The U.S. Military Financial-Industrial Complex Repackages Monroe Doctrine Meddling as Humanitarian Aid

Laura Richardson, chief of the Southern Command of the United States Armed Imperial Forces, recently called for the development of a new "Marshall Plan" aimed at Latin America, with the goal of confronting the growing influence of Russia and China in the region.

During the annual Aspen Institute security forum, a platform that has become one of the most reactionary and belligerent spaces in the post-WWII geopolitical landscape, she said: "I firmly believe that we need a Marshall Plan for the region."

Her call is part of the ideological coordinates that have characterized the forum for decades.

Richardson's call reflects the United States' ruling bourgeoisie’s deep concern about the undeniable loss of geopolitical and economic influence/dominance in Latin America. Although she presented the proposal at the forum as a "humanitarian aid" and economic reconstruction effort, in essence, it is a Monroeist attempt to counter the growing presence of emerging powers from the multipolar world in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region.

The general's rhetoric about the "serious economic recessions" caused by the pandemic was used as a mechanism to justify a program of economic and political intervention, similar to the Yankee expansionist efforts during the Cold War.

As with the Marshall Plan, presented as a supposedly selfless effort to rebuild Europe after WWII — when in reality the Marshall Plan was a preplanned dirty business, with Washington laundering money and paying itself $137 for each $1, 137,000% profits, absolute surplus value and wealth extracted, this time from Europe but still received by Washington, the unsatisfied serial-extractor — this time the intention is to reconfigure Latin American socio-economic structures with the aim of rebuilding “American Hegemony” through their fake “Exceptionalism and Supremacy,” something in which they will never succeed.

China and Russia’s Growing Influence in the LAC Region

BRICS+, plus China's growing influence through its Belt and Road Initiative, and the strengthening of trade relations with Russia, offer LAC alternatives to the partnership framework with Washington, thus revealing the real motive behind this maneuver.

She declared: "And we don't have those kinds of tools in our arsenal. How can we help? I firmly believe that we need a Marshall Plan for the region or, what is the same, an economic recovery act like the one of 1948, but in 2024, 2025," before the audience of the Aspen Security Forum, senior national security officials, legislators, and key representatives of the defense and technology industry, the military-industrial & financial complex.

Richardson's Monroeist statement that "economic security and national security go hand in hand in this hemisphere" explains why such statements are made from the military rather than the State Department.

It is obvious that for the United States, military security is an extension of economic security and strategic interests; therefore, Latin America is considered a territory to be controlled through their twisted Monroe Doctrine.

The insistence on combining the economic with the military is based on a narrative that criminalizes economic cooperation relations between Beijing and Latin American states. Richardson said: "If [the Belt and Road] is to do good in the hemisphere, then I'm totally in favor. But it makes me a little suspicious when it comes to critical infrastructure [...] deep-water ports, 5G, cybersecurity, energy, outer space."

The Southern Command, in line with the imperial guidelines of the latest US National Security Strategies, characterizes its geopolitical rivals as agents of global challenges that demand urgent attention.

In this framework, Latin America and the Caribbean are imperially conceived as strategic points whose protection is considered essential against networks of "transnational threats" that the United States uses as justification for its terrorist actions.

In fact, at the forum, the Commander of the Southern Command accused China and Russia of benefiting from "transnational criminal organizations" that operate in various illicit activities on the continent: "From drug and human trafficking to illegal mining, logging, and fishing in the southern areas." In the case of Venezuela and its geopolitical allies, blatantly false accusations related to these elements become a recurring resource.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, senior adviser at the Quincy Institute, questions the logic of this strategy that places the armed forces at the center of American foreign policy. Vlahos recently wondered: "We should ask ourselves…why it is the military that leads the singing voice when it comes to raising the real issues. Where are the diplomats? Is this just another argument to put more eyes and military means on the region?"

The lack of attention from the United States to LAC is another weakness that Richardson exposed. The shortage of high-level visits creates a vacuum that China takes advantage of, she argues.

In reality, it's simply that LAC doesn't like imperial jackboots, bullies, or pirates.

According to her, regional leaders do not see American investment. In contrast, "all they see are the Chinese cranes and the Belt and Road Initiative projects."

General Laura Richardson continued selling imperialism at the forum: "So what I would ask of all of you and those you know is that I need more visitors in the Western Hemisphere. I need more visitors in the Caribbean. I need more visitors in Central America. I need more visitors in South America."

Her exhortation is not precisely aimed at establishing constructive collaborations but is part of a project characterized by blackmail, opportunism, threats, sabotage, and even assassinations.

That is why all the regular working citizens of the world are sick of Uncle Sam and its imperialist foot soldiers like Israel wreaking chaos. Enough!

This policy relegates offers of cooperation to the background, while emphasizing the instrumentalization of coercive sanctions as a central tool to shape the behavior of nations that are reluctant to align with Anglo-imperial interests.

In Latin America, the imperial blockades against Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are part of the tons and tons of evidence showing the coercive, inhumane nature of US foreign policy, under the US’s current bourgeoisie financial dictatorship.

LAC, China, and Russia: A Mutually Beneficial Relationship

In contrast to the Anglo-American vision of geopolitical competition, Beijing proposes global cooperation, reflected in its last Communist Party Congress. The aim is to strengthen economic openness by promoting a new paradigm of collaboration at the highest level, as well as greater integration into the global governance system.

Its approach is based on international synergy, a multipolar order, and inclusive economic globalization. With win-win deals and technological exchanges as some of the many attractions of the Chinese strategies toward partnership, business, and diplomacy.

In LAC, China's economic and trade strategy focuses on access to raw materials and agricultural goods, the opening of markets for goods and services, and cooperation in infrastructure and energy, with a particular focus on key resources such as lithium.

Beijing seeks to increase its presence in the region, but unlike the United States, with the enormous difference of doing so through mutually beneficial agreements. Such a perspective is defined in the "Policy Document on Latin America and the Caribbean," published in 2016, as an update of the original 2008 document.

In practice, the commercial relationship is characterized by a significant concentration on certain products and countries. According to the Institute of Values Studies of the European Union, 70% of exports from the Latin American region to the Asian country consist of five products — including oil — and 90% of this comes from Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela.

This relationship intensified in 2023 with the signing of important agreements with other countries in the area, including trade issues with Ecuador and Brazil, and key agreements with Argentina and Nicaragua.

As for Venezuela, during President Nicolás Maduro's last tour of China, 33 cooperation agreements were signed in different areas. The relations between the two countries were elevated to an around-the-clock strategic partnership.

In this context, Venezuela's decision to forge autonomous relations, in line with the Chinese proposal of non-interference and collaborative development, places the South American nation as a fundamental element in Washington's containment strategy against Beijing and other emerging powers that challenge the decayed unipolar order.

Such urgency translates into an escalation of the militarized approach, a constant in US foreign policy toward the region, which is now observed more frequently and manifests itself in interventions, pressures, and coercion with the aim of maintaining control over a territory vital to its geopolitical interests.

A New Multipolar World: Challenges to U.S. Imperialism

Russian President Vladimir Putin made another important move towards liberating LAC from the West through the new concept of Russian Foreign Policy, adopted on March 31, 2023, focused on cooperation with non-Western states.

The document highlights, in particular, the intention to deepen mutually beneficial relations with Latin America and the Caribbean/LAC, including military cooperation, to help these countries face the imperial pressures of the United States.

This approach is presented as Russia's response to the escalation of Western coercive economic policy and manifests the need to create "global trade, monetary and financial systems" that counter the abuse of "monopolistic or dominant positions in certain areas of the world economy."

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