Good evening. My name is Nick Coddington. I'm the Director of Education, Public Programs and Visitor Services here at the National Archives, and I want to welcome you to your National Archives. Two hundred years ago this week, President James Monroe uses annual message to Congress to assert our nation's budding role as a dominant world power in the Western Hemisphere. Within that 34-page message, President Monroe offered a roadmap for what we now call the Monroe Doctrine, which called for three main principles, separate spheres of influence for the Americas and Europe, non-colonization of Latin America by European powers, and non-intervention in internal European affairs by the United States. While they've evolved over the years, those principles remain at the heart of U.S. foreign policy today. And like our founding documents here at the National Archives, we have preserved and protected Monroe's original address to Congress as one of the historical meaningful records that only served to guide us today, but help establish our national identity. If you get a chance, I hope you'll visit the Rotunda and be able to see the original Monroe Doctrine. It'll be on display until December 13th. I want to thank our partners, the James Monroe Museum, the James Monroe Highland, the University of Mary Washington Museums for bringing together this esteemed panel of scholars to delve into the history and the importance of the Monroe Doctrine for us tonight. I also want to thank the National Archives staff and the National Archives Foundation for their support this evening. And now it's my great pleasure to welcome Scott Harris, Executive Director of the University of Mary Washington Museums, and Sarah Bon Harper, Executive Director of James Monroe Highland, who will introduce our panel of scholars. Help me give them a warm round. Well, thank you, and good evening. The James Monroe Museum, which is located in Fredericksburg, Virginia, is administered by the University of Mary Washington, and James Monroe Highland, located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, is owned by the College of William and Mary. I'm Scott Harris. It's my privilege to lead the Monroe Museum, and my friend and colleague, Dr. Sarah Bon Harper, is Highland's Executive Director. Our institutions are grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with the National Archives and Records Administration to present tonight's program in this impressive venue. We're also grateful for financial support provided by the Paul and Jane Jones Trust, which is administered by Walter J. Sheffield, the James Monroe Memorial Foundation, and the Friends of the James Monroe Museum. Their support makes our public programs possible. And we really must acknowledge the tremendous work that Dorothy Doherty of the National Archives, their Virtual Programs Director, and Lindsey Crawford, our Public Programs Coordinator at the James Monroe Museum, the work they did in putting this program together. They spent a lot of time, logged a lot of hours getting us together and ready for this moment. We're very grateful for that. After our panel discussion, we will take questions from our audience here in the theater and online, and we welcome both of those. President James Monroe's seventh annual message to Congress, which was conveyed on December 2nd, 1823, consists of 6,354 words. Approximately 1,000 of these words appearing in several sections of the text comprise the enduring foreign policy statement that bears Monroe's name. But the term Monroe Doctrine did not come into common use until the 1840s, when President James K. Polk dealt with the Mexican-American War and the Oregon Boundary dispute with Great Britain. For the rest of the 19th century, the Doctrine was referenced, often elastically, by subsequent administrations in several instances. The French Invasion of Mexico in the 1860s, a territorial dispute with Great Britain known as the Venezuelan crisis of 1895, and US support of Cuban independence that led to the 1898 Spanish American War. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt declared a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that sanctioned intervention by the United States in the affairs of Latin America. And there are numerous other examples, big and small, where the Doctrine has come into play, whether it's the Zimmerman Telegram on the eve of the US entry into the First World War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and other instances. And from the mid-20th century to the present day, almost every US president has had a diplomatic, political, or military policy that has become synonymous with that president's name, increasingly applied not just to the Western Hemisphere, but globally. This evening, we will examine the origin, context, and application of the Monroe Doctrine over the last two centuries. We will also consider the Doctrine's contemporary relevance and its implications for the future. That's a tall order, but we are fortunate to have a panel that is equal to the task, which Sarah will now introduce. Thank you, Scott. It's now my pleasure to introduce our panelists to those of you here in the audience and the many who are watching online. First, we'll start with our virtual panelists, Dr. Melissa Martinez, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Merida, Washington. We welcome you, Melissa, whose research focuses on international relations and comparative politics, with a particular focus on human rights and violent non-state actors in Latin America. She is the author or co-author of articles in the Journal's International Studies Quarterly, Political Science Quarterly, PS, Political Science and Politics, and Social Science Quarterly. Dr. Martinez teaches courses in US Latin American Relations, Latin American Politics, and Drug Politics in Latin America. It's great to have you with us. Dr. Daniel Preston is an award-winning historian who began his professional career as an undergraduate intern right here at the National Archives from 1978 to 1979. He founded the Papers of James Monroe, an historical documents publication project in 1990 and served as its editor-in-chief for 30 years, retiring in 2020. He is currently co-editor of the Papers of Daniel Chester French, the American sculptor who created two of the great icons of the United States, the Minuteman statue in Concord Mass and the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Welcome, Dan. Dr. J. Sexton is rich and Nancy Kinder, chair of constitutional democracy, professor of history and director of the Kinder Institute at the University of Missouri. He is also a distinguished fellow of the Rothermer American Institute at the University of Oxford. Dr. Sexton is the author of seven books, including The Monod doctrine, Empire and Nation in 19th century America, published in 2011. I'm glad to have you. Dr. Ray Walzer is a professor of practice at Seton Hall University School of Diplomacy and International Relations. He served as a foreign service officer from 1980 to 2007 in a wide variety of overseas locations such as Nicaragua, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica and South Africa, as well as the bureaus of African European and Western Hemisphere affairs here in the U.S. From 2007 to 2013, he was a senior policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, where he focused on political and security issues in Latin America. We're glad to have you here. Well, our first question is a lightning round, and it'll be for just basic points, and then it'll get more as we go along. We'll start with Dan Preston and then with Jay Sexton, Melissa Martinez, and finally Ray Walzer going in order with this question. What is the Monroe Doctrine? Dan Preston. The Monroe Doctrine, as espoused by President Monroe in 1823, was an expression of concern that the European monarchies may make an attempt to suppress the republics in the Western Hemisphere, and not so much warning them against doing it, but simply alerting the world that the United States would consider such action as being unfriendly and a threat. Jay. Okay. I see some students in the audience that they'll know that the Monroe Doctrine is a trigger for PTSD from high school tests. That's probably how most people now encounter it. He used to think that the Monroe Doctrine was like a script for America's foreign policy, and it's kind of planned to develop its power. I've changed my view over the years. My definition of the Monroe Doctrine is that it's a contested political symbol into which varying actors have loaded their agendas. So think of it kind of like an American flag lip-hel pen. And I would just say one more thing enlightening round is that it's not just Americans or those in the United States that have invoked the Monroe Doctrine. Indeed, some of the most important invocations, particularly in the last hundred years, have come from actors outside of the United States. Melissa Martinez. What is the Monroe Doctrine? Yeah, so the Monroe Doctrine was implemented at a time where Latin America was still very, very new, gained independence quite recently. And so at this point, the United States wanted Europe to stay out of a weak region in Latin America. However, I also want to emphasize that the doctrine made it clear that it should not be interpreted as a desire to form security interests or treaties in the region. And it was from the very start a unilateral policy. The US was not necessarily interested in forming alliances coming from the doctrine and close ties with Latin American countries, but its main purpose was to focus on its own interests and unilateral approach. And Ray Walser. I think we go back to the sort of the concept of the old world and the new world. And I think Monroe was attempting to what I would say carve out sort of American exceptionalism in the term we often use that we're the new nation and sort of spread that mantle of exceptionalism that these new struggling independent states should be allowed, as we did, to continue their forward progress, to pursue their own sort of manifest destiny, so to speak. So I see it as, I think, every other point as well taken. But I think we're the exceptional nation. We're going to show leadership in the hemisphere and we're going to support our fledgling brothers to the south. Well, now let's get into some discussion of these points. Now we've gotten the lightning round out of the way. And to Dan Preston, who has probably spent more time than anyone on the stage researching, studying, pondering the career of James Monroe, what did James Monroe say in the annual address that we extracted to become the Monroe Doctrine? What prompted him to raise the issues that he raised? What did he hope to achieve? So what's a brief summary of the genesis and statement of the doctrine? And as been alluded to in the early part of the 19th century from roughly 1810 to 1820, a number of Spanish colonies in what we now refer to as South America, Latin America, revolted against the colonial rule of Spain. And by 1820, a half a dozen so of them had pretty much achieved their independence. They had expelled the Spanish from within their domains. This was followed in 1820 by a actual revolution in Spain in an effort to establish a constitutional government, not necessarily unseat the monarchy, but at least establish a representative constitutional assembly to help govern the country. This movement in Spain was suppressed by an invasion of a large army from France with the backing of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and other allies of the Spanish monarchy. The British opposed this move into Spain and were concerned that if the monarchies, once they had succeeded in Spain, would then continue their campaign and try to suppress the revolutions and return the rebellious colonies of South America back into Spanish control. And the British called on the U.S. to make a joint statement opposing any intervention by the European monarchies in the Western Hemisphere. There was a lot of debate in the U.S. among the leadership whether this proposal should be accepted or not. Monroe gradually moved away from it in favor of a more unilateral statement because he really wanted, as he thought about it, he wanted to say more about the role of the United States in this evolving world rather than just limited to this one specific event. When Monroe became president in 1817, there were two independent nations in the Western Hemisphere. In 1823 at the time of the message, there were eight and more likely to come forth. So there was a rapidly evolving change in the world at the time. And the hope was in the United States that these new countries in South America would become republics like the United States. And Monroe's fear was that the European monarchies being adamantly controlled, excuse me, adamantly opposed to the spread of republicanism, which was a direct threat to monarchy, would indeed try to suppress these revolutionary new governments and by implication threaten the United States. The United States being the seed of republican government in the world. The United States in 1817 when Monroe became president, the only republic in the Western world. So he decided to use his annual message to Congress, which was the equivalent, today we refer to it as the State of the Union address, but it was the major policy statement issued by the government each year. And everybody paid a lot of attention to it. So Monroe knew that if he said something in his message that it would receive a lot of attention and people would pay attention to it. A lot of the message was standard information given to Congress of issues that Congress would be dealing with in the upcoming session, the state of the Army, state of the Navy, internal improvements, the national budget, these sorts of things. But part of the way through, he was talking about foreign relations and he brought up the subject of a negotiation with Russia, referring to Russian interest in expanding its territory in what is now the Pacific Northwest. And in talking about this and about the upcoming negotiations, Monroe said one of the points that the United States would emphasize in its negotiations is that all of the territory in the Western Hemisphere was either occupied by independent nations or were colonies of Europe and there was no room for any more colonies to be established within the Western Hemisphere. This later became known as the non-colonization principle. This was off, totally separate from whatever else became known as the Monroe Doctrine. Let me jump in on this and ask about this, too, because if one Googles the question, who wrote the Monroe Doctrine, more than a few responses say it was John Quincy Adams. And I know that there's nothing more likely to raise your ire than that fact. And so between you and Jay, who maybe will moderate that hostile response about it, what about John Quincy Adams? What about his role? What about Monroe's role in articulating the statement? Monroe depended heavily on the advice of his friends and advisors. When he received the message from England about the British proposal, he immediately wrote to his friends, his advisors, his close associates, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison said, what do you think about this? And got their opinions on it, wrote to others, and then began to discuss it in the cabinet meetings as well. At that point, Monroe was moving away from a joint statement thinking about an individual statement. And Adams more or less reinforced what he said, that the United States should make a unilateral statement and not do something in conjunction with Great Britain. Adams envisioned the response to be a diplomatic note that he as Secretary of State would write to the secretaries of states, the foreign ministers of the various countries, explaining the US position on this. And if that had been the case, we'd never heard of any of this. That would have been, it would have been a few Adams scholars, a few scholars of diplomatic history would have picked it up. Monroe, however, being a much better politician and understanding how better to relate to the public, put it in his annual message, which put it front and center out to the American public and to the rest of the world. Adams wrote the short clause about non-colonization, about negotiations with Russia. Monroe used Adams's wording precisely. And I think this is why people pick up on this. Oh, Adams wrote this, and therefore he wrote everything else. Adams wrote about reforming the army. Adams wrote the part of the message about the budget. He wrote this part, you know, anyway, it's a lot of, whatever. Jay, is it Monroe's doctrine? I don't know if it really matters a whole lot. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I mean, one of the reasons why this debate has been so persistent, like who is the author of the Monroe Doctrine, is because one of the best sources we have for its genesis is actually John Quincy Adams' diary. And we know that the cabinet is discussing how to respond to the British offer, how to respond to this crisis over the course of several weeks, six weeks, more than a month. And they're going back and forth to it, toing and froing. And I think that what really matters about the message is to understand that, you know, rather than to say, this guy deserves all the credit, is to say that it was a compromise document that was a product of these internal cabinet debates. And like most compromises, the critical issues were kicked down the road. So they could all agree, and they being in the cabinet, we've talked about President Monroe, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, a Yankee from New England. The other big guy we haven't talked about is South Carolinian John C. Calhoun. And if you want to see difference in the cabinet, it's between Adams and Calhoun. And I think implicit, maybe we can get to this later in Q&A, it's because one is from an increasingly pro-slavery state and one's becoming an anti-slavery politician from the north. And that's kind of lurking beneath their disagreements on how they understand national security. And that's what those debates are about. You might think about Monroe's role the way I think about it, like Eisenhower, the hidden hand president that's kind of guiding a complex negotiation internal policy through to its end. And the end is Monroe's message. So that's the key point there. Two more things real quick. What issues do they fudge? And why does it matter? They fudge the issue of what are they actually going to do to support the Latin Americans and also the Greeks, which is also part of this discussion. They give support to them, rhetorical. They're not prepared to actually do anything. And that question's discussed, but there's no decision made about it. The British offer, they just kick that can down the road. They don't actually rule it out. That comes back later after the message is delivered. There's no definitive answer on that. And then the real important question, which the Attorney General William Wirt says is the only important thing we've discussed and we really haven't answered, is what are they going to do if France actually deploys an army to South America and decides to intervene? There's no answer to any of those questions. So the key thing to know about Monroe's message of 1823 is that it tells Europeans what they can't do, but it does not decide what the United States should do. That's why it's important it's a blank canvas for subsequent generations and they can deploy it on behalf of all kinds of diverse foreign policy projects because there's no kind of active policy embedded in the original message. But I would say what makes it uniquely Minrovian is when he gets to the meat of it, he talks about this implicit threat of invasion and how a threat to the new South American republics is a threat to the American Republic. What Monroe was concerned about and what the others weren't so much was the defense of republicanism. And what's interesting is in 1792, 1793 at the time of the French Revolution, Monroe wrote a series of newspaper articles saying why the United States should support the French and he said exactly the same thing. The European monarchies are going after the French Republic and if they suppress the French Republic they're going to go after the other revolutionary republic which is us. And as Jay points out he doesn't say we should enter the war on the side of the France, we should do this, we should do that. It's simply an alert that he wants to issue to the American people that this threat to this form of government which was at the time uniquely American may be under threat and we better think about it and be prepared to deal with it. And we've got to jump on our time machine now and go to the early 20th century. Right, so move way forward. One of the things if you only know a couple facts about the Monroe Doctrine you think about the Roosevelt corollary. So proclaimed in 1904 Jay what did it say, what was the impact, why does it matter? Okay, so now we're talking about the Theodore Roosevelt, we're not Franklin Roosevelt. We're still a Theodore Roosevelt. I mean Theodore Roosevelt had been a big advocate of American imperialism. There's a wonderful exhibit out there that was mentioned, great cartoon of Uncle Sam standing at the Fork in a Road. One path goes to, it's called the Imperial Highway for imperialism. The other path goes to the Monroe Doctrine. The point is that in the late 19th century the Monroe Doctrine was actually the symbol of anti-imperialists. It was those who opposed like America going to war with Spain and taking the Philippines and Cuba and Guam and Puerto Rico which is of course exactly what happens in 1898 and is the program favored by Theodore Roosevelt. Now he becomes president a few years later he inherits some real crises in the Caribbean, one in particular in Santa Domingo, what we call today the Dominican Republic. He's concerned, just as Monroe was concerned in 1823 that this instability will trigger European intervention or colonization of Santa Domingo and so Roosevelt issues his famous corollary to the Monroe Doctrine which draws from the original of 1823 but has a fundamental difference to your question. The difference is he's now answering what will the United States do. He's not just telling the Europeans hands off, he's now saying in order to enforce this prohibition the United States needs to take unilateral action. It needs to intervene in Santa Domingo. It needs to seize control of the customs houses so the United States can repay the debts to European creditors and then the United States needs to take a proactive role in administering rule and authority on the island. That's the original Roosevelt corollary. It is then used in more than two dozen instances for the United States to intervene in various crisis points in Central America and the Caribbean over the next say two decades or so. The negatively framed message is now called for unilateral intervention. Melissa might want to come in on this in a second because she was referring to it earlier. The one other thing I would say about why does this matter, it matters because the United States now finds itself in a series of quagmires in its own sphere of influence that are deeply unpopular, that cost a lot of money and don't seem to be leading to any strategic benefit for the United States. So if you want to know why isolationism becomes such a powerful force in America in the interwar period, one of the reasons is because of the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe doctrine which fosters all these interventions. So I often tell the students it's kind of like Iraq and Afghanistan in our lifetimes and how that's fueled a resurgence of isolationism because of the costs of these interventions. So it really matters in teeing up what will become a big grand debate about the future of American foreign policy as the world enters those two great world wars in the in the mid 20th century. And so I'll ask a quick follow up on that unless Melissa wants to add anything. Well, let's get to Melissa's question because it does play right off of that and then maybe back to the other one for you. Melissa, we have not forgotten you're there. We can see you and you're looking over our shoulder. So as Jay noted and Dan starting us off from 1823 on really through the 19th century into the early 20th, Latin America's vantage point of what the Monroe doctrine means evolved. It's probably safe to say those former Spanish colonies were initially the beneficiary of this American statement and ultimately its power to be a shield against European interference. But over time US hegemony and intervention in the hemisphere has been increasingly resented in Latin America. So how does or does not the Monroe doctrine influence US Latin American relations today? Yes, thank you. So yeah, I mean definitely times have changed since the implementation of the Monroe doctrine. Now it's hard to say whether the Monroe doctrine alone influences US Latin American relations today. However, the Monroe doctrine was just as Jay mentioned earlier, right? A company with related policies or policies and actions that were not very supported, right? That ultimately led to a series of violations of sovereignty that keep that keep happening over time. Now because of these violations of sovereignty, right? Over time we we tend to see a shift in what happens in Latin American, in the Latin American region. Again, this is not something that happens from one day to the next, but we start to see multilateral approaches that keep the United States out. Of course the US has been involved in multilateral organizations and trade agreements. So organizations like the Organization of American States, right? It was also part of the real pack in 1947 that I'm sure Jay might want to raise a point later. But ultimately later on, especially after the Cold War, there were a series of alliances and organizations that intentionally are meant to keep the United States out, which is fairly interesting. And a lot of that, you know, is evolving from trying to step away from this unilateral foreign policy that the United States had implemented, right? So some of these organizations that come forward include the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of our America, also known as ALBA, which is a far left alliance that was promoted by Cuba and Venezuela in 2001. And one of the many objectives of ALBA was to fight the autonomy of Latin America and oppose US imperialism, right? And then there are other more moderate examples. For example, the Union of South American Nations, also known as UNISUR, which formed in 2008. And that one formed to promote regional integration, which is still a topic of today, is how to promote regional integration in the region. And a lot of this discussion is happening without the United States based on, you know, experiences from the past. And one of the other organizations that has also been promoted is that largely stands out is the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, right? Known as CELAC. And this was built actually after much criticism of the Organization of American States because of the influence of the United States past. Now, what's interesting is for many strategic reasons back then, when it was formed back in, I believe, 1889, the idea behind the Organization of American States was to include the United States, right? And for the United States to have also be part of the discussion, right, of issues and disputes and have mutual objectives, right, that are promoted in the region. And so ultimately the headquarters are here, right, in the United States. However, that also comes with many dilemmas for Latin America. That means that if the United States does not want Cuba, Latin America, Nicaragua, right, or other far left governments, then it can keep them out, right? It can keep them out from summits.  And there was a discussion from the United States by President Biden, right, not to include these countries. The region reacted by, well, some of the members of Organization of American States reacted by not going to the summit, right? So in many ways, they have been able to recognize that although they do not agree with all objectives, they obviously do not, also all have congruent ideologies, right, or even political and economic objectives. But they have found that there are some objectives that, and that there are, there is power in numbers, especially when they are faced with a very powerful hegemon, right, which is the United States. And part of the big reason for the creation of SELAC, right, had to do with that criticism of the Organization of American States. So, and I say this because one of the central ideas behind the Monroe Doctrine was it was its unilateral approach to state level and regional crises. And so the alliances and organizations that have formed, right, are a few examples that support the idea that the Latin American region had moved forward from a hegemonic, unilateral foreign policy and really started to build other alliances, organizations, and trade paths to support their mutual interest. Thank you. I'm really glad to have that. And so let me follow up maybe for Ray and or Melissa. The rise of communism in the 20th century in Russia, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America has profound implications on the foreign policy of the United States and what role or roles did the Monroe Doctrine play in our country's response to communism, particularly in Latin America? Well, the document itself, I'm not sure whether the architects who foreign policy from the late 1940s on, I think it contained basically what I'd call sort of three basic principles or sort of pillars. One is the geostrategic pillar, which is, again, that old world, new world. There are differences between the two. But then you add in another dimension, which is the democracy totalitarianism, or we went back sort of republicanism monarchism. And then there's the economic system, which is capitalism versus communism. So obviously not all of that was included in the original Monroe Doctrine, but I think the idea of the distinctions between the two worlds, the defense of democracy and the defense of our own security. I being a product of, I was thinking of these students, anybody know what the term duck and cover means? Somebody shouted out what's duck and cover? Get under your desk. Cover your desk. That was not a student, by the way. Okay. And get ready for that atomic bomb. I mean, in essence, I got a chance to sort of get this question in advance. And I think we sort of see three waves of fear of communism. First of all is the 1947 descending of the Iron Curtain, Mao takes over in China. Things are, we go into a sort of a panic, but we also begin to construct things such as Melissa said. We reorganize the Pan American system to come the organization of American states. We create the Rio Treaty. We begin security assistance in the Western Hemisphere. I think there were .4 programs or something like that. We add a new tool to our armament, which is called the Central Intelligence Agency. So we begin, so the 1950s see a positioning of fear of the communist threat leads to such things as 1954 and the overthrow of Arbenz and Guatemala. Perhaps he was an indigenous left-leaning social revolutionary, but he had the fingerprints of Moscow were supposedly on it. So we got it rid of him pretty cheaply. Then something happens in 1959, which is sort of second wave. And that's Fidel. And Fidel comes to power and within three years has become an ally of Moscow. And this really, we have a young president, John F. Kennedy. He's just been humiliated at the Bay of Pigs. He was humiliated, I think, and he was humiliated in what was it, where he met with Khrushchev after the U-2 and everything like that. The Vienna summit. Yeah, the Vienna summit and everything like that. So he's coming at it. He's building the things like the Alliance for Progress, but he's also going after Cuba. We have the Cuban Missile Crisis. He invokes the Monroe Doctrine in the lead up to and says, you know, we're not going to allow the Soviets in the Western Hemisphere. So we fence along with that. The 70s we have the interventions in Chile. And then we have kind of a Carter pause when he makes this famous speech. Well, we shouldn't have the inordinate fear of communism, that we should really start thinking about who our so-called friends are in the neighborhood.  There's sort of moral stepping back. And then comes Nicaragua. My first post in the Foreign Service one year after the Sandinista Revolution. All of a sudden, not only do we have Cuba, Moscow, we now have that beachhead on the isthmus with Sandinista as Sandinista is the launching point for the destabilizing of Central America. So round number three occurs. Reagan Doctrine, support for the Contras, Iran Contra and all that sort of stuff. Finally, something happens. What happens in 1988? It was 89. What happens in 89? The Berlin Wall Falls piece comes to Escapulis, comes to Central America. All of a sudden, the temperature, the air goes out. So the communist threat sort of, as I said, I think came in kind of three basic waves. And then all of a sudden, it just sort of fades away, but Cuba won't go away. It'll still be there. We can maybe talk about that later. But that is in my sort of snapshot view, the influence of communism there's a beef uplift under Chavez Alba that she's talking about, Chavez linkage with Iran and the like. But communism, per se, is no longer a driving force in the hemisphere. Melissa, you have a take on that summary that Ray has done? Yeah, thank you. And thank you, Ray, for that. I would just want to add that I mean, during the Cold War, it wasn't necessarily, at least at the very beginning of the Cold War, it wasn't the view that the United States had towards Latin America since the mineral doctrine had been very paternalistic, right? So initially, the way to make sure that communism does not get into the region was thought, well, we just need to keep the Soviet Union out, right? Those communists out. So it wasn't until really the Cuban revolution, or you can argue that it was during Nixon's visit in Venezuela, that there became to be alarm bells that perhaps communism could emerge from within the Latin American states. And so the approach that the United States took towards communism in the region then changed along with their particular approach. And in some cases, it was highly overt. In other cases, it was covert. And so I would, you know, was how much the demon row doctrine influenced these? Perhaps I would, you know, I would argue that in those covert instances, right? And I, you know, for the very beginning or initially, especially in the planning of overthrow of Jacobo advance, it was highly covert. So it wasn't, you know, we, you know, we really need to keep communism out. That really happened a bit later on, right before he was ousted. And so it's interesting, you know, when this, this is used, right, of having this policy of keeping communism out. And then the tactics that the United States uses, whether it's overt or covert. And I think, you know, if we want to make those particular connections, it makes more sense to use them when it's largely overt. Well, can I jump in here real quick? When we're talking about the era of the Cold War and the Monro doctrine, there's a really interesting paradox. On the one hand, this is the period in time in which the doctrine becomes kind of part of the American pantheon. It's becomes noted by everyone poor school kids are traumatized by their tests on the Monro doctrine, commemorative coins are in circulation, et cetera. So its cultural standing has never been higher than during the days of the Cold War. Yet it's completely out of step with American geopolitics and grand strategy. I mean, the Monro doctrine, though it was an amorphous thing at heart, as we heard, was about separating the globe into spheres of influences. That's not post-1945 America with occupying armies in Eurasia, with plans throughout Latin America, with leadership of new international institutions like the U.N., like the Bretton Woods system, and so forth. That's the antithesis of the Monro doctrine. So actually, if you want to see who's really talking about the Monro doctrine in this period of time, you'd either find Latin Americans who are saying, hey, you intervening in our country is not the true Monro doctrine, or you would look for those old timers, those old timers that were opposed to the U.N. or to NATO or to all these new global commitments and they imagined the Monro doctrine as like a guidebook from a simpler time when America could kind of cocoon itself off in the wider world. So that's the sort of paradox. The last point to say about post-1945 America and the Monro doctrine, and it's still with us today, a fundamental kind of problem is that if America really wants to have a Monro doctrine, which means it can have its own sphere of influence, and it has certain privileges and responsibilities, imperial duties, if it wants to say it can do that, well, then Russia or the Soviet Union can have its own sphere of influence. That's the Brezhnev doctrine. If there's ferment in Eastern Europe, roll in the Soviet tanks, or China today. China can have its own Monro doctrine if we were going to talk about reviving the Monro doctrine in the 21st century. So it's this fundamental paradox and that's why when America had a global grand strategy, the Monro doctrine was not a useful instrument, even if it was a powerful symbol of cultural nationalism. I mean, one of the lines is the non-intervention in European affairs and right there we're intervening in the affairs, global affairs around the world. So there is, as I said, I totally agree with you of this paradox that exists. Or something we mentioned earlier, you were talking about at the negotiations at the end of World War I and how they were evoking the Monro doctrine, whereas U.S. intervention in World War I was a direct contradiction of the Monro doctrine, which is said the United States will not interfere in European affairs. An older historical paradox is, I hesitate to say it, but Monro almost had a Cold War mentality, an us versus them of opposing ideologies. But what's curious about it is in Monro's day, I'm getting trouble for saying this, the U.S. was playing the role that the communists played later of where they were the revolutionary viewed as destabilizing element in the established world of monarchy. That's what I'm pouring out, Dan is retired now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He can say that? I am not, I am not, yes. You just expressed it by this panel, not necessarily reflect. That was the ideological revolution, that was the new thought and that was the role of republicans in the revolution. Exactly, yes. The European monarchies, their policy was essentially a policy of containment, to contain the contagion of republican revolutionism. So yes, it does work that way. And it's also the pairing of security with ideology. Like that's what the Monro doctrine of 1823 is about, that's also what the subsequent Cold War, exactly what you said. We insert a point of order, this has been marvelous. We have 10 minutes left to give us more to contemporary times and we have two questions, Sarah first and me, that will bring us more out of history into today. I think I want to like pick on one thread there, mentioning China, right? And, you know, we talk about ideology and security. We can also talk about economics and political approach, right? Recognizing that, you know, these aren't 100% the same thing. But talk about China. Talk about China's sphere of influence now in Latin America. What kind of policy do we need? Is it economic? Is it political? Let's go to maybe Melissa first to be able to bounce back. Yeah, so I'll start with I think three main points where China has increased its influence in the region. So the first one is not only has it expanded trade relations with Latin America, but it also expanded investment interests that are many have argued our company with high costs. So China has slowly been able to create closer ties in the region, ultimately because it has reached a mutual point of interest and that is development without providing political commitments. And so that's the first place where it has increased. And so one of them is the very perhaps well known to the students in the audience is the Belt and Road Initiative. And so currently, excuse me, there are 21 Latin American countries that are all part of the Belt and Road Initiative. And so although this is economics, right, and investment, and it's not about security, one that criticized the Belt and Road Initiative, especially in the Western Hemisphere, right, is the debate that, well, China tends to contain clauses that retain the right to demand payments at any time. And some argue that, you know, if they are unable to pay and China takes over control over their assets, then it can also have leverage over international policy, right, and even political policy. So that has been one of the main arguments there in terms of Chinese influence and investment. That's one point. The second point of influence is military contribution. So China has increased its military contributions in Latin America. This includes Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador. And so that's a second point, right, where we have seen an increasing influence here from China. And the third indicator I would argue that is an indicator that China's gaining influence in the region is that there are more countries now that recognize China's claim over Taiwan. So currently over only seven countries recognize Taiwan. And so that speaks to one of the political influences that China has been able to promote in the region is nothing else. And so I would argue that those are the three main points of influence in the region. Now, I also want to mention that the United States is still one of Latin Americans, not one of, right, it's still the top trade partner in many places in the region. And so it has been able to create trade agreements and also China tends to stay away from political influence. And so although there has been an increasing level of influence of Chinese influence in the region, the United States still has a good leverage of influence in the region. Raise the diplomat. I was going to say. And let me segue into my one that follows that as we look at both the China influence, we've also got Secretary of State John Kerry in 2013 saying, you know, the one row doctrine is over. Five years later Rex Tillerson says it's as important today as it was when it was written. How do you reconcile those things in both politics and diplomacy with China and all the rest going? Okay. Well, let me add just a sort of a final point on China's influence when you think of really sort of seeing again the sort of the tectonics with the bricks, particularly the war in Ukraine, the emergence of what one calls the sort of the global south, which would be sort of your anti-Monroe doctrine writ large, which just recently added a ran, for example, to the bricks. So China is definitely throwing its diplomatic weight around. And I think your other three points are very trade, security and Taiwan. So I totally agree with that. Yes, back in 2013, I actually was sitting in the big chambers of the big ballroom of the Organization of American States when John Kerry pronounced the Monroe Doctrine dead. And it was kind of like, huh? We really all thought it was dead long ago. And he says, oh, that's a big deal, isn't it? Okay. We start clapping and everything like that. Move forward to Tillerson, who makes a statement apparently in Austin, Texas saying, yes, it's very much alive and well. I see the Monroe Doctrine is kind of like an overcoat. When it's chilly, you put it on. When the winds are blowing, the security winds and everything like that are blowing, you put the damned overcoat on. Pardon my profanity. Well, it warms up. Relations are good. It's peace on earth and everything.  The Monroe Doctrine goes back on the shelf. 2013, the world was kind of going our way. There was no Crimea. I mean, there were plenty of problems. But the world was sort of going our way. 2018, America first. A whole new sort of attitude towards the hemisphere. As one of my colleagues said, well, you know, the Monroe Doctrine was initially there to keep the Europeans out. And now most Americans want a wall to keep the South Americans out. So the context completely changed. Tillerson brings it back in. It's brought out, I think, as Jay said, periodically. And I think it's that sort of masculinity.  So Tillerson brought it back into the conversation. I think Biden has toned it down again. He wants to. Well, it's definitely appeared. And if you're watching the 2024 Republican primaries, we've had DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Pence, their foreign policy speeches endorsed the Monroe Doctrine. There's been a new joint declaration or declaration from the report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expressing allegiance to this old symbol from the days of sailing boats and so forth. I think there's two things going on. It just fits into our contemporary political moment. Kerry, the Democrat, is canceling, canceling a revered national tradition, declaring it dead.   I think that's the kind of surface level thing. The real thing that's going on here, though, the real thing is that nexus between rapid geopolitical change in the world, which we just heard about, and then a new domestic dynamic where Americans are debating what is our role in the world? What do we want to do? Do we really want to spend money to protect the Taiwanese and the Ukrainians? We'd rather spend that money building a border wall. What should we do? What's the future direction? And if you look at those moments in the past when the Monroe Doctrine has appeared in public discourse, it's when the world's in flux and Americans are internally divided about what they want to do and what their role is. So therefore, I really think that the Monroe Doctrine is going to be something that's around with us for the foreseeable future, like it or not. Well, thank you. Let's hop right to then. I think that's the starting point of maybe our wrapping up lightning round before we go to audience questions and virtual questions then from our audience online. Let's see. Ray, do you want to take this first? On its 200th birthday, does the Monroe Doctrine still matter? Excuse me? This is our lightning round to wrap up. On its 200th birthday, does the Monroe Doctrine still matter? I can't displace what Jay said. It does matter. It is alive just as 1776 is alive, 1619 project. It is part of our historical fabric and I think at least the memory of it. But remember, it's just one component. It doesn't deal with AI, cybersecurity, global warming, all the other sorts of things of which those chaps with maps had no inkling that was coming down the road. So yes, it's very important, but there are so many other things out there that are challenges in addition to what Monroe talked about. Thanks. Yeah. So if it matters, I agree with Jay. It's going to depend on who you ask, right? And so I think that unilateral focus though, it's time to really step away from that. The region now looks differently. It has many countries with strong political institutions and experience with democratic governments. And so I think it's time that we consider mutual political and economic interests in the region and use that as an opportunity to tie in with the region instead of this continued unilateral approach towards the region. I think what Jay says pretty much sums it up. The idea of the Monroe Doctrine has taken on a life of its own and it has come to mean whatever who is espousing it wants it to mean and it gets interpreted in so many different ways, but the name is there and the basic concept is there. And as long as people find it useful for whatever reason they're going to use it. Have events like this. Jay, you said it was a symbol from the days of sailing ships. Anything else you want to add to that? Yeah, I mean, I'll happily bet anyone. I think that there'll be more invocations of Monroe Doctrine and American politics 10 years from now than there were this year. Second bet, more importantly, we didn't talk much about this, but I also predict that there'll be more invocations of foreign Monroe Doctrines. That's what we didn't talk about, but China's 9-dash line where it's kind of charting its sphere of influence and contested South China Sea waters. That's like its own Monroe Doctrine. The invasion of Ukraine, the Putin Doctrine, is a version of that. So I think that's the other place to look and we'll also see that being an important factor. What you're saying is he should have trademarked it. Good point, yes. Patented it. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, thank you. We've got questions on each side, right? Okay. So do you want to start there? You have a question from somebody online, Lindsay? Yes. So this is from Phil Ander. It's a question for Melissa specifically and people can weigh in. Melissa, how did the doctrine reflect the foreign policy goals of the U.S. during the early 19th century and what were its long-term impacts on U.S. relations with Latin American countries? I'm sorry, Lindsay. Can you repeat the first part again for me? Yes. How did the doctrine reflect the foreign policy goals of the U.S. during the early 19th century and what were the long-term impacts on U.S. relations with Latin American countries? So I think perhaps Jay and Dan can hit in more of U.S. impacts in the early 19th century. But ultimately, in the how the doctrine has affected the future, I mean, like others have said, it's a document that continues to be coming back and going, but it's not a policy. So although some political actors have brought it back and mentioned the Monroe Doctrine is back in or where we got rid of the Monroe Doctrine, ultimately though, I think with that said to the Latin American region, there's no stability in terms of whether or not the United States or how the United States really feels about the region, whether it has abandoned the Monroe Doctrine or it has not. And I just want to emphasize my point in terms of how organizations have adjusted to this instability of whether or not it's brought back in and experienced with the United States by creating their own alliances. So it's going to continue to be discussed in political platforms here in the United States, but it's going to remain this unilateral document. Yeah, I know we're here for the course of the 200th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine, but of course I teach history as well. And I would hazard a bet, I'd probably bet $100 that most of my students wouldn't know what the real pact of 1947 was or wouldn't be relevant. But in a way, isn't it a better model perhaps for multilateral approach to South America in particular? Would that be a, if you were to contrast it with the Monroe Doctrine, we know we're going to have the Monroe Doctrine, it's not going to disappear, but would that be a better roadmap per se? Let me take one, if I could take a shot at that one. I think that we have two, I always use that when I'm sort of teaching the thing, there's sort of two paradigms. There is sort of the Monroe Doctrine, which is the unilateral declaration, which is if you go back to, I pulled up an old article by Abraham Lowenthal, the hegemonic presumption of the Monroe Doctrine. On the other hand, remember there is that other strand, it's this kind of yin and yang, which is Pan-Americanism, you know, inter-American dialogue and everything like that, concept of the OAS, the Democratic Charter. There is that other side, good neighbor policy, that's the other sort of paradigm and we're constantly, as you said, sort of warring about it. I think you made that point, you know, carry the Democrat, you know, the Dove and Tillerson, the hawkish Republican and everything like that, but we do gravitate between the two paradigms and they're both, sometimes we have trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time. It's such a great question though because everyone, the students will know the Monroe Doctrine but they won't know the Rio Pact. I'll give you another version of it. They will know George Washington's farewell address but they will not know Harry Truman's farewell address of 1953, the most underappreciated presidential speech ever and it's the inverse of George Washington and he's saying, you know, no political binding, political connections. Harry Truman's making a folksy case for internationalism in that same era. Of course it's his administration that negotiates the Rio Pact, NATO, all that sort of stuff. So the big question is, why is it that the internationalism has lost such legitimacy? Why don't people understand how well it served America's interests? And I think that's a big, massive question that deals with economics, deals with foreign policy but it also deals with education. So I'm delighted to hear that you teach your students the Rio Pact. Good evening. Thank you for coming here tonight. I really loved hearing your wisdom and all of your experience you guys have in this field. My question was particularly for the Monroe Doctrine you said has come and has gone at times when it was convenient to our foreign policy. The Roosevelt Corollary, on the other hand, has that something that has come and gone or is that something that remains in the American consciousness? And is that something that we will see again, come back, or is it something that has essentially left the arena in our toolbox? It's definitely the jack in the box. It had its time. I mean there was an internal State Department memo, the Clark memo, which kind of reviewed the Roosevelt Corollary and all the interventions and said, wait, this was a mistake. The Monroe Doctrine actually never said that we were supposed to do this and provided cover. And then of course it's Franklin Roosevelt who not only withdraws from these interventions but formulates the good neighbor policy which is the precursor to the Rio Pact. So it's not still like operational with us today but that idea absolutely is, absolutely is and that's I guess one of the questions for I guess for all you guys, not for us old timers up here but for the next generation to decide what's the appropriate foreign policy answers because the instability and the insecurity that comes with it, those are real questions. It's not like it's an easy thing to just say oh let's just have a multilateral agreement and that'll solve all the problems. I mean these are real problems but the course of action is very much up for crowds. Jay, can I make an additional comment on that? And if I think if I remember the Corollary talks about sort of police action. And we'll think all the war on drugs. Plan Columbia. Use of sanctions and everything like that. We do engage in substantial police actions in this hemisphere. It's not necessarily against the Spaniards returning at everything like that but there is still that policing aspect going after transnational criminal. I spent far more time at the State Department worrying about transnational criminal organizations and being in Bogota in 1984 when Pablo Escobar is rising than I did worrying about the Monroe Doctrine. But I think that the police power, law and order, stability in the region is still very critical and I think that is still sort of at the root of the Roosevelt Corollary. You mentioned with the Roosevelt Corollary the intervention in the Dominican Republic. Was it evoked again when the U.S. again went into the Dominican Republic in the early 60s? Or was that sort of something that was separate and they never really talked about. They never put an ideological label on it. We just did it. Well it was to prevent, it was 65 to prevent the Dominican Republic from going leftist from becoming another Cuba. Johnson wasn't going to allow another Cuba to occur on his watch. But did they evoke any sort of ideological label for it or was it just simply an expediency of the moment as you're suggesting for Johnson? The little I remember, I'm not sure that it was mentioned but it was clearly another Cuba means another base, the Soviets will exploit it and everything like that. So the logic was underlying it. This is again the era of the Cold Wars when presidents stop issuing corollaries to the Monroe Doctrine and start issuing their own. Truman's the first to do that and it really is because of this sphere of influence problem that it might be a classic Roosevelt Corollary action to intervene in Dominican Republic in the 1960s but you mustn't frame it as such because then that gives license for the Russians to do the same in Czechoslovakia. I have to note that in the collection of the James Monroe Museum there is a political cartoon that shows a very beleaguered Lyndon Johnson looking at a portrait of James Monroe saying they don't seem to like it as much as when you were in office. So at least Johnson through that cartoon was invoking a little bit of the tradition of it. I was checking to see whether we have any other online questions. We have another question here. Mr. Go ahead. I haven't heard much mention about the influence of the growing private business interest in maintaining their investments whatever in particularly in South America and my sense is that the Monroe doctrine is invoked whenever those interests are threatened justifying interventionism. Is there anything developing where international corporations principally based from the United States are influencing our foreign policy to protect their interest and as opposed to protecting Republican government? Melissa, you're teaching courses about the region these days. Is this a topic that factors in? Yeah, I can take on this particular question if I understand it correctly. So if I understand it correctly are there any policies that protect the Latin American states from investors coming from the United States? I think if that's the question. The answer to that is it depends on the government and that's the other thing too that we didn't discuss is that with Latin America things have really changed. So there's also the emergence of the pink tide where you have these and where it comes and goes where you have the emergence of new left-leaning governments that implement their own policies that have shifted and provide more protections that national protections in the region that might influence investors. And then you have other governments that are more invested in those particular investments and bringing investment opportunities to their countries and promoting economic growth and promoting development in their governments. And those particular governments would not have high restrictions for these particular investors. You have countries like Mexico depending on who's in administration, Brazil, right? You also have, again, depending on who's administration in the past, Argentina. And so you have some governments that do want to promote these particular investment opportunities and then there's others like Bolivia under Evo Morales and definitely Venezuela under Ugo Chavez and Maduro, right? That want to have stricter protections of external investors and particularly those coming from the United States. I want to say that. If I might add something to this. I think your point is I think corporate interests had greater, you know, the 20s, the dollar diplomacy, United Fruit Company was seen to be behind the Arbenz Group. Corporate interest, you know, the power elite was much more integrated. Today things are much more, you know, 1960. Expropriation of U.S. properties triggers the embargo in Cuba. On the other hand, in the 1930s, we managed to accept the nationalization of the oil industry in Mexico, part of the good neighbor policy and everything like that. Today, corporate interests don't wield the same sort of power that they used to. We have investment disputes, trade disputes and everything like that. But yeah, private economic interest in a market capitalist system in an oftentimes socialist oriented hemisphere will still clash. We need to bring this wonderful discussion which could have filled an entire day or more to a close with thanks if there are questions that people have either online or here, you're certainly encouraged to go to the websites or the Facebook pages, for instance, of James Renaud's Highland, of the James Renaud Museum. Feel free to pose them that way. We'll be happy to work with our speakers for getting answers back to you. We do want to continue the conversation if there's an interest, but I want to thank our panel and Sarah's going to close us up. Yeah, so thank you and I'd like to thank you, our audience here in-house and our audience online as well as really our distinguished panelists for the conversation here this evening. I found it enlightening to hear your thoughts from various perspectives on this policy statement that has almost lived a life of its own for 200 years. It inspires us really, I think, to re-examine the United States' interaction with foreign powers, including our closest neighbors. We see Monroe's long reach of geopolitics and our preservation of the United States and the way that the U.S. has cast itself in so many different ways since then regarding protection, intervention, and its role in the world. So thank you all. Thank you for joining us. Thank y'all for coming.


Greetings my esteemed Laddingtons. I'm checking in from a beautiful winter landscape I'm in search of a spirit an ancient Scandinavian hunter-gatherer spirit who can hopefully bless me with additional powers of primordial strength and esoteric wisdom We'll see if I encounter such a spirit. Hopefully we'll see. I will update you all if I experience a sudden burst of powers Now as you see in the title I thought to talk a bit about good old Nietzsche and the good old Temple of Iron. Now, I haven't read all of Nietzsche's books yet, perhaps I will someday, but I have read enough to be able to interpret his wishes at least. I do believe he would want us to train in the Temple of Iron and to post physique. Now the reason I say this is the following He teaches us that man is something to be overcome and We must embark upon the path to the overman Now I have talked about alchemy before on this channel and of course on In my great book reviews, which I'll read. I hope If you don't read all of my book reviews, you will not make it. You're not gonna make it You must repent by fasting for 24 hours. You need to do this within a week As a way to repent for not having read my book reviews. Now anyway, alchemy I'm not an expert here either, but what we can say is of course that the great work of creating gold within yourself It goes on. It always goes on.  So Nietzsche doesn't say as far as I know at least he doesn't say that you have to train in the temple of iron but if we look at that particular teaching of his that continuously overcoming yourself the gym offers this in a very In a very tangible and accessible manner that you can go into the gym to overcome yourself every time basically so you have a lot of guys we can call them the Ironic guys often liberals often atheists often this Smug archetype if you know what I mean, there's smug in everything they do So they would say to you if you say I will go into the gym to get stronger in the bench press And then they will say oh, why do you need a big chest for why do you need to be strong in this particular? Exercise in this particular movement. This is how they would view it because they don't understand they don't view The world they don't view life in a holistic manner now, of course for us enlightened individuals We know that everything is connected mind and body are connected If you take care of your body you take care of your mind vice versa So then to take my own training at the moment as an example do you care if I take 180 as my one rep max in the bench press or if I take 190 Both are quite impressive if I may be so bold The big difference though is that if I do manage in a few weeks time or a few months to get 190 or even 200 say it isn't all too big of a difference in the eyes of others Doesn't really need to be as long as I know that I have overcome Myself in a very tangible manner that I can point to yes, this is what I did Here's how I did it via discipline will power magic I managed to overcome myself and to take a few more steps on the path of the overman So do view the gym in a holistic manner that it's not about How strong you are necessarily compared to others and of course that can be interesting in other regards, but we were talking about the Path of the overman of the alchemical process of the great work Yeah, it's about you going in overcoming yourself and That creates a good momentum now talked about momentum before momentum is a goddess and she loves When you have these victories stacking up so you can have a very small victory Maybe it's insignificant to anyone else that you've increased your bench press with Five kilos, but it's a victory for you That will create a good momentum that you can use to go further along on the path of the overman So that is essentially how you can view it. That is how you can apply Nietzsche's teaching in your life. So it's a very tangible and accessible way to go along the path of the Overman now, of course, it's hardly the only path you can take you can take a lot of different paths But it's a very yeah again keep I keep using this word accessible, but it is very accessible So so yeah, that is at least how I would interpret the This particular teaching so thank you for watching. I will keep you all updated on my gym progress xxO boom


You should really only show people how to do an exercise one way. You shouldn't give them options. Something that really like gets under my skin is when I'm at a workshop. And this is just because I'm a little bit of a workshop freak, but it also causes confusion generally. I hate this so much. Seriously, I didn't even realize how much I hated until I started talking right now. It's when a facilitator says something like, okay, so we're going to do some voting now. Take a few dots and just start voting. And then someone's like, how many dots?  And then someone else is like, red or green dots.  And then someone's like, how can I just put like, can I take a whole bag of dots? Can I mix the dots? Yeah, you can do what you want. This is not, you're supposed to be this confident guide. You're supposed to be the person giving people the guardrails and the frameworks for getting this work done. And if you're giving them already multiple options on how to do an exercise, you're not making them happy. You're confusing everybody. Have one way of doing an exercise and stick to it. One way. At AJ and Smart, I'm even strict about the paper people use or the color of the post it or the shape of the post it. You tell people, take a yellow rectangular post it right now. Take a Sharpie, write HMW on the top left and let's go. Do not give people alternatives unless, and I'm leaving this till the very, very, very, very end. You still want to be flexible. You still need to be a person who's helping. You're guiding them. So of course, if there's an issue within the team where they can specifically do that one way of the exercise because you're missing some paper or something else, of course you can improvise in this moment, but always start with there's one way of doing this exercise. There's only one way. And this is the one way we're going to do it. And we're not going to discuss it. Please get that in your head. Do not offer people alternatives. Be confident in exactly the supplies you want them to use and exactly how you want them to do it. This is super important. There's one way to do an exercise.