Not Monroe 2.0—The World Moves Without America

Trump is telegraphing a pivot: pull back to the homeland and the Western Hemisphere—a refurbished Monroe Doctrine in all but name. Some are already celebrating, saying the “US threat” can be shrugged off and it’s time to focus on growth and business; that is naïve. China’s resolve and kit are only now being readied precisely because a major showdown has long been judged unavoidable.

Is it really that serious though?

Obama, Chávez, a signal

On 18 April 2009 at the Summit of the Americas, Barack Obama drew global praise as he calmly shook hands again with Venezuela President Hugo Chávez and accepted a gift: “Open Veins of Latin America” (Spanish: Las venas abiertas de América Latina), the 1970 landmark by Uruguay’s Eduardo Galeano on Latin America’s colonial past and the exploitation by Western “great powers.” Asked what he thought of the book, Obama quipped: “I thought it was one of Chávez’s books. I was going to give him one of mine.”

Chávez’s choice was deliberate. A staunch anti‑US figure in Latin America, he often accused Washington of its “imperialist” policies in the region. Obama parried deftly—wry, quick‑witted, and assured. For the record, in 2006 he published “The Audacity of Hope,” a deep dive into core American political values that became a runaway bestseller.

What Washington believes

Here’s the point. America’s core doctrines—old or new—are not the democracy‑freedom‑human‑rights, knight‑errant stuff people imagine. As mainland scholar Zhang Xinping argued last year, historically the United States embraced the Monroe Doctrine, using interference and carrot‑and‑stick tactics to force Latin American states to serve US interests, driving economic decline and social turmoil across the region.

In recent years, under the banner of “promoting democracy,” Washington has pushed a “New Monroe Doctrine,” waving the flags of democracy, freedom, and human rights to mould other countries and the world order to American values and political systems. From Monroe to “New Monroe,” it is the through‑line of might‑makes‑right—naked hegemonism—that not only gravely harms democratic principles in international relations but also brings chaos and disaster to many countries.

Chávez died in 2013, and Nicolás Maduro promptly took over as Venezuela’s president. Now in his third term, he faces severe US threats. Even as Trump’s camp talks “retrenchment,” Washington suddenly struck Venezuelan merchant vessels, causing heavy casualties—the White House eager to proclaim Monroeism’s ancestral maxim: “America for Americans,” with the United States watching over and calling the shots across the entire hemisphere.

Blunt reminder: this is not the world of 200 years ago. We live in a globalized economy. Shut your door and decide as you wish—fine, but that applies only within US borders. Beyond that—any corner, any patch of ground—the United States must not step over the line. Remember, the global economy and technology require global energy and materials in combination, and the world must operate under one roof—one governance framework—to run smoothly.

Fight your own battles

Trump has rebranded the Pentagon as the War Department and boasted Chicago will soon learn why—because the White House is hell‑bent on “fixing a Democrat‑run city with crime through the roof”. That’s their lane, not ours. It’s an internal affair, period.

Beijing’s September 3 parade springs to mind. When the DF‑5C rolled by, the message was simple: a new liquid‑fuel ICBM with a reach past 12,000 kilometres, and a doctrine boiled down to three terms—“Nuclear trinity, global coverage, full-time alert.” In plain English: any target, anywhere, on call. There is no sanctuary, but assured retaliation.

People say, America’s power brokers are stubborn, and they don’t walk away from two centuries of hegemony on a whim.

Global minus America

Let’s hope there are grown‑ups in Washington who actually understand China’s nuclear mantra. If America wants to focus inward, be my guest: close the door, argue among yourselves, make what you use and use what you make—deliver a world that runs just fine minus America. Most people would happily live with that.

If Trump wants to play, China’s ready to clear the decks and give him the undivided attention—right to the bitter end.

Deep Blue

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In 1999, the United States led NATO’s high-tech blitz in Kosovo. When the operation ended without a hitch, the Pentagon didn’t rest on its laurels. Instead, it kicked off an ambitious military-transformation project: the Future Combat Systems (FCS), intended to morph a traditional, mechanized army into a full “informatization” force.

Yet two decades later, even the sharpest Pentagon experts and the most ardent amateur military buffs are still scratching their heads over what rolled down Beijing’s parade ground. After all, the “legendary” US FCS never progressed beyond PowerPoint slide decks—whereas the PLA’s own take on Future Combat Systems is said to be battlefield-ready.

Hollywood Scripts vs. Real-World Roadblocks

Back in 2003, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered the US Army to become, by 2030, a “new, information-age strategic response force capable of dominating across all environments and operations.” Ambitious? Absolutely. Feasible? The FCS’s ultra-avant-garde concepts ran headlong into technical hurdles so severe that some joked the program belonged on the silver screen rather than the battlefield.

Mainland military enthusiast Shi Lao—host of the popular show Shi Lao Hu Zhao—quipped that, had Rumsfeld witnessed Beijing’s September 3 parade, he’d be applauding the PLA. Picture US Army decision-makers dragging their feet while Rumsfeld’s own pet project remained stuck on PowerPoints, maybe flirting with selling its script to Hollywood, starring Tom Cruise as “the future warrior.”

The truth is, FCS was a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) project in collaboration with the Army, born in pre-9/11 optimism—an era convinced that no foreign power could threaten America’s vital interests with conventional force. Then a single catastrophic event shattered that belief.

People say, “Bad luck comes in threes”. Its 2019 annual report noted that overly futuristic tech not only delayed FCS repeatedly but sent projected R&D costs spiralling. Between 2003 and 2004 alone, procurement budgets ballooned from US$91.4 billion to US$160 billion—doubly raising doubts about the programme’s viability. Furthermore,

Once the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq erupted, the US found itself mired in conflict. By early 2007, FCS funds were slashed to pay for urgent wartime acquisitions. Then the 2008 financial crisis blew a hole in government coffers, and in May 2009, the Department of Defense pulled the plug on FCS entirely.

Enter Fudan University’s Professor Shen Yi—Shi Lao’s co-host—who pointed to Beijing’s unveiling of “100 Tanks” as the living embodiment of America’s once-cherished FCS dream. According to Global Times, these 100 tanks and their 100 support vehicles boast high levels of automation and coordination: a next-generation armored assault force with exceptional manoeuvrability and breakthrough power.

Steel Sentinels on Parade—China’s FCS Realized

Shen paints the picture: steel sentinels advance on the enemy, engage targets they can destroy on the spot, and—if outmatched—don’t retreat. Instead, they relay contacts via communications; commanders, guided by satellite positioning, direct long-range fires to clear the threat. Once the battlefield is secured, the tanks and support vehicles press on—transforming a tide of steel into untamed, demonic beasts.

Imagining Rumsfeld’s spirit looking on, one can almost hear him say with a grin: “In my next life, I want to be Chinese!” or perhaps, “I’d rather not be American in my next life,” if you prefer.