Ben Rowswell is Convenor of the Circle for Democratic Solidarity. He was Canada's ambassador to Venezuela from 2014 to 2017.
On Sept. 2, the U.S. fired the first shot in a massive naval buildup in the Caribbean Sea, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing that the U.S. had attacked a vessel belonging to Venezuela. Seven warships and one nuclear-powered submarine, now poised off the Venezuelan coast, are prepared to inflict much greater damage.
Washington has not invoked any legitimate source of international law to justify its actions. The objective, according to the White House, is to "combat and dismantle drug trafficking organizations" led by a "fugitive" of U.S. law, otherwise known as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The U.S. has repeated the Trumpian sleight-of-hand that Mr. Maduro's regime is not a government, but in fact a "Cartel of the Suns" - originally an insult directed at the Venezuelan armed forces (whose insignia feature a sun) for their corrupt business activities, but now a label being used to justify the potential use of military force on foreign soil.
While the weapons and tactics would be new, the violation of international law governing the use of force echoes a darker period of history.
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Prior to 1933, the U.S. reserved the right to impose its will on any country. The key policy that encapsulated that earlier set of rules was articulated by U.S. president James Monroe in 1823. Originally a bid to keep other imperial powers out of newly independent nations in the Americas, the Monroe doctrine was soon invoked to extend the influence of the U.S. over its neighbours. America's conquest of territory from Mexico in 1845, its invasions of Cuba and Puerto Rico in 1898, and its occupation of Haiti in 1915 were all justified by the Monroe Doctrine. In 1895, secretary of state Richard Olney claimed that the Monroe Doctrine established the U.S. as "practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law."
Only when Franklin Roosevelt came to power did the U.S. accept sovereign equality as the basis of its relations in the hemisphere, with his "Good Neighbor" policy. He was also instrumental in embedding similar principles into the rules governing the entire world after the Second World War.
Today, those principles underpin the rules-based international order on which Canada depends for our own sovereignty. As Roosevelt affirmed after the Yalta Summit, which paved the way for the creation of the United Nations, a new set of rules had replaced "the spheres of influence, the balances of power" that had been "tried for centuries - and always failed."
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Canada may be tempted to look away from the burgeoning tensions off the coast of Venezuela. Ottawa, after all, is no friend of the Maduro regime. But the rules the U.S. proposes to discard in threatening Venezuela are rules that protect Canada, too.
Canada has recoiled against the U.S.'s bid to establish dominance over us through economic force, though to date we have had an easier ride than some others. The U.S. has imposed far more punishing tariffs on Brazil in an attempt to punish it for putting former president Jair Bolsonaro on trial for his alleged role in an attempted coup. The U.S. has invoked the possibility of military invasion to take over the Panama Canal. Even NATO ally Denmark has grappled with the prospect that the U.S. is open to using military force to conquer Greenland. These are all assertions of U.S. disregard for the sovereignty of neighbours.
As each of our countries reels from U.S. provocations, few have stood up for each other. Canadian leaders have been silent about the threats against Brazil and Panama, and the most senior-level support voiced for Greenland came from our ambassador to France. Short-term tactical considerations around securing an elusive trade deal with the U.S. have taken precedence so far.
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But long-term strategic interests require that we protect against any potential threat to our sovereignty.
We owe Mr. Maduro's authoritarian regime nothing. Nevertheless, all countries of the Americas owe it to one another to uphold the principle of sovereign equality. One clear and simple way to do so would be to join together in disputing any invocation of the Monroe Doctrine.
No matter the grievance against Venezuela, the U.S. does not have the right to threaten military force without a mandate from the UN Security Council. Any time it violates the laws governing the use of force in the Americas, or interferes in the rule of law of a neighbouring state, we should stand up for one another.
Canada can continue to integrate its economy closely with the U.S. on a foundation of sovereign equality. That requires reminding our American friends that the Monroe Doctrine has no place in a hemisphere of sovereign states.