Outrageous? Yes. But a United States of all Americas and including Greenland would be the first truly planetary North-South superpower
James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States, enunciated his Monroe Doctrine in 1823, which proclaimed the Western Hemisphere (basically North and South America) off limits to further European colonisation even as America respected existing European colonies in the Americas.
Since 1823, the American drive to the Pacific, assumption of the former lands of the Spanish empire – Texas, California, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam and the Philippines (which became independent in 1946) – and purchase of Alaska from Russia (in 1867), all extended Pax Americana.
In the 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt, as the 26th president, engineered the treaty that allowed America to build and control the Panama Canal, and declared his “Roosevelt Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine: announcing that America would intervene as a last resort to ensure Western Hemisphere nations did not violate US rights or bring foreign aggression.
This Monroe Doctrine 2.0 was tested during the 1962 Cuban crisis, when the Soviet Union tried to place missiles in Cuba. The US also intervened in Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
It has been 202 years since the Monroe Doctrine was declared and Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th US president, appears to be restating the doctrine for the 21st century with his talk of “reclaiming” the Panama Canal, bringing Canada in as the 51st state and buying Greenland from Denmark.
How does this square with Trump’s stance as an anti-war president, who as presidential candidate vowed to end the forever wars of his predecessors? Since taking over in January, he has sought a resolution to the Ukraine and Gaza wars – leaving the costs of defending Ukraine to Europe to handle, dealing with Iran and Israel to try to settle the Middle East, and aiming to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on a diplomatic charm offensive.
Pundits who think the West is in decline assume Trump’s “Make America Great Again” ambition is to rebuild Fortress America by onshoring US manufacturing prowess behind a wall of higher tariffs. Bolder supporters argue Trump really wants to rebuild America’s unipolar status, containing the multipolar Westphalian order favoured by Russia and China.
In my flight of imagination, what I shall call Trump’s Monroe Doctrine 2.1 has an audacious and grander strategic view of how a super America would operate at a planetary scale in the 21st century.
The US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2040 report, published in 2021, projected five scenarios by 2040: a chaotic world adrift; a competitive existence between the US and China; separate silos of regional blocs, trade and supply chains; tragedy and mobilisation as the European Union and China jointly deal with climate disasters; and a renaissance of democracies as democratic regimes recover and lead change.
These scenarios assume everyone would be nice and abide by the rule of law – which Trump 2.0 has completely refuted. Even America’s strongest ally, Britain, is considering a future where America’s superpower status “may continue to decline”, according to the defence ministry’s Global Strategic Trends: Out to 2055 report released last September.
But if might is right, then America can expand its lands without bothering with the need to be nice, therefore accessing more water, energy and mineral resources, as well as command space and the North and South Poles, formerly thought to be global public commons.
This planetary perspective of geopolitical rivalry is far more daring and comprehensive than the 19th century Great Game between the British and Russian empires, which was essentially land- and then maritime-based. British geostrategist Halford Mackinder expounded in 1919 on his famous Heartland theory: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the world”.
That was continental land power thinking, amid fears Russia would take over Britain’s Indian empire. In the 20th century, first aircraft carriers and missiles, then nuclear bombs, satellites, drones, energy and computing power reshaped geopolitical thinking.
But today, with artificial intelligence, robotics and space exploration requiring ever larger energy and geographical resources, the US is best placed by location and size to dominate, not just in terms of East-West, but also along the North-South axis.
By grabbing Greenland, America would access more of the Arctic, whereas domination over South America would allow command of the Antarctic polar region. As both poles melt with global warming, America could command potentially more new energy, water and mineral resources than other powers.
In other words, with control over the North Pole to the South Pole, America would displace other challengers and relegate them to the status of smaller regional players. The US plus Greenland and Canada would be 21.9 million sq km (8.5 million square miles) in size, larger than Russia (at 17.1 million sq km), China (9.6 million sq km) or India (3.3 million sq km), excluding claims on continental shelf and maritime resources.
Thus, even though the populations of China and India, at more than 1.4 billion each, dwarf America’s for now, the Monroe Doctrine 2.1 could see the US eventually control a population of comparable size, taking in the North, South and Central Americas. A United States of all Americas and including Greenland would be the first truly planetary North-South superpower.
Is this all imagination? Perhaps. Nice guys would never have dreamed that this outrageous idea was possible. But the era of nice politicians is over. Once Monroe Doctrine 2.1 comes to fruition, many nations will be consigned to vassal status. Welcome to Trumpland 2.0.
