The ‘Trump Doctrine’ isn’t just branding — it’s a crucial update for US power |
President Donald Trump likes putting his name on things, so maybe it was inevitable he’d get his own corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
Truth be told, what the president’s just-released National Security Strategy sets out as a new proposition is a re-statement of the Lodge Corollary, named after Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge in 1912.
That proviso prohibited any foreign power or interest — not just European governments — from gaining “practical power of control” in the Western Hemisphere.
Naming rights aside, the treatment of our hemisphere is a strong element of the strategy.
The so-called Trump corollary aims to assert US preeminence in the hemisphere, and to keep non-hemispheric actors from positioning forces or controlling strategically vital assets here.
It is, in the words of the strategy, “a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security........