In the days since the US captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, lots of doctrines have been thrown around. Donald Trump claims he is maintaining the Monroe Doctrine against foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere, updating it to the typically self-admiring and asinine Donroe Doctrine. Others talk about a new era of Great Power sphere-of-influence theory.
These serious-sounding ideas suggest some sense of intellectual coherence to Trump’s actions. But in truth this does not exist. He is just a jumble of disparate reflexes, a ball of venomous id destabilising a planet. His only consistent principle is that he admires strength, wishes to project it, and demands the right to take whatever it is he might want. It is the geopolitics of the high-school sociopath.
In the face of this kind of petulance, our old theories of international relations dissolve. And leaders like Keir Starmer are left adrift, trying to pursue their priorities in a world that no longer makes sense, looking increasingly feeble and desperate.
Part of the reason for this current sense of heightened crisis is that several foreign policy stories are dominating at the same time. There are, in effect, three separate potential crises erupting simultaneously: Venezuela, Greenland and Ukraine.
In Latin America, Trump has basically kidnapped Venezuela’s president and now threatens Colombia, Mexico and Cuba. This action was plainly illegal. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter states that nations can only use force on the territory of another nation with consent, for self-defence, or with UN Security Council authorisation. Trump did not have any of these things.
Many commentators have suggested that this is a new departure for US foreign policy. In fact, it is entirely traditional. The US has always behaved like an imperialist nation when it comes to Latin America.
In 1954, a US-trained invasion overthrew the democratically elected government of Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala. In 1973, it helped overthrow the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile and replaced him with the dictator Augusto Pinochet. In the 1980s, it funded right-wing paramilitary forces in Nicaragua to overthrow the revolutionary Sandinista government. In 1989, it invaded Panama.
This list is just the tip of the iceberg. The basic reality of US behaviour is that it shows precisely no respect for Latin American sovereignty or self-determination, and never has done. Nor will it in future, whether it’s targeting some other Latin American state or launching operations over oil tankers in the Atlantic. The only reason the seizure of Maduro seems surprising is that it has not behaved this way in some time. But that is less to do with a change of principle than the fact the US has been distracted in the Middle East since September 11.
European leaders might occasionally grumble, but the basic reality is that they accept the US’s insistence that it has control over the continent. When Guatemala came under US attack, for instance, Arbenz renounced violence, refused to arm the people and sought to fight his case on a legal basis at the UN. He was ignored. Needless to say, no one cared more about Guatemalan sovereignty than they did their relationship with the US. Britain predictably abstained at the Security Council vote.
The Greenland situation, on the other hand, is entirely novel. Trump has repeatedly threatened to launch a military attack on the territory of Denmark – a Nato member and an EU state. There is no real precedent for this action. It would constitute the complete collapse of the rules-based order. What was previously a geographically restrained form of US imperialism would now operate across the globe.
The same issues of self-determination and imperialism dominate Ukraine, but happen to take place outside of a sphere which interests Trump. He doesn’t see any personal or US impact. He frankly doesn’t care about it and would rather it went away, but is largely indifferent as to which way it is resolved as long as it makes him look good.
There is no strategy here, no doctrine, no foreign policy theory. There is just the superficial whim of a self-absorbed thug. In some areas, like Latin America, Trump’s imperialism corresponds to US foreign policy tradition. In others, like Greenland, it threatens Nato and discards the longest-held principles of US foreign policy. But he is probably no more aware of this than he is the ludicrousness of his hair or his fake tan.
He simply grabs for what he wants, without thought or morality or the least concern about the consequences. Eventually, this tendency will hurt him, but he can do a lot of damage before that happens. He can single-handedly eradicate international security.
Starmer is not consistent in these events. On Venezuela, this former lawyer refuses to say out loud what he knows to be true: that the US action was illegal. On Greenland, he says the right thing, but only after a deafening period of nervous silence. On Ukraine, he has led a practical response from divided and reluctant European partners. This is clearly the area he feels is most important and where he has the greatest chance of success. It’s the issue he sacrifices other matters to.
Yesterday, Starmer and Emmanuel Macron presented a joint declaration pledging to deploy troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal. Details of US participation in the defence guarantee were removed from the final text but attempts were made to shackle it to the process through a leading role on ceasefire monitoring. It was a decent attempt to do the most good with the scant resources available.
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You find yourself sympathising and despairing of the British Prime Minister in equal measure. He is not a man of vision, or bravery. He does not have the charisma or influence to patch together a viable alternate power centre to the US in Europe. He has no grand view for how to counter the decline in the world order. He is defined by that which he won’t do rather than that which he will. He is unwilling to betray Ukraine, unwilling to distance himself from the US, unwilling to truly embrace Europe, unwilling to take too big a risk in any direction, and therefore consigned to a perpetual scramble of last-gasp defensive postures.
In a sense, Starmer is like the rest of us: desperately trying to keep up with a world that has stopped making sense, coming up with long words to explain what is ultimately extremely rudimentary: how you deal with a child sitting on a throne the size of the world.
Trump’s only real foreign policy position is one of tantrum and gangsterism. We are all quickly falling into the vortex of lunacy he has created, Starmer included.
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