The US is a global power and hegemon. For the past few decades, it has been maintaining an almost unchallenged global sphere of influence with a strategic reach to match. Both complement each other superbly. US’ influence in the western hemisphere/Latin America, Europe, the Greater Middle East Region (GMER) the South-Central Asian Regions (SCAR) and the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR) was unilateral, unequivocal, exceptional, and universally acknowledged. However, with the unipolar moment having come and gone, the geopolitical environment is undergoing a massive paradigm shift. Geoeconomic dynamics are now overwhelmingly influencing geopolitical (re)-alignments and strategic partnerships. The US, now generally perceived as a waning global power, is scrambling frantically to retain its erstwhile spheres of influence while China, the ascendant global power, continues to expand its sphere of influence quietly, unobtrusively.

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The battle for preserving, creating and/or encroaching upon existing spheres of influence is truly on!

The US has considered the western hemisphere as its exclusive sphere of influence for the last two centuries. In December 1823, the then US President James Monroe articulated his doctrine that defined US foreign policy for this region. It primarily comprised of four crucial paradigms. One, that thenceforth the western hemisphere would be no longer open to any further colonization by the Europeans. Two, the US recognized the differences between the political systems in vogue in Europe, “the old world” and the US, “the new world ‘. The Monroe Doctrine thus demarcated separate spheres of influence for both. Three,........

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