Overthrow Paper

Stephen Kinzer
Chandra Boersma Ibrahim
Monday-Friday 12:00-14:00
 As implies by its title, the theme of that Stephen Kinzer in his book Overthrow is

domination, more specifically how United States ascertains its superiority in this world by

subjugating other smaller and less-developed nations. Be that as it may because of possible

economic interests, differences in political ideologies and alignments, or even just for the sake

showing its superiority, US have subjugated many smaller and less developed nations ever

since it emerged from the brink of its civil war.

Starting from Hawaii back in early 20th century and still last until today in both

Afghanistan and Iraq, motives and methods of these subjugations have evolved two times due

to the changes in the circumstances of this world, yet the impact of US occupation in regions

that are being subjugated are still the same; widespread poverty and violent dictatorial regimes

that led to the propagation of radical movements within these nations, which in turn struck back

against the US. While this was not the case to some of territories that was occupied by US,

such as Hawaii, Puerto Rico, or Grenada, for the most part the impact are still the same;

violence did bred violence, and the ensuing consequence of US imperialistic policies often gave

way to similar result, in which even further provoked US to invade other smaller nations to

maintain its hegemony.

In this paper I am attempting to investigate the motives, methods and long term

consequence of US imperialistic policies. Because of time span of these invasive practices that

reach over for more than a century, my analysis will be divided into three parts to accommodate

the different eras that US invasive practices went through; Imperialism era, Covert-ops era, and

Military Invasion era. In each era I am aiming to analyze the motive that provoke the US

government to invade those nations and the methods that she employed to ensure the success

of those invasions. Along the line, in each era I will also asses how the general US population
responded to the regime-changing practices that were enacted by their government, as well as

rationales that caused US to adjust her methods of invasion.

To conclude this essay, an analysis regarding the overall long term impact of US

subjugation practices will be included in lieu of a normal conclusion, where based on the trend

that exist throughout these three eras, I am aiming to investigate whether past invasions that US

made play a role in defining the future direction of US foreign policy towards nations that were

hostile to her.

Imperialistic Era (1893- 1910s)

i. Motive

During the imperialistic era there were two motives that provoke the US to invade other

nations and overthrow their existing regimes: United States’ economic interest and the desire to

expand the nation’s territories.

Economic interest was and would always be the very basic reason why one country invades

another. This notion goes back to the fact that stronger nations always wanted what the weaker

nations have, be that as it may their bountiful natural resources or even access to their domestic

markets, so that the strong nations can sell what they produce at higher price and obtain their

factor productions at fraction of their actual costs.

In the case of the United States during the imperialistic era, this economic interest taken

shape in the form of the interest of large multinational corporations. Despite of their for-profits

motives, large American multinational corporations are part of tools that the US government

employed to assert its influence abroad. As a tool these corporations are being used as agents

to capture foreign wealth, either in the form of access for foreign markets or to obtain the natural

resources of the respective countries in which they are present.

In short, their presence in foreign lands represents the US government interest abroad, and

should the local governments where these companies are presents defy their interests, it would

mean that that those governments are challenging the foreign policy of the United States and
punishment must be administered to those governments, usually in the form of deposing the

unfriendly regimes and replacing it with supportive ones, so that an example that can prevent

further act of deviance can be made.

This mentality can be traced back to the alliance between large corporations and the

government that have already existed dating back to late 19th century, where leaders of these

corporations tends to exert influence over American political legislatures or even occupied an

intertwined roles in both realms. The most visible example of this is shown by the case of us

involvement in Nicaragua as a result of removal of concession for mining that Zelaya’s

administration made toward La Luz mining company, the US government managed to depose

the once US ally Jose Zelaya from the presidential position, at the behest of Philander Knox, US

secretary of state during Taft administration and former corporate lawyer for La Luz mining

company, who fervently used any means necessary to unseat Zelaya from his presidential

position.

While this motive is proven to be rather elitist and does not relate at all with general public

interest, the support that the American gather for this motive were proven to be rather popular.

Multiple times during this era, the general population ended up supporting the US government

decisions to invade other nations, despite of this motive as its main reason. This enigma can be

explained by the fact that to promote supports for their decisions, US government sugar-coated

this excuse by inserting rhetoric about the Natural Providence, which I will be covering later on,

as part of this particular excuse.

The second motive that provokes the United States to go about and overthrows foreign

regimes is the urge to expand its territories. During this time period, as a fledgling industrial

nation, the US has always had the ambitions to compete with other powerhouse industrial

nations such as Great Britain, and one of the methods of competition that US government sees

as befitting their stature is to increase the size of their territories, like what other similar nations

have done.
 At first, in the effort to increase the size of their territories, the US government decided to

branch out around their surrounding areas, by expanding into the Western frontiers. Yet this

also has its limitation, by the mid 19th century, all the lands out west have already been

annexed, including the northern part of Mexico. Hence, what is left for the US was to expand

beyond the continent, so it wouldn’t the upset of balance of powers within the North American

continent; if she decided to annexed Mexico or Canada, it would provoke another war with

Spain or England. This is where the idea of overseas expansion was born.

The origin of the idea of overseas expansion is also interwoven with the economic motive,

since most of the territorial that US captured outside the American continent were secured to

facilitate the trading activities, such as Hawaii as naval bases and filling station in between US

and the Orient, and Panama for its canal. Nevertheless, some of the territories were being taken

simply to prove US superiority, and these territories are Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and

Philippine. While some proponent of US foreign policy at the time argued that the annexation of

these territories did brought some benefits, in reality no significant contribution were made as a

result of conquering these territories, especially the Philippine, which proven to be too much of a

trouble to capture.

With respect to how the general US population responded to this imperialistic foreign policy,

as I mention earlier, to gather popular support for this policy, US government propagate the

concept of Natural Providence, which was an extension of the concept of Manifest Destiny. The

notion of Natural Providence propagates the belief that Americans are the chosen people of this

time period, and they are endowed with superior virtues in the form of religion: Christianity,

political system: Democracy, and economic system: Capitalism. For this reason, just like what is

being mention in the Manifest Destiny, it is the responsibility of America to go about and

conquers foreign lands to convert the heathens and acculturates them into the civilized western

society, through introducing them to concept of Democracy and Capitalism.

 As mention by Kinzer, while US is not the first nation who embrace such conviction, given

the mood of this nation who recently got out of civil war and at the same time was still being

imbued by the idea of manifest destiny, such strategy numerously proven to be very successful.

By presenting their intention to conquer other nations in such benevolent, self sacrificing and

noble manner1, the US government found out that they can gathers massive popular supports

regardless of how ludicrous their main motive is or how bloody the subjugation process turned

out to be.

ii. Method

Along with manufacturing popular support in such massive scale, the Natural Providence

also contributes significantly to American imperialistic policy by encouraging a large scale of

improvement for naval forces. This large scale improvement can be traced back to the opinion

of philosopher-sailor Captain Albert Mahan, about how a great nation always have a great naval

force behind her. This idea later on significantly facilitates the method of Gun Boat diplomacy

which us frequently uses to overthrows foreign regimes.

Under Gun Boat diplomacy, as opposed to simply ordering normal invasion using the

available armed and naval forces, both US Army and Navy would showed up and only setup

camps on the area that they planned to capture. The point of this strategy is for US to win the

battle only by flexing their muscle. In other word, by exhibiting the sheer size of their

technologically superior armed and naval forces, the US government were hoping that their

enemies would immediately surrendered due to fear of total annihilation

Such strategy was possible because of two factors: the US Civil War and the notion of

Natural Providence. After the civil war, the US emerged with having one of the most

technologically superior armed forces at this time. Then, given the massive scale of naval

forces, courtesy of the Natural Providence rhetoric, the US also ended up with naval forces that

can rival Britain’s Navy and annihilated pretty much other nation’s naval forces.

1
Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow (New York: Times Book; Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2007), 135
 Now with respect to how these strategy would fare in actual battle, given that the armed

forces of nations that US planned to conquer look paltry in comparison to US Army; some does

not even have a proper naval forces, such strategy often worked wonders for the US, where

those nations were either immediately decided to surrender, like what Hawaii did or totally

defeated within hours like every other nations but Philippine.

Despite of their superiority, US armed forces appeared to be bogged down in the Philippine,

simply because they cannot overcome the advantage that the resistance forces have;

knowledge of local terrains. The resistance forces used this knowledge efficiently to their very

best, by employing guerilla warfare tactics, where they would pick a target, struck them, and

immediately retreated into the jungles to avoid from being massacred by the US Army.

Such strategy also placed the resistance forces in another advantageous position, since the

sheer size of US Army, along with lack of knowledge of local terrains, prevent them from making

swift maneuvers to catch up with escaping guerilla forces. As a result, early on this battle was

proven to be losing ground for the US forces, and only when the Army changed their strategy to

the gruesome non-descript killing of any male Filipinos over the age of 10, then the US fortune

in this war started to change and turned into their favor.

Covert Ops Era (1950s -1960s)

i. Motive

During the covert ops era the motive that provokes United States to overthrow foreign

regimes changed. Economic interest still exists as a part of its motive, and this takes shape in

the form of multinational corporations who felt threatened by local regimes who wanted to

nationalize their own resources, so that they can wrestle back controls of their natural resources

from the hands of these foreign corporations. But the role that it plays in inciting these overthrow

practices of foreign regimes have been relegated into a secondary factor.

 The main motive that provokes these practices is the fear over the spread of Communist

influence. This fear frightened US the most to the point where they began to indistinctly

overthrew foreign regimes and took over their nations through installing pro-America regimes,

simply to prevent these nations from becoming Soviet Union’s allies. To understand why US

went to this extent to prevent the spread of communism, first we need to understand the

circumstances of this time period.

After World War II, two nations emerged from this war as superpower nations, and these

nations were United States and Soviet Union. Despite of their similar standing in the world

hierarchy, Both US and the Soviet were polar opposite of each other in terms of ideologies that

they embraced. As a nation US embrace the concept of Democracy as its political ideology, and

in turns adopt the free-market system in the form of capitalism as its economic ideology. On the

other hand the Soviet use Communism as its political ideology and employed the commanded

economic system as its economic ideology, simply because it goes along with the concept of

cooperation that is embraces by the Communist principles.

Due to their differences in political and economic ideologies, during this time period both

nations engaged in power struggle against one another. This power struggle took shape in the

form of competition of which can country can spread their ideologies the most around the globe,

and as a result, the whole world became battle grounds for the competition between Democracy

and Communism.

Given this circumstance and her ambition to outdo the Soviet, US employed both peaceful

and forceful manners to prevent communist’s ideologies from spreading across the globe.

Usually, this process began with the US offering billion dollars worth of foreign aids to smaller

foreign nations in return for their pledge to align themselves with the US faction. Once the US

perceived that these regimes are more interested in leaning towards communism, the peaceful

strategy ended, and the US will embark on her forceful strategy, where she would overthrow

these unruly regimes and replacing them with pro-US regimes, regardless of their intended form
of governments; US would even support a drug-slinging military dictator as long as he supports

US policies. This is where economic motive play its role.

Economic motive did contribute in provoking US to overthrow foreign regimes during this

time period, and they did it through providing a push that US government needed to go after

these regimes. Similar to United States, multinational corporations were also frightened during

this time period. They were afraid about the prospect of nationalization of natural resources that

the local regimes were trying to do since such move will cause them to lose billions of dollars in

investments and future incomes, despite of the intentions from the local regime to compensate

these companies for their losses. As a result, these companies began lobbying on both

branches of the US government about the potential dangers of such action, and in doing so they

began to slant their facts in order for their concern to get notice.

By twisting the idea of nationalization of natural resources as an attempt to move towards

command-economic system, the rhetoric that were employed by these multinational corporation

managed to make these nationalist regimes as if they are turning into communist states. But

was it that easy to manipulate the us into thinking that the nationalization is a part communist

ideas? Apparently it was. Seeing that most of US politician at this time period were educated

under the school of Eurocentric politics, where the concept of nationalization do not even exist

since it primarily deals with how poor nations can revitalize their economic conditions through

state-ownership economic reform, and most of the European nations up to this time period were

never been too poor to enact such reform.

Given this reason, it was easy for these corporations to slant the notion of nationalization

and turned them into communist-based idea; the only thing that they need to do to made the US

labeled these regime as communist regimes is to say that these regimes wanted to organize

their economic system under the command economic system, just like the Soviet Union. The

example of this situation can be portrayed by the situation that Iran went through when the US

decided to depose the Mosaddegh regime.

 Despite of his nationalization stance, Mosaddegh detested the Marxism ideas and was

strong admirer of US democracy2, yet this conviction alone was not sufficient enough to save

him from the wrath of US policy on communism, courtesy of British Petroleum Plc. As a result of

his determination to take control of Iran’s oil resources, he managed to angered both BP and

Britain, to the point where Britain was plotting to assassinate him so that BP can continue its

activities in Iran. Eventually Mosaddegh found out about this plot and decided to expel both

Britain and BP from Iran, and this where the use rhetoric was being implemented.

Given that they can’t carry out their plan anymore, Britain was trying persuade the US to

take up this job, and the first thing that they do to convince US government about this plan was

to present that particular rhetoric above to John Dulles, who at this time was the secretary of US

War Department. John Dulles bought into this argument and enlisted the help of the newly-

created CIA to carry out the plan, which was to replace the Mosaddegh regime with the

leadership of the former Iranian Shah Mohammed Reza, who at that time was currently living in

exile in Monaco. As we know today, CIA managed to execute this plan and replaced the

democratic-loving Mosaddegh with Shah Reza’s monarchy.

While for the most part of this period US were being manipulated to overthrow foreign

regimes, these were not the case for two regimes that US managed to depose. In the case of

Chile, despite of the foreign push, Allende was actually being swayed to follow the communist

ideas. This was evidence by his strong ties to Cuba, which then was already Communist state

under the leadership of Castro. As for Vietnam, US created South Vietnam as a buffer state, to

prevent the spreading of communist influence from China, which already permeated the

Northern region of Vietnam.

But despite of these facts, was US involvement in these nation was supported by general

public? That question will be left unanswered since these decision to overthrow these regime

were created from the top, by US Presidents and executed through covert operations by the

2
Ibid., 118
CIA, without the general public in the America knowing anything about them, at least not until a

full-scale war between US and Vietcong broken out in Vietnam.

ii. Method

During this time period, United States can no longer use the Gun Boat diplomacy anymore

since the use of this strategy would give the Soviet Union a good enough reason to wage a war

against the US, and US government wanted to avoid this consequence at all cost due to two

reasons.

First, War cost unnecessary death of civilians. As taught by the both European and Pacific

Theater during World War II, war led to death of thousands and if not millions of innocent

civilians, and US wanted nothing of that sort to happen again, especially considering that if war

may break out, it may be fought on US soils as well. Second, US did not know the exact

technological capabilities that Soviet had in their weaponry and missile systems. Hence,

considering the Soviet standing as the second superpower nations, this lack of knowledge

would imply some moderate probability of losing the war for the US, and this is not a risk that

US willing to take.

As a result us began to employ the newly-created Central Intelligence Agency to do their

biddings, through the means of covert actions in nations where these supposedly-wanted to

depose regimes ruled. Covert actions that CIA employed to depose this regime were takes form

in the politics of money and weaponry assistances.

To get their jobs done, CIA decided to financially backed any opposition to the current

regime, regardless of their size, and simultaneously provide them with weapons, artilleries,

intelligence reports, and other things that are necessary to carry their coup. In return for these

assistances, once they are in power these oppositions are required to pledge their alliance to

US and any of its subsidiaries, including multinational corporations.

 As for direct support, only on several occasion did the US forces involved herself into the

conflict, and in general these took place in operations for very small nations such as Guatemala;

where two CIA planes bombed out military posts, fuel tanks and airports3, so that it would not

attract any attention from the Soviet. Yet there is always an exception, which happened to be

South Vietnam.

Due to its position as a buffer state that intended to fortify the rest of South East Asian

region from the spread of communist influence, US government was highly protective of South

Vietnam, where US not just directly involved in setting up the puppet government under Diem,

but also openly involved in maintaining the sovereignty of this puppet government.

According to figures that Kinzer provide in his book, in the early 1960s there were exactly

16,500 American troops stationed in South Vietnam. In addition to the troops, Kennedy’s

Administration also strategically positioned a large list of “jet fighters, helicopters, heavy artillery

and all manner of weaponry”4 that were more than enough to invade other nations in this

region, across the Southern Vietnam regions so that it can prepare for any invasion from the

nearby communist nation.

Invasions Era (1980s- onward)

i. Motive

Economic motive has little or nothing to do at all in provoking United States to overthrows

foreign regimes during the Invasions era. Rather, the main motive that kept recurring throughout

different invasions during this era is entirely political, and has everything to do with how US

wanted to be seen in the eyes of other nations in this world.

Under this era, Invasion is a way for US to restore its credibility as one of the remaining

superpower nations. Whenever US reputation as a superpower decline, be as it may due to

perception of weak presidencies or even terrorist attacks on our soils, the US government
3
Ibid., 142
4
Ibid., 154
decided to showcase its military strength, so that this nation can regain back our declining

reputations. To do this they often decided to invade small rogue nations that the US government

is completely sure can take over without much effort, one of the prime examples of this scenario

happened to be Grenada.

Prior to US invasion of Grenada, Ronald Reagan’s administration have to withered a series

of events that undermine the strength of his administration, which subsequently also reduce

international confidence towards US status as a superpower nation.

The first of these two events was the 1983 suicide bombing in Lebanon. Under this event,

both French and US military barracks in Beirut was assaulted by a suicide bomber who in turn

managed to produce a combination 299 military casualties from both French and American

side5. The significant of this even was that it showed that American military forces is not as high

and mighty as the US advertised, considering that they could not foresee nor minimize the

impact of such small scale attack. Then, this event is succeeded by an assassination attempt

toward Reagan, which then further undermined US reputation in the eyes of the world, seeing

that the American intelligence system cannot even protect their own president from their own

citizens let alone protect the rest of the world.

Both event seriously damaged Reagan’s credibility, especially considering that he was

elected because of his platform that intended to restore American’s standing in the world

hierarchy, which was severely damaged as a result of total humiliation in Vietnam and the Iran

hostage crisis. To resolve this, he then relied on a quick fix solution which was to invade the

small war-torn nation called Grenada, under the pretext of preserving the safety of American

students who were living in Grenada.

Prior to US invasion, the recent history of Grenada was already replete with violence and

military actions, where first a small group of foreign educated Grenadian that went by the name

5
Wikipedia,"1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing"; available from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing; Internet; accessed 4 August 2010
of New Jewel overthrew the corrupt old regime through the use of military force. Subsequently,

after this revolution an internal conflict took place within the New Jewel faction between its

leader Maurice Bishop and his right hand man: Bernard Coard, which ultimately ended with

Bishop’s execution, along with some other individuals who belong to his faction.

Knowing this internal disharmony within Grenada, the US government decided to step in

and invaded this nation under the reason that is mentions above. Yet, despite of this altruistic

motive, the actual point of this invasion was much more than that. This invasion, which lasted

only in matters of hours, exhibited the sheer strength of US military force, just like what the US

government intended when it concocted the plan for this invasion. This domination in turn not

just restored US reputation, but also prevented some future insurgencies attacks towards the

US.

Yet, this situation is not entirely applied to all invasions that US have conducted during this

era. Under the Iraq-Kuwait crisis, US government acted the under the Economic motive of

preserving Americans oil wells in Kuwait sent its troops to this region to protect the Kuwaiti

monarch and expel the Iraqi forces who invaded this nation. Similarly, under the first

Afghanistan war, although US technically also fought in this war, it did it through financing the

Afghans warlords to fight the Soviet army under her behalf, using some of the weapons that US

sent to them through Iranian government.

ii. Method

For the most part, the method that US employed to overthrew foreign regimes under this era

is an all out invasion by US military forces, where using parts of provision that were being

granted by the War Power Act of 19736, US presidents commanded the US troops to invade

these regions. With respect to the size of the troops that being use for these invasions, the

strength of military forces that were mobilized by government varies according to the amount of
6 7
, Wikipedia,“War Powers Resolution"; available from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution; Internet; accessed 5 August 2010
resistance that it encounters during the invasion process; it ranged from moderate like the one

in Grenada or heavy mobilization like we are currently seeing in Iraq.

While this strategy appears to be a continuation of the old strategy that US employed during

the Imperialistic era; now US were not just flexing their muscles, but actually used them to

muscle out the old regimes, such strategy remained to be extremely efficient judging from the

amount of time that it taken for US to complete each invasion, which were always less than the

60 days time limit that is imposed by the provision of War Power Act7.

Nevertheless, the extent of effectiveness that this strategy carries can only go as far as the

invasion process. In terms of maintaining the peace after this invasion, this strategy have

demonstrated to be an extreme failure given that the presence of US troops in the invaded often

incites hatred from local populations, who sees this move as another form of subjugations. In

turn some of this hatred eventually manifested into separatist movements which later on would

strike back against the US.

Yet, despite of how grimed this whole invasion situation might turned out to be, the mood

back home regarding these invasions were always positive in the beginning. Using the same

rhetoric that was employed during the imperialistic era; that these invasions are conducted for

the moral reason and the benefit of people who are living in these regions, the US government

always managed to garner significant public supports. Much of the reason that cause US public

to bought into the same argument can be traced back to similarity between the US public in this

era with the one that lived during the imperialistic era.

Just like their predecessor, the US population in the Invasion era considers America as a

sleeping giant that need to return to its rightful position, so that it sovereignty wouldn’t be

undermine by other nations anymore. Hence, since they perceived showcase of military

strength as the best method to accomplished this goal, majority of them wholeheartedly

supported these invasions.

7
 But one thing is different in comparison to the situation 100 years ago. Given the

advances in media coverage, where conditions during the war are being exposed and

broadcasted to the general public, the amount of general supports that US government received

for their invasions decisions tend to dwindles as the length of this invasion drags on. As

demonstrated by the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, as these wars drags on and the

death tolls of American soldiers who died out there increases, the once popular domestic

support for these invasions have turned into a barrage of criticisms against both presidential

administrations, which further undermine US credibility in the eyes of the world.

Conclusion

In analyzing the long term impact of American’s decisions to invades other nations and

overthrow their current regimes, one trend that we need to keep in minds is that all of these

decision were formulated by outsiders, who failed to take into consideration the impact of their

policies upon the local populations because they were either too confident about the

effectiveness of their policies or simply refused to acknowledged the importance of the response

of local populations in formulating their policies.

During the imperialistic era, lack of telecommunication infrastructures prevented the US

government from getting enough information about the regions that they were about to invade.

During the Covert-Ops era, despite of many warnings and disapproval from section chiefs in

which those regions belongs to, the higher ups of the CIA decided to execute their plans, simply

because they didn’t want to defy the presidential orders. Similarly, in the Invasion era same

scenario occurred, where those who made the decisions not only ignored the warnings from

their CIA’s section chiefs but also international pundits who are more familiars about these

areas.

As a result, while the invasion process themselves were considered successful, what

came after these invasions were usually the opposite. To maintain order after each invasion, US

government usually established pro-US puppet government or delegated the power to military
junta who supported this invasion. This form allocation of power created many future problems,

since all of these government were minority who ruled these nations through strong hand

policies that did not go along with the interest of the majority.

Consequently, this form of government creates many discontentment among the locals

who sees the sovereignty of their nation and their culture is being repressed by a foreign

invader, and as a result they began to rise up and form separatist movements that intended to

strike back against the US at anywhere in the world.

Given what we have seen so far, it is fair to say that the American pursues to maintain

its hegemony were and will always be defined by actions that she committed in the past. What

seem to be trivial regime changing operations in some backwater third world countries such as

Guatemala consequently affects the geopolitical stabilities of US and her allies, and eventually

forces the US to repeat the same mistake all over the world, simply to defend her hegemony.

What is interesting about this whole matter is that this whole mess started because of

one simple conviction; that we American citizens are better than anyone else, and what works

for us must works for everyone else. Had the US employed similar strategy of appeasement that

she used to deal with unfriendly large nations, such as China, to these smaller nations maybe

all of the current conflict would not even started and our government can allocates some of

their monstrous defense budget to finance other issues that are more important to this nation.