As the Monroe Doctrine marks 200 years since it was first enunciated, the time-worn US policy is back in the news. In a new article in Foreign Policy magazine, PAIS’s Carsten-Andreas Schulz and I examine the many meanings of the Monroe Doctrine and argue that it provides a poor guide for US-Latin American relations today. The article draws on their joint AHRC-funded project, “Latin America and the peripheral origins of nineteenth century international order.”

---

“The Monroe Doctrine is experiencing a resurgence. As it hits its 200th anniversary this month, this time-hallowed foreign-policy principle—which declares that Washington will oppose political and military incursions into the Western Hemisphere by powers outside of it—is once again at the forefront of political debates in the United States.

Republican presidential candidates such as Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis are calling for the doctrine’s reinvigoration to take aim at China’s growing presence in Latin America and are offering it as a justification for a potential U.S. military attack on criminal organizations in Mexico. They are following the lead of former U.S. President Donald Trump, who hailed Monroe on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly, as well as advisors such as John Bolton and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.”

Read the rest at Foreign Policy.

I joined Mark Leon Goldberg, editor of UN Dispatch, on his podcast Global Dispatches to discuss small states in world politics. I really appreciate his interest in the book and the theme. Mark is an experienced journalist who knows a great deal about world affairs, so it was especially fun to talk with him. “If you overlook small states, you are missing a complete picture of world politics today,” Mark says. I couldn’t have said it better myself!

Paraguay’s upcoming presidential elections have put the country’s relationship with Taiwan in the spotlight. The leading opposition candidate has said he would reevaluate the choice of diplomatic ties between China or Taiwan. With that happening, there’s been quite a lot of interest in the 2021 Foreign Policy Analysis article that Francisco Urdinez and I wrote: “Status at the Margins: Why Paraguay Recognizes Taiwan and Shuns China.” Links to the coverage below, and thanks so much to all these reporters for reaching out or for reading our research.

Qtd. in Christian Science Monitor, “What Paraguay election means for Taiwan, and US-China competition,” April 28, 2023.

Qtd. in Japan Times, “As Paraguay picks president, ties with Taiwan loom large,” April 28, 2023.

Qtd. in South China Morning Post, “Is Tawain about to lose Paraguay?”, April 23, 2023.

Ctd. in Al Jazeera, “Taiwan in the hot seat,” April 17, 2023.

Ctd. in The Progressive, “The other Americas,” March 2, 2023.

Ctd. in The Diplomat, “The South American election that has Taiwan scrambling,” January 17, 2023.

As the year comes to a close, a bit of news on my 2022 books.

A Small State’s Guide

A senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Jennifer Kavanagh, listed A Small State’s Guide to Influence in World Politics as her “favorite wonky read” [as in policy wonk, or at least I hope!] of 2022. You can find all the fellows’ pick here. Thank you Jennifer!

She wrote: “The New York Times, leading political science journals, and international relations textbooks share one thing in common: they tend to focus on major powers (like the United States, China, India, and Germany) with large economies, powerful militaries, or global geopolitical sway and push aside smaller states (think of Estonia, Nepal, or Bolivia) and their interests.

Tom Long’s A Small State’s Guide to Influence in World Politics does the opposite, recasting small states as protagonist. He suggests that because small states greatly outnumber major powers, students of international relations miss a lot by not carefully considering their independent role.

Long argues that small states can wield meaningful influence and shape the behavior of major powers, but only under specific conditions—for example, where the small state’s preferences are aligned with those of a major power, on issues of high importance to the small state and low importance to the large one, and when small states band together to fill a gap left by major power initiatives. He then offers a range of strategies that small states can use to maximize their influence depending on the context. A set of twenty case studies, instances of small state success and failure across regions and issues, provides the reader with a close-up view of the opportunities and constraints small states face.

The book serves as a reminder that small states not only have agency but also matter a great deal to global outcomes, especially in an increasingly contested world.”

North America 2.0

A second op-ed with Alan Bersin was published last week in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

We write: “Because our societies and economics are so interconnected, investments in building bigger and better North American relationships can pay crucial, needed dividends at home. But what sort of North American agenda can strategically enhance regional competitiveness, while remaining politically viable from standpoints both of implementation and popular acceptance in Canada, Mexico and the United States?”

The piece is entitled, “It’s time for a bigger, better North America” and you can access the whole piece here.

I’m happy to see my first piece published in The Hill, co-written with Alan Bersin. The op-ed, “Global challenges, North American solutions,” seeks to animate discussion about why there’s a big, strategic reason for prioritizing cooperation in North America.

We write that, “[T[he next North American Leaders Summit presents a timely opportunity to begin. President Biden ought to arrive in Mexico City with a bold vision for invigorating trilateral cooperation where that is needed and feasible — and for  bolstering U.S. leadership in the world through its broader neighborhood.

“[T]here is no denying any longer the critical importance of Canada and Mexico — and the smaller countries of Central America and the Caribbean basin as well — for the United States’ own security and prosperity. Because our societies and economics are so interconnected, investments in these relationships can pay crucial, needed dividends at home.”

The op-ed draws on and supports our recent edited volume, out now with the Woodrow Wilson Center.

During the first half of November, I had the opportunity to host a coast-to-coast launch for the new book North America 2.0: Forging a Continental Future. I co-edited with book with Alan Bersin, and it was published in collaboration with the Canada and Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Belfer Center at Harvard University.

The book is available for free online. The first launch event was held at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC. It was recorded and is available below. We were fortunate to be joined by the Mexican Ambassador to the United States Esteban Moctezuma and the deputy chief of mission of the Canadian Embassy Sara Cohen. You can see their remarks below. The panels included several contributors to the volume, as well as our kind hosts: Christopher Sands of the Canada Institute and Andrew Rudman of the Mexico Institute at Wilson. I talked about North America’s place in a world of regions, and why global currents suggest all three countries should invest in opportunities closer to home.

The second launch event was in San Diego at the North American Forum, a group of policymakers, business leaders, academics, and more who gather annually to reflect on the state of regional integration. The gathering was hosted by the Institute of the Americas and the Global Policy and Strategy School of the University of California, San Diego. I presented the book to the group on Tuesday morning, and then gave a public talk in the afternoon.

I will add the video when it is available, but there is some information on the event available here. Former US Under Secretary of State Tom Shannon offered insightful comments, along with Dean Caroline Freund, Goldy Hyder of the Business Council of Canada, and Ambassador Juan José Gómez Camacho, formerly Mexico’s top diplomat at the United Nations.

Two reviews of my book, A Small State’s Guide to Influence in World Politics, have recently been released. The two reviews were released by journals that have a credible claim to the the oldest international relations journals in the world! The book received a capsule review from Richard Feinberg in the Council on Foreign Relations’ general-audence journal Foreign Affairs. It also was reviewed by Jack Corbett in The Round Table, a journal published by the the international organization, The Commonwealth. The nicest bits below:

Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs: “Long persuasively presses his case that smaller states, with creative leadership, can often successfully defend their national interests in contests with bigger ones. He urges his scholarly colleagues to redefine international relations studies by stretching beyond the interactions of great powers to focus on the many smaller states that light up the geopolitical firmament.”

Jack Corbett, The Round Table: “[A]gainst the aims it sets for itself – to outline and demonstrate the significance of a relational approach to the study of small states that starts from the position of asymmetry and is global in coverage – A Small State’s Guide to Influence in World Politics succeeds remarkably. It should be warmly received and become a touchstone text for anybody interested in how the majority of the world’s states engage in international affairs.”