MARSEILLE: Geopolitics

The Agone editions publish a list of US military interventions, from Haiti in 1915 to Vietnam, illustrating a bellicose foreign policy.

“Between us, I would welcome any war as it seems to me that this country needs it.” This quote, attributed to Theodore Roosevelt in 1897, serves as an introduction to an analysis published by Agone editions, based in Marseille. In the second part of a series titled “War as US Foreign Policy, 1846-2026”, the publishing house chronicles the factual accounts of American military operations abroad between 1915 and 1970, partly based on data from a 1962 US State Department report. This list highlights a consistent interventionist policy, far beyond the two world wars.

Latin America, a closely monitored backyard

The publication emphasizes the recurrence of interventions in what Washington has long considered its “backyard”. Since 1915, American troops have landed in Haiti, establishing a 19-year occupation. A year later, in 1916, the Dominican Republic experienced its fourth intervention, leading to an eight-year occupation. Nicaragua witnessed the deployment of 5,000 soldiers in 1926 to suppress a revolutionary movement. Later, in 1954, Guatemala saw the overthrow of its democratic government by mercenaries supported by the CIA, with the backing of the US Air Force. The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba in 1961, an operation led by Cuban exiles armed and trained by the CIA to overthrow the Castro government, is also cited as a significant moment in this regional control policy.

Containment of communism as a global justification

With the onset of the Cold War, the fight against communist influence became the main driver of American interventions. In 1947, the United States took over from the British in Greece, providing massive military support (74,000 tons of material) to the right-wing regime to crush a leftist guerrilla. In 1950, under the UN mandate, the American army led the international coalition in Korea to repel the North’s invasion of the South, a conflict that resulted in the deaths of two million Koreans.

The most striking example of this period remains the Vietnam War (1961-1972). Agone’s analysis recalls that the United States employed all its military arsenal, excluding nuclear weapons, against a nationalist movement. The conflict, which spread to the neighboring Laos and Cambodia through relentless bombings, resulted in millions of deaths and a resounding defeat that caused an unprecedented “moral crisis” in the United States.

Covert operations and protection of economic interests

Beyond direct interventions, the document highlights the role of secret services and the defense of strategic interests. In 1953, the CIA orchestrated a coup in Iran to overthrow Prime Minister Mossadegh, who had nationalized oil, installing the Shah for the next twenty-five years. In Indonesia, in 1965, the CIA guided a bloody military operation that ousted President Sukarno and led to hundreds of thousands of casualties, marking the beginning of the Suharto regime.

The Middle East is also a focal point, with the dispatch of marines to Lebanon in 1958 to protect a pro-American government and secure the region’s oil interests. The publication also mentions the constant diplomatic and military involvement with Israel during the wars of the period.

This historical chronicle is part of a four-part series. The first part is available on the Agone editions website.