In the American political tradition, doctrines (political, economic, military, etc.) have a distinct role to play. They prepare the ground for devising policies, making decisions, and enacting laws. Still, among all doctrines that have been shaping the identity of the United States, those related to foreign policy stand out. This is due to their (a) consequences aboard, (b) ideological capacity to keep reproducing, and (c) representative value as embodiment of power. Altogether, such doctrines tell other countries that the United States has a global agenda to pursue regardless of international objections.

Invariably since foundation, foreign policy doctrines were conceived as instruments of imperialist expansions and ideological sources pointing to the worldview and political direction of the United States. Not only did they become the official banners externalizing its aims, but also blueprints for establishing operational plans for territorial conquests, interventions, and wars. The threat of using military force (or other corecitive measures) to implement those plans has consistently been the chosen method. Did the U.S. achieve anything as consequence? Yes.  Its colonialistic and imperialistic accomplishments during the past two centuries are vast and impressive.¹

From measuring their collective place in the practice of imperialism, foreign policy doctrines can be described as the engine that moves the global objectives of the United States. Once an administration comes up with a specific policy course, the engine is revved up for action, guidelines drafted, and the course is announced. At the same point in time, an army of doctrinaires and agents of the state go into overdrive to procure all military, budgetary, and legislative means needed for the planned enterprise.

For instance, after the breakup of the USSR, the United States relentlessly reprised its previous attempts to be the sole decision maker of world affairs. Or, said differently, to exercise total control over the world system of nations using aggressive tactics—always backed by doctrines. On occasion, adages mix with doctrines. One such adage that U.S. ruling circles have been repeating ad nauseam is the “sole remaining superpower” (1, 2, 3, 4). Interpreted correctly, it means that the United States feels it has “earned the right” to rove around the world unopposed.

Nevertheless, with or without doctrines, the U.S. project to subjugate nations still out of its control has come to a full stop consequent to three convergent events. The first is the Russian intervention in Ukraine. The second is the unstoppable rising of China as a world power. The third is the overdue defiance that the South (formerly called developing countries) has launched against the pan-imperialist American-European order.²

Since their appearance on the scene in the early 19th century, foreign policy doctrines helped build the U.S. imperialist system. For the record, from the very beginning, this system was born neither pacifist nor peaceful or open to re-thinking. George Washington and the Continental Congress’s policy ordering Original Peoples to choose either relocation or war is an irrefutable case in point.

Special Note

In 2012, Mitt Romney recycled Washington’s concept of the U.S. power using a different figure of speech. “If you don’t want America to be the strongest nation on earth, I am not your president“. In 2024, Romney replayed his arrogant refrain. He stated, “What America is as a nation, what has allowed us to be the most powerful nation on Earth, and the leader of the Earth is the character of the people who have been our leaders”. [Italics added].

Comment: Romney stated his vision for America in terms and images that leave no doubt on his hegemonic agenda. Is that surprising? No. he is a product of a system and ideology that sees the world as something to grab, own, manage, and even go to war to keep it. In other words, his vision is about imposing U.S. domination over all other nations. Pertinently though, with phrases such as “strongest nation on earth”, “most powerful nation on Earth”, and “leader of the Earth”, Romney allow his militaristic hyperimperialism to float to the surface but disguised it under the “leadership” heading.

Question: how could Romney install America as a “leader of the earth” without first unleashing global violence to accomplish that installation? More importantly, has China, Russia, Hungary, Serbia, Algeria, Cuba, Brazil, Iran, Palestine, Sri Lanka, India, Colombia, Malaysia, or Turkey, for example, ever asked for such leadership in the first place?

General Discussion

As it developed into a military and economic superpower, the United States emerged first with distinct character: (a) colonialist, racist, and supremacist to the bone, (b) imperialist-focused conduct sold as a product of “democratic” statecraft, and (c) official culture primed for violence domestically and wired for war internationally.

To summarize, as conceived, adopted, and thereafter transformed into programs of the United States, foreign policy doctrines have been occupying a central place in the thinking, policymaking, and actions of presidents, their administrations, and orbiting institutions and think tanks. Remark: doctrines are not announced as such—a president does not go the podium and say: hey, here is my doctrine. Generally, doctrines start as specific acts to serve the system, to stress its assumed prowess and power, and to uphold its declared objectives.

This is how the process works. Initially, the habitual protocol leading to the informal promulgation of doctrines is scripted and introduced to make it sound as a “reasoned” conclusion to debated matters. But debates such as these and conclusions thereof are of no value whatsoever to those affected by their outcome. First, they are not rooted in the natural laws and needs of world societies. Second, they only reflect the hegemonic thus exploitive aims of U.S. ruling circles. For instance, aside from carpet-bombing, burning Viet Nam with Napalm bombs, poisoning it with Agent Orange, and killing three million of its people to prove Robert McNamara’s Domino Theory was never a good reason for the Vietnamese people to accept the U.S. motive for destroying their country.

Successively, when an administration reaches a decision on an issue, makes an announcement  against a specific country, and when that issue finds its way to the public, the system’s “pundits” proceed to extract passages from presidents’ speeches and writings, assign to them concept and purpose, and, before you know it, a doctrine is born. In the case of Ukraine, new doctrines are taking the center stage in the defense of U.S. post-USSR unipolarism and hegemonic agendas. One such ad hoc doctrine is that the United States is fighting Russian imperialism in Ukraine.

Doctrines, in the American practice of imperialism, offer a two-layer function. First, they intellectualize the bullying language of imperialism to solemnize the power of the ruling regime at enacting its “rules of engagement” with foreign nations. Second, they set the pattern, methodology, and ideological structure for the next enterprise. (Caveat: despite heavy setbacks in many parts of the world, the U.S. doctrine industry is highly adaptable, and it is not going to close its gates any time soon.)

Given that foreign policy doctrines have become a showcase for displaying the objectives of the ruling circles, as well as a repetitive ideological ritual confirming the unity and continuity of the imperialist state, is there a pattern to their mechanisms?

As it happens, when a president vacates the office for the next occupant, he leaves behind a trail of ideas and political positions highlighting the collective thinking of the system. Comparing the U.S. doctrines to those of religions may be of value. For instance, unlike the field of religions where doctrines are static and permanent (created to defend original, ancient, or old beliefs and dogmas), the U.S. doctrines are dynamic, always open to re-interpretations, and reflect three-stage process with a precise scope of work and finality—all situated in the future.

The first stage begins with deliberation on the objectives of the ruling circles in a given period. The second continues by enshrining them into a general declaration(s) of intent. The third, which is extremely important, turns that declaration into a three-tier sequential process. The first presents the system’s rationales for the decisions taken. The second deals with their implementation. The third is more complex: it turns all interrelated processes and sustaining ideologies into a legacy of some sort. That is, what has been decided by a president (and his administration) at a specific period is going to be invoked, expanded on, and continued by his successors.

For example, with its post-WWII focus on hypothetical threats from international Communism to the Middle East, Eisenhower’s doctrine is a replica of Truman’s doctrine that declared the Soviet Union a universal threat. As for John Kennedy, his doctrine, often referred to as his foreign policy, is a mixture between those of Truman and Eisenhower. To see the U.S. doctrines in a broad perspective, I’m going to briefly discuss the Monroe Doctrine (corner stone of all successive doctrines), and three other doctrines relating to Theodore Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, and Joe Biden.

The Monroe Doctrine (1823) 

When the thirteen colonies became a political state in 1776, the objective was to claim neutrality to avoid further conflict with Britain or potential ones with France and Spain. But when the thirteen states increased to eighteen under the presidency of James Monroe (1817-25), that objective became two-pronged: (1) a call for increased expansion of colonies, and (2) a declaration that United States is the sole power in charge of the entire Western hemisphere. The U.S. Naval Institute describes the Monroe Doctrine as follows:

“As a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. . . We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. [Italics added]

Comment

• Monroe was a skillful imperialist tactician. He presented his theory (attributed to his secretary of state and future president John Quincy Adams) of colonialism and domination in clear wording. First, he prohibits European powers from colonizing the rest of the Americas; yet, he allows the heir to colonialist Britain (the United States) the exclusive privilege of further colonization. With that, Monroe instituted the infamous American dual-standard paradigm in world relations.
• The inherent fascism of the new American state under Monroe is self-explanatory. He treated Turtle Island as lands without people and civilizations. The question is how could one colonize lands without removing or killing first their original inhabitants and destroying their stewarded environment?
• As I stated, Monroe is the prototype of typical U.S. hyper-imperialist. He arrogantly considers any challenge to the new system of things as “dangerous” to peace and prosperity of the United States.
• Two centuries later, anything happens in the world that U.S. fascist rulers do not like, they deem it a threat to U.S. national security, or, “dangerous” to peace and prosperity of the United States.
• The peremptory, imperialist injunction of Monroe reaches the apex when he declares that every portion of the hemisphere is, by exclusive U.S. unilateral decisions, under the U.S. indirect control thus jurisdiction. This declaration has led countless administrations not only to claim extraterritorial jurisdiction, but also to pretend that domestic affairs and development of a country could imperil U.S. national security. (Read: US to probe if Chinese cars pose national data security risks)

Doctrines: The Reincarnation of Monroe  

• The case of Theodore Roosevelt: in 1904, the Monroe Doctrine gave birth to the Roosevelt Doctrine—then named the Roosevelt Corollary. I already stated that what has been decided by a president at a specific period is going to be invoked, expanded, and continued by his successors. Theodore Roosevelt corroborates my statement. A National Archives’ article states the following:

“In his annual messages to Congress in 1904 and 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt expanded the Monroe Doctrine. The corollary stated that not only were the nations of the Western Hemisphere not open to colonization by European powers, but that the United States had the responsibility to preserve order and protect life and property in those countries.” [Italics added]. The text in Italics proves my point.

• The case of Jimmy Carter: As Henry Kissinger had Richard Nixon in the palm of his hand; Zbigniew Brzezinski had Carter in his—coincidence or lack of intellectual security? Carter who, much later, had a rude awakening to the racist nature of Zionism (re: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid), was another example representing the hyper-imperialist model. In his Union Address in 1980, Carter declared, among many other important things, the following:

“Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. [Italics added]. Who was talking—Monroe or Carter?

It is beside the point to state that while the Soviet power or its main successor Russia never intervened in the Middle East during the past 107 years (exception in Syria to stop the U.S. and Israel from dismembering it. (Read, The Debate on the Imperialist Violence in Syria series by Kim Petersen and B.J. Sabri). At present, the American power is everywhere in the Middle East. It has full political and military control—direct and indirect—of Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, and Morocco. Conclusion: an attentive study of Carter’s address will prove that the mind of Monroe has transmigrated to that of Carter.

• The case of Joe Biden: in 1986, Biden (then senator) stated, “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.” The issue I am raising here is not about this Zionist wanting to create at any cost a state for Zionist settlers on Arab Palestinian soil. It is about Joe Biden repeating Monroe. That is, the United States consistently gives itself the unearned right to shape the world according to its convenient imperialist view.
• As for Biden’s doctrine, The Hoover Institution (an imperialist academic think tank claiming liberalism) addresses the topic. One of its doctrinaires, Colin Dueck (a university professor and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a known nest of American Zionists) thusly defines Biden’s philosophy of imperialism, “If the Biden administration’s grand strategy could be summed up in a single phrase, it would be – progressive transformation at home and abroad”.

Could specialists in semantics and esoteric writings help us to decode what does “progressive transformation at home and abroad” mean? In the first place, what is progressive? Second, domestically, can Biden, as per Dueck, progressively transform the Zionist mobs inside his party, as well as those of Trump and his crowds? Internationally, could Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Ukraine, Cameroon, Bolivia, Nepal, or Bolivia, etc. partake in or learn from Biden’s “progressive” doctrine? Incidentally, how would Dueck qualify America before the advent of Biden: progressive, regressive, or what?)

To settle the issue on Dueck’s bogus idea of “progressive transformation”, we need to pose a few questions.  Suppose an independent country X is touched by the American wand of “progressive transformation”. Would that touch entail, among other things, invading it, installing military bases on its soil, dissolving its army, partitioning it in “federated” regions, abolishing its national currency, co-opting pro-American elements to lead it, writing constitutions for it, and building “without permit” the largest embassy in the world? It happened in Iraq.

Aside from this thematic mishap, Dueck redeemed himself by presenting articulate arguments—all anchored to the basic elements of U.S. hegemonic imperialism. Not to be overlooked, he permeated—perhaps without realizing it—his elaborations with undeclared references to the Monroe Doctrine and its successors. The following are selected passages:

• “Biden went further than either Obama or Trump in declaring that a global struggle against authoritarianism would be a strategic centerpiece of his new administration”. Remark: “authoritarianism” is a catchword to say that this or that country is antithetical to U.S. objectives, thus it is, de facto, a hostile nation.
• Dueck declares that Jack Sullivan (current National Security Advisor) and other Democrats, “Developed the concept of a “foreign policy for the middle class”. Remark: Dueck’s statement begs the question: is there a foreign policy for the upper and lower classes. It is notable though that the United States never cast its foreign policy in terms of class or class conflict. For the record, who decides on this policy is the deep American State and its Zionist elites.
• Dueck then goes to the traditional themes of U.S. foreign policy: “China, Russia, and so on” are the real threat to the United States. He then adds, “Populism, nationalism, liberalism, and authoritarianism are each assumed by the Biden administration to be pressing threats.” REMARK: This is overly trite. With regard to China, the United States has been inimical since the Long March of Mao Zedong.
• With typical American imperialist zeal, Dueck concludes, “We now face a kind of anti-American axis of hostile dictatorships, however loosely coordinated, covering most of the Eurasian continent. This is the most deadly threat in generations. By that standard, have we developed the policy tools, and specifically the military capabilities, to meet that challenge?  The answer is obvious: not even close.” REMARK: with these words, Dueck has effectively announced that all ante-Biden doctrines have come together in the person of Biden and his cohorts.

Propaganda and foreign policy     

• The National Museum of American Diplomacy asks an “interesting” question, “What are the key pillars of American diplomacy?” The Museum answers with stock American slogan: “Security, Prosperity, Democracy, and Development”. Then it goes on to give frivolous examples such as the one about “development in Cambodia”—the country that United States obliterated in order to fight the Vietcong and North Viet Nam. It is a fact that the United States never brought security, prosperity, democracy, and development to any country it attacked.
• The official voice of American diplomacy: the Zionist-ruled State Department is a pompous factory specialized in rhetorical garbage. It declares, “The State Department has four main foreign policy goals: Protect the United States and Americans; Advance democracy, human rights, and other global interests; Promote international understanding of American values and policies; and; Support U.S. diplomats, government officials, and all other personnel at home and abroad who make these goals a reality.”

As I am forfeiting my right to comment, I am curious to know where Monroe is hiding in the statement. Look no farther than (a) “Protect the United States and Americans”, and (b) “Other global interests”.

Preliminary Conclusion

From the end of WWII forward, the phenomenon of U.S. doctrines is what it is—a bizarre menagerie of global power themes. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump, and Biden each have their own doctrine—or, to be exact, doctrines the system prepared for them. Conceptually, all such doctrines are declarations of allegiance to the continuity of imperialism and to the path that many generations of American colonialists, expansionists, supremacists, imperialists, and hegemonists set for the United States.

Observation: none among the above presidents had any doctrine with a specific formulation before taking seats in the halls of power. But once there, the seated presidents reprise the preceding doctrines and amplify content and reach. When you closely examine them, however, you will find out that they mimic each other in essence and means—and all have for a common goal the application of U.S. imperialist power abroad.

Evaluating how doctrines prepare the ground for the solidification of anti-Russian policies can be done by looking at how candidates conduct their campaigns for political positions. During such events, they speak of this and that idea so sketchily but only to sell their electability to a complacent and uninformed audience—normally, details of foreign policy and motivations never appear on the stage. Still, despite the paucity of substantive talk, their endeavor is mainly directed to the establishment, not to the public. Ultimately, this establishment has the overwhelming ability to promote or demote candidates with ease—kneeling to it, therefore, is an electoral necessity.

In the end, when it boils down to voting, the public will have only a Hobson’s choice: candidates, with different names and faces, have identical views on the world—and a plan to rule it. They all have to sell the same merchandise: we control, we want, we oppose, we think, we decide, and so on.

Is selling the imperialist merchandise an important factor in U.S. foreign policy decision-making and actions?

In his book: A Nation of Salesmen, Earl Shorris, an attentive sociological researcher, touched on the crafty art of selling “things”. He delves into the essence of controlled persuasion by taking on advertising as a tool that subverted the American culture. Shorris, of course, did not include foreign policy as “merchandise” that has been subverting the entire American polity for decades while inflicting incalculable heavy damages on all humanity. Briefly, selling its Foreign Policy Brand—by persuasion, coercion, or aggression—has been America’s never-ending endeavor.

At this point, how is the United States merchandizing and selling its Brand and policy schemes on Ukraine and Russia?

• Read Part 1,  2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

ENDNOTES:

1. To fight U.S. imperialism, we have to acknowledge its danger by looking at its accomplishment. In 1783, the newly established American Republic was 800,000 square miles. In 2024 factsheet, its area is 3,796,742 square miles. Currently and to varying degrees, the U.S. controls the entire European continent with the exception of Serbia. It controls Japan. It castrated the entire Arab states with the exception of Syria and Algeria. It controls most of South Asia. It controls many Latin American and African countries. It controls Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. And, it largely controls the UN and the UNSC—the UN’s General Assembly is of no consequence. About the territorial colonialist expansions of the United States: the professional misinformants writing at Wikipedia calls the U.S. violent, bloody colonialist conquests as “territorial evolution” as if these were in line Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
2. The expression: American-European order is an umbrella term specifically denoting American, British, French, Italian, Spanish, and German imperialisms. By extension, it also includes the dangerous trio: Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. These three countries work under U.S. wings and take direct orders from Washington. Among all U.S. vassals, Japan is insidious. Although it does not appear often on the news, Japan is an advanced country, still very much militaristic, and acts according to U.S. rules and political views.

This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.