United States of America, shared his vision of the new political order throughout the Americas in a December 2, 1823 address to Congress. Simply put, it was a policy of limiting European colonialism in the Americas. The English initially supported the effort in return for special considerations, but the United States wisely treated England like all other foreign powers – especially Spain and France but also Russia. Keep in mind that the United States had fought and won their freedom from England only 40 years before and the Second War for Independence, better known as the War of 1812, had concluded less than a decade earlier.

President Monroe drew on ideas expressed in President Washington’s Farewell Address and from President Madison’s justification of the War of 1812. Monroe was concerned about the European powers interfering with potential United States territories or the newly independent South and Central American nation-states. The Monroe Doctrine strengthened two separate spheres of influence – the Americas and Europe.

A major modification to the Monroe Doctrine came in 1905 with the Roosevelt Corollary. President Theodore Roosevelt realized the United States had to be the policeman of the Americas because unruly nations had to be controlled otherwise unwanted European powers would in fact intervene.

In 1903 the United States had acquired unilateral rights from Panama to build and operate a canal in perpetuity. Then in 1977, President Jimmy Carter transferred the Panama Canal to the Panama Canal Authority to be executed in 1999 which is a Panamanian government agency. Panama has been mentioned as a possible future “problem” due to the control and vitality of the Panama Canal.

The Falkland Island War in 1982 was an undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom. Falkland Island is under British control and off the coast of Argentina; and while the United States wasn’t directly involved, we were certainly paying very close attention!

The United States invaded the island country of Grenada in 1983. When a civil war broke out on the island country which is just off South America, the United States feared it was a Marxist takeover. President Reagan initiated the military action primarily to protect the lives of United States citizens. Another United States interest was keeping Marxism out of the Americas.

The United States invasion of Panama started in late 1989 and stretched into 1990. That military effort was to remove dictator Manual Noriega and bring him to the United States for legal proceedings.

Involvement by the United States throughout the Americas isn’t limited to military actions. Early in his second term President Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Consider that this gulf is bordered by Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula north to Texas then east along Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama; then south to Key West Florida. The island nation of Cuba is between Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and Florida’s Key West. Calling this huge body of water simply the Gulf of Mexico was a gross misnomer!

Calling our country “The United States” when it is really “The United States of America” is not a misnomer, it is just using the familiar shortened name that most of the world uses. Our country is not “America” as “America” stretches from the North Pole to the South Pole. I became painfully aware of this when shortly after high school graduation I lived for several weeks in Santiago, Chile. When asked where I was from, I proudly answered “America” only to be told “We are from America too what part of America are you from?” I soon learned – maybe instantly – I was from “The United States” or, more properly, “The United States of America”!

Study history. Study geography. Get informed. Pay attention to current events! As the late great Paul Harvey would comment, know “the rest of the story”.