The Politics of Intervention

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THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION

The Military Occupation of Cuba, 1906-

BY ALLAN R. MILLETT

In September, 1906, President Theodore
Roosevelt sent 5,000 American troops to Cuba
to put an end to insurrection and assumed
direct control of the Cuban government.
The United States Army occupied the
island almost three years in an attempt to
restore the status quo ante bellum—to re­
store, that is, that measure of stability that
had been Cuba's following the Spanish-
American War. The occupation was based on
the assumption that insuring the peace of
an area was the purpose of intervention and
that stability was the necessary outgrowth of
any public order that was established.
Although the Army was in Cuba to serve
as the instrument of American policy, its
officers often favored alternative goals to
those prescribed by official policy. Some be­
lieved that American interests would best
be served if fundamental changes in Cuban
domestic institutions were encouraged; and
although they agreed that supervised elec­
tions were essential to a graceful withdrawal
on the part of the United States, they main­
tained that elections were not the same as
the reforms that they saw as the key to the
stability that it was their obligation to assure.
Mr. Millett's investigation of the Cuban
intervention does much to reveal the larger
dimensions of an issue that continues to exer­
cise our government today. For the question
of whether temporary stability brought about
by force but unaccompanied by reform can
result in lasting peace is one that continues
to confront those who formulate our present
policy in Latin America and, perhaps, in all
other parts of the world as well.

Allan R. Millett is assistant professor of his­
tory at the University of Missouri, Columbia.