Opinion From Monroe to ‘Donroe’: What Trump’s strategy means for India
New Delhi’s current approach, restrained, careful, and measured, may be the right one. Silence in international politics is not always hesitation; it can be a strategy
If major powers insist on special rights in their neighbourhoods, the framework of sovereign equality is weakened everywhere. Today, Venezuela is more than a Latin American crisis. It has become a stage on which a new expression of American power is being articulated with unusual clarity. What is being called the “Donroe Doctrine” owes its name to two parents: The nineteenth century “Monroe Doctrine” and the twenty-first-century worldview of Donald Trump. From President James Monroe, in 1823, came the assertion that the Western Hemisphere constitutes a special strategic space in which external powers have no legitimate role. From Donald Trump in 2026 comes unapologetic primacy, readiness to use force, and the belief that the United States may not only intervene but also supervise political outcomes. This fusion produces the Donroe Doctrine: An explicit claim not just to influence, but to guardianship.
Three elements give this doctrine its distinctive character. The first is the reassertion of a sphere of influence. The Western Hemisphere is presented not simply as an area of priority concern, but as a privileged security space in which extra-regional actors are treated as intruders rather than ordinary diplomatic participants. Latin America becomes “our neighbourhood”; external engagement is recast as trespass.
The second element is securitisation. Issues long regarded as social or economic migration, narcotics, organised crime and energy volatility are reframed as national security threats. Once problems are narrated in these terms, coercive tools follow more readily. Boundaries blur between domestic governance in another state and the US internal security. What was once a question of diplomacy or development is presented as a matter of homeland protection.
The third element is a shift in normative language. Democracy promotion, so prominent in the post-Cold War period, is no longer central. Stability, predictability and control move to centre stage. In many ways, the “Donroe Doctrine” operationalises what the recent US National Security Strategy implied: Competition with major powers, control of strategic resources and the management of instability close to home will drive American behaviour.
The doctrine does not exist in the abstract. It is reflected in a willingness to claim oversight over political transitions and to blur the line between intervention and administration. Whether such ambitions result in sustained trusteeship or remain rhetorical is less important than the signal they transmit: That the United States now reserves for itself a more explicit guardianship role in its hemisphere.
This shift carries serious implications for the international order. The first is the normalisation of spheres of influence. If major powers insist on special rights in their neighbourhoods, the framework of sovereign equality is weakened everywhere. The second is legitimacy. Latin America is not a blank slate. It carries a long memory of external intervention and regime change. Any contemporary experiment in guardianship will inevitably be interpreted through that history. Force can alter governments; it rarely manufactures consent. The third is precedent. Once accepted in one region, doctrines of supervision travel. Other powers will claim analogous rights in their own vicinity.
Venezuela’s energy dimension intensifies the stakes. The country holds one of the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and senior officials in Washington have spoken of a major role for American energy companies in revitalising its oil sector. For many observers in Latin America, this reinforces the charge of resource imperialism. The humanitarian burden is already immense; one of the largest displacement crises in recent history has reshaped politics far beyond Venezuela’s borders. External stewardship may deepen internal polarisation if it is perceived as imposed rather than owned.
International law is directly implicated. However carefully framed, the military action and the idea of external oversight of governance strain core principles of the contemporary order of sovereign equality, non-intervention and the prohibition on the use of force except in narrowly defined circumstances. These are not abstract concerns. The UN Charter is built precisely on these pillars, limiting the use of force to self-defence or collective action authorised by the Security Council.
For India, the “Donroe Doctrine” poses dilemmas that cannot be addressed by slogans. The first concerns principle and precedent. Sovereignty and non-intervention have been central to Indian foreign policy, not out of sentimentality but as practical safeguards for a post colonial state. A world relaxed about externally supervised transitions cannot automatically be assumed to serve India’s long-term interests.
The second concerns partnership. A strong and enduring relationship with the United States is vital to India’s interests. After all, India’s convergence with the United States in the Indo-Pacific, technology, defence and maritime security is real and worth deepening. It reflects genuine alignment on many issues. Yet doctrines of guardianship underline a familiar truth: American foreign policy is deeply shaped by domestic politics; tone and method can shift abruptly even when strategy remains constant. Partnerships must therefore coexist with strategic autonomy and independent judgment.
The third concerns identity and role. India is both an emerging great power in Asia and a principal voice of the Global South. These roles can pull policy in different directions. The challenge is to defend sovereign equality without theatrical moralism, and to pursue national interest without indifference to norms.
New Delhi’s current approach, restrained, careful, and measured, may be the right one. Silence in international politics is not always hesitation; it can be a strategy. By avoiding grandstanding, India has preserved the space for much-needed cooperation with the United States without endorsing the external management of another country’s political future. But restraint should not become passivity. It should be matched by quiet diplomacy in support of regional mediation, humanitarian relief and economic stabilisation, and by a calm restatement in multilateral forums that guardianship carries long-term costs for the international system.
I still recall Hugo Chávez being welcomed like a rock star at JNU in 2005. Today, his successor may see little beyond a prison cell in New York. The arc of Latin American politics, as we know, has rarely been linear, and India must keep its balance.
The writer is Dean and Professor, School of International Studies, JNU
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