ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by isolationism,

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the cold shoulder of foreign policy.

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Yeah. Like that.

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All right, check out the picture.

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The image. Right here.

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It reflects which aspect of United States foreign policy?

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All right, and here are your potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ] All right.

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Well, first, let's take a closer look at those fellas on the left.

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Right here.

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One is labeled "Portugal," another "Spain,"

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"France," "England." These are the European

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countries that had been playing in America's sandbox.

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Across that tiny river is Uncle Sam,

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who stands next to a sign reading,

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"No trespass. America for Americans."

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Might as well be, "get off my lawn, you crazy kids."

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In relation to U.S. foreign policy,

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does this image reflect

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B - the desire to extend

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the territory of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific?

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Hmm.

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That's Manifest Destiny, which happened as a result

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of the dynamic established in this cartoon.

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But it's not exactly what's being described here.

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Could this image represent C -

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Theodore Roosevelt's plan to "speak softly

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and carry a big stick"?

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That stick stuff was a part of the Roosevelt

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Corollary, which granted the U.S. the ability

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to intervene in Latin America.

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Except this cartoon casts us in the role of

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protector, not aggressor.

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What about D -

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FDR's New Deal to end the Great Depression?

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Well, the New Deal was heavily focused on

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domestic policy, not foreign policy.

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So that puts D a world apart.

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Which means that this image most reflects A -

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the assertion that attempts to colonize the Americas

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would be considered an act of war.

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After standing up to repeated attempts

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of colonization, the U.S. decided it was

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high time to act as the big, bad protector

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of the western hemisphere.

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This cartoon is a visual representation of the Monroe Doctrine,

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which created a virtual "no trespassing" sign

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announcing America's intention to consider any attempt

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of European colonization

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an act of war. So A is the right answer.

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Isolationists hated the Monroe Doctrine, since it

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started the U.S. down a path of foreign intervention

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first warned against by George Washington.

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As they say, it takes two to entangle alliances.

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[ splash ]

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of colonization, the U.S. decided it was

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