The Monroe Doctrine was all about the protection of American interests in the Western Hemisphere. It was about not allowing any distant power to put forces in the Western Hemisphere or allying with any country in the Western Hemisphere. A classic example is how the United States reacted when the Soviet Union tried to put its forces in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Seen in this context, the current American action in Venezuela is all about power politics and has nothing to do with the Monroe Doctrine. The new world that President Trump is trying to create is one in which national security and economic power are fusing into a single strategic logic: the logic of securitising commercial interests.

The biggest casualty of this new strategic logic is the casualty of universal norms and international law. Just ten months earlier, on 14 February 2025, the world was shocked to hear the United States Vice President JD Vance lecturing European countries on their retreat from the fundamental values at the Munich Security Conference. He was referring to the sliding democracy in Europe, in which Romania had cancelled the results of presidential elections on the basis of the argument that Russian disinformation had affected those elections. He showed concern and said that the Americans feel for the first time that both America and Europe now believe in different values. He tried to persuade the Europeans by telling them that there is no room for firewalls, and that you either uphold the principle or you don't.

Ten months later, the US is the one not upholding........

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