The real sign of great power status is a sphere of influence. Nothing says hegemony like a geographic space that extends well beyond a country’s borders in which its preferences nevertheless remain paramount.
The quintessential example of such status has been the Monroe Doctrine, the declaration by the fifth U.S. president that the Western Hemisphere should be free of interference from outside powers. First intended to insulate the region from the machinations of Europe’s imperial powers, it was later modified to ensure that local governments “behaved with a just regard for their obligations toward outsiders” — those outsiders being U.S. companies that were getting rich on the backs of local labor and resources. It was, most crudely, a license for Washington to meddle as it saw fit in every country south of the Rio Grande.
In recent years, that blank check resulted in what can only be called strategic neglect. Apart from a few high-profile cases of defiance — proof that U.S. suzerainty was more presumed than real — most regional experts would agree that Washington hasn’t given the region the attention it deserves.
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