Response Paper

Compare and contrast the order constructed by the United States in the Caribbean basin between 1880 and 1939 with the proposed order championed by President Woodrow Wilson through the League of Nations, where orders are defined as patterned relationships between member states governed by rules, norms, and decision-making procedures. What were the principal differences? Why did the former persist for decades while the latter was never implemented? Use the history provided by LaFeber and the theoretical framework by Lake to support your analysis. Given the normatively objectionable characteristics and the resistance (anti-Americanism) generated by the U.S.-Caribbean order, and the problems of international cooperation that followed the failure of the League of Nations, is some order better than no order? Should the United States compromise on the pursuit of its own interests to maintain more positive relations with other countries? Why?

potential material: Walter LaFeber, The American Age: U.S. Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, 1750 to the Present (Second Edition). New York: W. W. Norton, 1994.