The Ghost of 1823: How the Monroe Doctrine Haunts the Modern World

The map of the world represents more than the geography of land and water; it is a cartography of power that the historic aggressors hold. For almost two centuries, invisible lines have crisscrossed the globe, not just representing sovereign borders, but also demarcating “backyards” – zones where great powers are asserting the unspoken rule that “might is right”.

Illustration by The Geostrata

In 1823, a ghost was born in the United States of America that continues to haunt the international order even in the 21st century: The Monroe Doctrine.

The then American President James Monroe, in his address to the national Congress in 1823, outlined the Monroe Doctrine as a warning to the European powers to keep their ambitions in check, and that it would not tolerate further colonisation or puppet monarchs in the Western Hemisphere. The doctrine was conceived to meet critical concerns at the time, but soon became a foundational axiom of American hegemony in the Americas.

The doctrine has now mutated into a blueprint for postmodern hegemony – aggressively revived by the United States and mirrored by other powers such as Russia, France, China, etc. Woodrow Wilson further entrenched this precedent. He transformed the doctrine into a tool for political management under the guise of “teaching and spreading democratic values”. His administration’s frequent military occupations in Latin America established that the hemisphere’s sovereignty was subject to the approval of the United States.

All signals of this great revival point towards a dangerous regression in the global world order, threatening the sovereignty of the smaller nations and the resurgence of neocolonial ambitions.

THE ROOSEVELT COROLLARY

The turning point of the doctrine came in 1904 with the Roosevelt Corollary. The then President Theodore Roosevelt declared that the United States had “international police power” to intervene in the domestic affairs of its neighbours to maintain “order”, “protect national interests” of the United States, and also pre-emptively crush any invitation to “foreign aggression” that would be detrimental for the “entire region of the Americas”.

The Roosevelt Corollary contained a profound irony. The policy, originally conceived to prevent foreign meddling, became a license for imperialism for the United States in the Western Hemisphere. This license was exercised with ruthlessness throughout the 20^th century.

The definition of “protection” evolved to justify interventions in sovereign nations such as Guatemala, Chile, and Grenada. To effectively protect the Western hemisphere from the wave of communism, Washington effectively made Latin American sovereignty conditional: freedom as long as it did not cause any inconvenience to American strategic interests.

It would be intellectually dishonest to critique the Monroe Doctrine in isolation. The United States is not the only practitioner of consolidating hegemonic power. In the multipolar structure of global politics, other major powers have carved out their own spheres of influence using strikingly similar methodologies and justifications. The Monroe Doctrine has become a franchise model for other great powers to follow.

RUSSIA AND THE EASTERN EUROPE

As Washington views Latin America as its strategic backyard, Moscow views the post-Soviet space – its “Near Abroad” – as an exclusive region of influence. The assertion that a major power has a “privileged interest” in the security architecture of its neighbours has been used by the Kremlin to justify its interventions in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014, 2022). It mirrors the logic of the Monroe Doctrine.

The demand for Ukraine to remain “neutral” and outside of NATO is effectively enforcing a Slavic-style Monroe Doctrine, arguing that the presence of adversary military alliances on its borders is an existential threat.

Moscow also leverages “frozen conflicts” beyond direct military intervention, as a geopolitical anchor. By backing separatist movements in Transnistria in Moldova or South Ossetia in Georgia, permanent instability has been created that effectively hinders these nations from joining the EU or NATO. Furthermore, the Kremlin also weaponises energy dependency, using its gas supplies as a chokehold to ensure political compliance in Eastern Europe. This strategic encirclement is culturally reinforced as a “civilisational duty” to “protect” Russian speakers abroad, effectively disregarding national borders in favour of an imperial ethnic map.

FRANCE AND FRANCAFRIQUE

France has maintained a post-colonial sphere of influence in the African region known as Francafrique. The methods are more about economic and military entanglement and less about direct annexation. Through mechanisms such as the CFA Franc currency, which ties the economies of 14 African nations to the French treasury, and a permanent military presence in the Sahel, Paris has historically exerted a veto power over the sovereignty of its former colonies. France often frames its interventions as “stabilisation” missions. Critics argue that this is merely neocolonialism reborn, ensuring that French geopolitical interests take precedence over African autonomy.

The core of the French method is resource extraction, masked as security cooperation. France’s nuclear-powered energy grid is heavily dependent on uranium that is imported from Niger. The stability of the French economy relies on the controlled instability in the Sahel. However, this neo-colonial architecture is slowly collapsing. Recent waves of military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger represent a brutal rejection of this doctrine, as local populations have started to rightly view the French presence as an occupational force protecting corporate interests over human well-being.

CHINA AND THE SILK ROAD OF DEBT CHINA

China has refined the model of influence through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the East. This strategic ambition is most evident in the Indian Subcontinent region. Through opaque lending practices often described as “debt trap diplomacy”, China finances critical infrastructure and energy projects such as ports, railways, and highways in developing nations, which often result in repayment through sovereignty.

The Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka has been leased out to China for 99 years to raise funds for debt repayment. The deal has given China control of the port, leading to worries about its usage, despite claims it helped Sri Lanka manage its balance of payments.

Beijing’s influence is most prominent in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project that cuts through disputed territory in Kashmir, effectively legitimising Pakistan's occupation to serve Beijing’s transit needs. This creates a "dual-use" threat where commercial ports like Gwadar can easily be repurposed into naval bases, encircling India.

Furthermore, China has also been exporting "Digital Authoritarianism" along the Digital Silk Road, providing surveillance technology and facial recognition systems to autocratic regimes in Africa and Asia. This creates a deeply entrenched dependency: client states rely on Beijing not just for loans, but for the very tools they use to suppress their own populations, securing Chinese influence for generations.

The initiative has similarly entrapped nations in the United States' own 'backyard.' Through the expansion of the BRI into Latin America, China has replicated this model of resource extraction. Ecuador serves as a cautionary tale: unable to access traditional credit, it accepted Chinese loans repaid through guaranteed oil shipments. This 'oil-for-cash' arrangement granted Beijing de facto control over Ecuador's energy sector, demonstrating how debt can be used to erode sovereignty just as effectively as military occupation.

THE AMERICAN REVIVAL - ALIVE AND WELL

It seemed like the United States would retire the infamous doctrine for a brief while after the Cold War. In 2013, the then Secretary of State John Kerry famously declared the “era of the Monroe Doctrine is over”. However, in 2019, National Security Advisor John Bolton stood before the Bay of Pigs veterans and proclaimed, “The Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.”

This resurrection signals a return to viewing the hemisphere as strategic real estate. This proprietary mindset reached a surreal peak in 2019 when the White House expressed a serious interest in purchasing Greenland, treating a semi-autonomous territory and its people as a transferable asset to be acquired for Arctic security.

Simultaneously, the doctrine’s 'policing' function was aggressively reactivated in Venezuela. Through a campaign of 'maximum pressure' sanctions and overt support for regime change, Washington sought to dictate the political outcome in Caracas, operating on the 19^th century assumption that it holds the ultimate veto power over who governs in the Americas. These interventions reveal a Washington that views its neighbours not as sovereign partners, but as security buffers that must be managed, bought, or disciplined.

This trajectory reached its aggressive zenith with the return of Donald Trump in 2025. The Trump 2.0 administration has stripped away the diplomatic veneer of the doctrine, replacing it with what the President himself has colloquially termed the "Donroe Doctrine" - a hyper-transactional interpretation of hegemony that blends "America First" nationalism with 19th-century imperialism.

This was brutally illustrated in January 2026, when Washington launched a direct military intervention in Venezuela to depose the government, justifying the violation of sovereignty not just as a security measure, but as a necessary step to secure regional energy assets.

This "Donroe" approach views the hemisphere less as a neighbourhood and more as a portfolio of strategic real estate. Simultaneously, the maximum pressure campaign against Iran has been framed through this same lens of proprietary control, warning external powers that the US reserves the right to dictate political outcomes anywhere it deems critical to its hemispheric defense. This is the Monroe Doctrine stripped of its "protection" myth: a raw assertion that the United States holds the ultimate veto power over who governs, who trades, and who exists in its sphere of influence.

THE PRICE OF HEGEMONY

The revival of the Monroe Doctrine and similar spheres of influence creates an anarchic global order where sovereignty becomes a privilege. The immediate casualty is the agency of smaller nations, reduced to mere buffer states whose domestic policies and internal affairs are held hostage by the paranoia of great powers. The right to choose one’s own alliances is explicitly denied, whether it be Ukraine, Taiwan, or Venezuela.

This dominance also manifests itself as economic coercion. Just as the CFA Franc ties African economies to France, lucrative investment deals from Beijing come with its own strings attached of increased influence in the domestic and internal affairs of a region.

Ideological rifts also frequently convert into proxy warfare, as often seen in the Middle East. The divergence between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for instance, has reduced Yemen into a theatre for external power projection. The disregard for autonomy and sovereignty transforms regional disputes into broader international instability.

CONCLUSION

The Monroe Doctrine has evolved from a specific 19th-century foreign policy into a global template for modern hegemony. While initially conceived to limit European colonialism in the Americas, it established a precedent where great powers claim "spheres of influence" that override the sovereignty of smaller nations. This model is no longer unique to the United States, the logic of the doctrine has been replicated by Russia in Eastern Europe, France in Africa, and China through economic statecraft in the Global South.

The contemporary revival of this doctrine, explicitly reaffirmed by recent U.S. administrations, underscores a structural challenge in the international order. Rather than moving toward a system of sovereign equality, global politics appears to be regressing into a competition of exclusionary zones.

Whether through military intervention, debt dependency, or political coercion, the core outcome remains consistent: the security interests of major powers are systematically prioritised over the autonomy of weaker states. Ultimately, as long as this proprietary view of geopolitics persists, national sovereignty will remain conditional, contingent upon the strategic interests of the dominant regional hegemon.

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 BY SAI PRASHANTH

TEAM GEOSTRATA

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