Not a Pax Americana”: How a Reverse-Kissinger Became a Reverse-Monroe-Arvin Ali Rezai & Shervin Damghani'

Arvin Ali Rezai - LL.M. student in International Law at the University of Tehran and Shervin Damghani - LL.M. student in Human Rights Law at the University of Tehran
2025/08/16

Ever since the guns fell silent on 8 of May 1945 in Europe, the West has enjoyed territorial peace. This often-referred-to Pax Americana, is largely believed to be the product of the rise of democracy in the Western world. Notwithstanding ongoing territorial disputes between western countries, peace has largely prevailed and conflicts have indeed never amounted to anything more than “whiskey wars”; up until Trump got re-elected, that is. Since taking power again in January 2025, Trump is remaking the world in his own image. This article aims to define a silhouette of this new image.

One can argue that the current world order has its roots in the Fourteen Points Statement of Woodrow Wilson. With these principles the United States championed a long-standing effort to establish international territorial peace. Wilson’s crusade against war was firmly grounded in the idea of American exceptionalism. An idea drawn from the unique circumstances surrounding the foundation of the United States as the first constitutional democracy in the world, leading to the belief that America enjoys a morally superior standing and therefore is uniquely positioned to make the world safe for democracies.

Eventually the Wilsonian idealism paved the way for the Rooseveltian “New world order”. As a result of an interconnected network of conferences in the early 40s, a new world order resting on three pillars began to take form: Free trade, fiscal cooperation, and perhaps most importantly territorial peace.

Reinforcing the idea of this “New World Order”, President Truman, Roosevelt’s successor, in his announcement of the end of hostilities in Europe, stated: “General Eisenhower informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations”. Truman publicly uses the term United Nations, even before the UN is formed as an organization in order to manifest these efforts culminating in the establishment of the UN as the symbol of this “New World Order”. The maintenance of this post-world-war territorial order, or rather the fear of its dismantlement, has been one of the main reasons why the United States has since acted as the global policeman, including in Kuwait (1991 Persian Gulf war) among other places, in order to keep this post WW2 order. This appears not to be the case anymore.

The new Trump administration, seems to be determined to uproot this order with ideas stemming from a bygone era: The era of manifest destiny, of the Monroe doctrine and of Gunboat diplomacy, in which sending gunboats to intimidate “minor” states into submission, was as normal as sending emissaries to hammer out colonial concessions. This older formulation posits America not only as the patron saint of liberal order, as the shining city on the hill, and as the illuminator of the world, but also as the sole rightful beneficiary of the might of its economic, cultural and military institutions. “America First” in this context doesn’t translate to mere isolationism, it also proclaims America’s ubiquitous omnipotence: an all-powerful America enforcing its will everywhere.

This notion has been best demonstrated in a late 19th century painting by John Gast, called “American Progress”. The painting portrays Lady Columbia, who is the personification of America, leading a group of pioneers toward the dark, gloomy uncivilized wilderness of the West, as the natives, alongside buffalos and other animals, run away from white settlers and out of their ancestral pastures in great horror. All the while, the manifestations of a burgeoning industry, in the form of new railways, telegraph poles, and a bustling port city appear behind her.

The manifest destiny was only empowered by subsequent land purchases, military conflicts and more destruction of native Americans. In order to solidify its position in North America, the rising power sought to establish its very own regional order for the first time. The Monroe doctrine was formed as the first grand-scheme foreign policy of the young union. Initially, a brainchild of the then secretary of state John Quincey Adams, it declared the newly independent South American states as a non-intervention zone for European colonial powers. It was designed to be a gesture of friendliness toward fellow anti-colonial states in South America, but more importantly, an instrument to establish America as the sole world power in the western hemisphere.

However, beginning from the late-nineteenth century, the Monroe doctrine became not a policy  of fending off European colonialism, but one of pursuing the long-established manifest destiny. This change of tune happened during the presidencies of three progressive-era presidents, Democratic and Republican, which led to the Monroe doctrine finding a completely new meaning at the turn of the century.

On the backdrop of the American interference in the 1895 Venezuelan-British border dispute, in what would widely become to be known as the Olney interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, Richard Olney, President Cleveland’s secretary of State, sends a note to the British government stating: “Today the United States is practically sovereign on this (American) continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition.”

This statement, which was indeed a reflection on how American leaders saw their role vis-a-vis their Southern neighbors, would be followed by the policies of Republican president William McKinley, whose name has strangely resurged into the mainstream media these days. After deciding to intervene in the 1898 Cuban war of Independence, McKinley declared war on Spain and set the stage for the American annexation of Cuba and the Philippines, abiding not only by the policy of interference in Latin America, but the aforementioned American expansionism.

The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, McKinley’s successor, however, brought the Monroe Doctrine to a whole new level. Although once a proponent of isolationism, in his 1904 Union address, he warned the countries he called as “chronic wrongdoers” and called for the implementation of the Monroe doctrine. Some 20 years later however, the other Rooevelt’s administration, FDR, tried to break free from the history of interference in Latin America, and repeal this long-established policy in favor of a certain notion of Pan-Americanism he dubbed as the “good neighbor” policy. It was meant to be based on the emerging international order, as highlighted in the newly established OAS charter.

Fast forwarding to the early 21^st century, many thought the Monroe doctrine was dead and buried. However, vital signs of the Monroe Doctrine re-appeared when during an interview, and seemingly under the impression of strong emotion, John Bolton, the then NSA of the first Trump administration retorted: “The Monroe doctrine is alive and well”, revealing how the US has relapsed into her vernacular from late 19th and early 20th century. This vernacular was uttered again at the outset of Trump 47, on April 2 2025, when Trump used terms such as “revolution of common sense” (possibly a reference to Thomas Paine’s book Common Sense, the best-seller published during the American revolution ), and “America First” (a reference to the “America First Committee” of the early 20^th century).

Coinciding with this relapse and rhetorical revival, the fact seems to be that the only game on the international stage is the action of the current US administration and what it will or won’t do. Every other country, apparently, is just visiting the planet. The much-repeated story is that the new Trump administration is aiming to contain China at least on the issue of trade. The evidence supporting this statement abounds. The tariffs announced on April 2^nd 2025, dubbed Liberation Day, were primarily aimed at China. Curiously, Russia received a more preferential treatment.

The harsh treatment of “containment” towards China on trade in contrast to a puzzling “soft détente” towards Russia, has led many political analysts to invent the term: Reverse-Kissinger. Henry Kissinger, The Secretary of State and NSA during the Nixon presidency, devised the policy of using the Sino-Soviet split to the advantage of the US. Through a rapprochement towards China, the US adopted the one-China policy, established diplomatic relations with the PRC, and effectively removed Republic of China (i.e. Taiwan) from the UN and handed the permanent seat on the UNSC with its almighty veto power to the PRC on a silver plate, and in doing so further isolated the more militarily powerful Soviet Union.

The reverse-Kissinger would essentially be the same scenario, except that this time the rapprochement will take effect with the economically weaker Russia at the detriment of the more economically powerful China; or at least that’s the idea. Many analysts believe that the current administration is attempting a reverse-Kissinger. In the process, the US administration has also expressed expansionist ideals. Specifically in three geographical directions. To the south, the Panama canal has been earmarked for repossession. To the North, Canada has been called the 51^st state of America, and to the east of that, Greenland has been offered to be bought out from Denmark. All this has once again brought the Monroe doctrine to mind with Lady Columbia leading the way this time not westward, but in all other directions!

However, in practice it seems, the implementation of the revival of the Monroe Doctrine has followed the law of unintended consequences. Take Canada for instance: If the recent federal election in Canada is any indication, the new manifest destiny of the US may not have had the desired results. The Canadians elected a political outsider, whose only characteristic was that he was ready to stand up to, and withstand the forward march of American Progress at least towards the North. Mark Carney, the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada explained, with radical acceptance, the new reality of the US-Canadian affairs in the following statement: “Canada’s old relationship with the US is over”.

It seems that former friends and allies are being driven further into the opposite camp. The name of this new opposition camp is not yet clear. In times past that opposite camp was called the Communist bloc, the Non-Allied Movement, the EU, or even OPEC. Whatever loose affiliation they form in this new camp, they will have one thing in common: being the target of US expansionist rhetoric which looks increasingly more like Calvinball and less like rules-based international order.

Whatever the original intention or aim of Trump 47 may have been, the end result seems to be not so much a reverse-Kissinger or a resurrection of the Monroe doctrine but rather something resembling a “reverse-Monroe Doctrine”. Just as the reverse-Kissinger is aiming to drive Russia and China apart by siding this time with Russia, the expansionist American exceptionalism of 2025 is delivering not a new Monroe Doctrine, where once again America reigns supreme in the western hemisphere by pulling countries into her sphere of influence, but a reverse-Monroe. Countries in the western hemisphere, at least for now, are being pushed away from the US as a strategic partner and are looking for allies and partners in anyone other than the US, leading to the creation of an unintended doctrine: The reverse-Monroe Doctrine.