The original Monroe Doctrine was largely declarative. It drew a line — warning outside powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere — but for long stretches it operated quietly, shaping expectations more than driving day-to-day action.
What’s now being called the “Donroe Doctrine” is different. It takes the same sphere-of-influence logic and makes it explicit, operational, and enforcement-minded. It’s framed inside national security rather than diplomacy, and we’re seeing it applied openly in current U.S. actions and rhetoric around Venezuela, Greenland, and parts of Latin America.
That shift — from an implicit background doctrine to a named, active posture — is what matters. Old doctrines spoken aloud tend to do more work than those left unspoken. For Canada, living next door, that change is worth watching closely.
The argument that "absence reads as vulnerability" in the Arctic is supported by the federal supply records. The Parliamentary Budget Officer recently estimated that our new Polar Icebreakers likely won't be operational until the early 2030s. When you combine that with the recurring lapsed spending on northern infrastructure in the Public Accounts, it is clear why Washington is getting nervous. They are looking at a ten-year gap in our physical capacity to actually enforce sovereignty.
That’s a really important data point — thank you for adding it.
The timeline gap you’re pointing to is exactly the kind of thing that tends to stay buried in procurement documents, but it matters enormously once doctrine shifts from implicit to operational. When presence, infrastructure, and response capacity lag by a decade, it’s not surprising that others read that absence as vulnerability rather than intention.
What concerns me most isn’t that Washington notices this — it’s that doctrine thinking tends to simplify complex realities. Long timelines, budget cycles, and federal–provincial friction don’t translate well into security frameworks built around speed and readiness. From that perspective, your point about icebreakers and northern infrastructure helps explain why the Arctic keeps resurfacing as a pressure point.
This is also why Canada’s current emphasis on institutions and rules-based order makes sense to me. Until physical capacity catches up, norms and law are doing real work on our behalf — and we should be clear-eyed about that even as we work to close the gap.
Not likely intended by the author, but I kept thinking that while the Monroe doctrine might have been claimed to be about reducing yet more direct-European colonialism in what Europe claimed was the “Western Hemisphere”, the Donroe doctrine is actually about increasing US colonialism (itself an ongoing expression of European/British settler-colonialism).
While Canada may feel like a target of the USA for some, I don’t know if the identity and values of those settler-colonial governments (and their ideological loyalists) are sufficiently different to warrant any actual rebranding. This is different from the huge differences (identity, values, history, etc) that exist between British North America and Mexico, Central America, Caribbean, South America, Greenland or Iceland (if the US claim to Guam is supposed to make any sense, then so does Iceland).
Even if the USA did want to do some rebranding, I've not yet been convinced that Canadian loyalists or Canadian institutions would do much to push back. I don't think the War of 1812 would be continued in the same way it was when it was put on pause.
Thanks for this, Russell. The colonial lens you’re bringing is a valid and important one, particularly in how power has historically been exercised across the hemisphere.
My intent here was narrower: to look at how doctrinal language is being revived and repurposed in contemporary U.S. policy signals, and how that shift is perceived by middle powers like Canada today — regardless of the deeper historical continuities underneath it.
I agree that these doctrines don’t emerge from a vacuum, but for this piece I was focused less on rebranding motives and more on how changing rhetoric and behaviour alter strategic assumptions in the present moment. I appreciate you engaging with it from your perspective.
Thanks for engaging. I knew my thinking was beyond the scope of the article.
I agree that the change in rhetoric and behaviour needs to be taken very seriously, including adequately recognizing that it isn't only about one individual (Trump), one executive branch, or one political party.
Separating from the institutions of Canada for a moment, which is separate from the population that has been granted Canadian citizenship, my social circles have been offering very mixed messages of what the "Canadian" response to this change should be.
People who aren't normally very political, and I wouldn't have thought would care, have been all "elbows up" and boycotting US brands – and trying to convince others to do the same. Several on the more conservative side of the mainstream Canadian political spectrum.
People who have been flag-waiving patriots (some actively involved in the labour movement, so not on the "right" for those who believe this is a partisan issue) are the ones that still have residences in Florida and not only continue to do the snowbird thing, but invite their above age 18 ("adult") grandkids to also party in Florida for spring break (yes, all 3 generations thinking this is a perfectly reasonable thing to continue to do, and don’t understand why anyone would question it – and even get offended if anyone brings it up).
I see many different reactions to the obvious changes, although I've yet to see much to indicate the average Canadian citizen would actually fight to stay Canadian if the US governments actually decided to be more aggressive.
Note: Thinking longer-term as my mind naturally does, as I don't think of institutions like Canada in human-years as I don't think of institutions like Canada in human terms, I have a different perspective. I'm just noting that there seems to be a range of takes on current geopolitics from more mainstream Canadians.
I think that’s a fair read. What you’re describing — that instinctive Canadian tendency toward nuance rather than absolutism — is real, and often a strength.
My concern is less about Canadians being inattentive, and more about how quickly external assumptions can shift when doctrine hardens faster than public consensus. That gap is worth watching.
I appreciate you laying out what you’re seeing on the ground.
“The ICC, and other related organs, are just an outgrowth of Cold War strategy. We built them in our image to further our interests. Once they no longer serve our national interest, why should the US care?”
THE ABOVE IS A QUOTE FROM AN AMERICAN GENTLEMAN ON A RELATED SUBSTACK SUBJECT.
For Leni and Neela,
I suppose I can’t argue the logic of this gentleman’s viewpoint from his perspective. So it does cause me to believe that the middle nations, we in Canada and elsewhere should not be disabused by the fact that international law is permanent. I might also challenge the gentleman’s assertion that the US created all of them solely. NATO and the ICC come to mind. With regard to ICC, the US was a founding nation but it was never ratified in the US congress.
This is exactly the tension I’m trying to surface — and I appreciate you naming it so plainly.
I don’t think you’re wrong about how many U.S.-led institutions emerged from Cold War strategy, or that power helped shape the rules. Where I part ways with the quoted view is on the idea that this makes international law disposable once it becomes inconvenient.
For middle powers like Canada, the durability of rules isn’t about believing they’re permanent or pure — it’s about insisting they remain operational. The moment doctrines replace institutions outright, we move from negotiated order to hierarchy.
That’s where the Monroe → “Donroe” shift matters most: not that power exists (it always has), but that it’s now being asserted openly, with less patience for shared constraint. For countries like ours, that’s not abstract — it’s existential.
I don’t think the answer is naïveté about power. It’s vigilance about which tools still slow it down.
Thank you for laying out the subject in clear fashion. Canada, currently has a 10% tariff on its potash as imposed by the USA. Ninety percent of US imports of potash are supplied by Canada. The recent US-Belarus agreement provides limited sanctions relief to Belarusian potash companies. Belarus has approximately 20% of the world supply of Canada, we have the other 80%.
It is a shame that the US has provided this sanctions relief especially with a country aligned with Putin’s Russia and likewise not a friend of Ukraine. It sounds to me like the US is seen to be helping their own farmers without acknowledging that their own imposed tariffs on Canadian potash are still really hurting their farmers.
As for Arctic security, we have taken big steps recently but not soon enough. The Navy AOPS patrol vessels will hopefully work overtime up north in addition to frigate patrols when ice / seasons permit. To be an optimist, better late than never…
Thank you for this — and welcome. I really appreciate you taking the time to lay out the potash details so clearly.
You’re putting your finger on the uncomfortable overlap between trade, security, and alliance politics. Canada’s potash position gives us leverage on paper, but without a clear strategy it also creates pressure — especially when U.S. policy oscillates between tariffs on allies and sanctions relief for aligned autocracies.
Your point about Arctic capacity lands as well. We are moving, but the lag matters. In a moment where doctrines are becoming more explicit and enforcement-minded, timing and presence start to count as much as intent. Better late than never — but never early enough if others are already acting.
I really wonder if our physical capacity will ever recover. We can hope. The other day I was watching a series called Extreme Railways by Chris Tarrant. The episode which covered his trip from Moscow to the Yamal Peninsula was very telling. One country had clear priorities for accessing the Arctic, Canada did not. I encourage readers to check it out.
That’s a really telling comparison — thank you for sharing it.
What stands out is exactly what you’re pointing to: clarity of priority. Russia decided long ago that Arctic access mattered and built for it. Canada talked sovereignty, but often delayed the hard work of infrastructure and presence.
That gap matters much more in a “Donroe” world, where presence becomes proof and absence gets read as vulnerability — even when legal sovereignty is clear.
I appreciate the recommendation and will check it out. Grounded accounts like that often make the stakes clearer than policy papers do.
I did some light work in trade policy many years ago, and I've watched how quickly rules-based order went from being a boring technical phrase to something that sounds almost quaint when you say it in meetings with American counterparts. It's not that they're against rules, it's that they increasingly see rules as things that apply after vital interests are secured.
Canada keeps invoking international law because, as the article says, because they have to. They don't have the leverage to do otherwise. But we should be honest that the international rules we're counting on were largely written and enforced by the very countries that are now openly prioritizing specific doctrine rules over legal process.
What do they do if the guarantor of the rules-based order decides it needs to act outside those rules? They can't enforce Arctic sovereignty through strongly worded statements at the UN. That stuff doesn't work anymore.
Happy Friday, Neela — and thank you for this. Your observation about rules being treated as something that comes after vital interests are secured rings painfully true, and you’re right: that shift is often felt first in the room, long before it shows up in policy documents.
I also agree that Canada leans on international law not out of naivety, but necessity. For middle powers, rules aren’t idealism — they’re infrastructure. When the guarantors start treating them as optional, the uncertainty isn’t abstract; it’s lived.
And yes — I understand that unease. I feel it too. Part of why I write this way is to try to name the moment clearly without surrendering to it.
PS: Your Medium piece was excellent. It struck me as exactly the kind of work that would find a receptive, engaged audience via Substack publication as well — thoughtful, grounded, and willing to sit with complexity.
Thank you — that framing is exactly what I was trying to surface.
Resource abundance without strategy can be a liability as much as an advantage. Potash looks like leverage on a balance sheet, but in a security context it can just as easily invite others to define the terms if we don’t. That tension — leverage paired with pressure — is what makes this moment feel different, and why the doctrine framing matters so much.
Really appreciate you drawing that line so clearly.
Why the Monroe–Donroe distinction matters
The original Monroe Doctrine was largely declarative. It drew a line — warning outside powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere — but for long stretches it operated quietly, shaping expectations more than driving day-to-day action.
What’s now being called the “Donroe Doctrine” is different. It takes the same sphere-of-influence logic and makes it explicit, operational, and enforcement-minded. It’s framed inside national security rather than diplomacy, and we’re seeing it applied openly in current U.S. actions and rhetoric around Venezuela, Greenland, and parts of Latin America.
That shift — from an implicit background doctrine to a named, active posture — is what matters. Old doctrines spoken aloud tend to do more work than those left unspoken. For Canada, living next door, that change is worth watching closely.
The argument that "absence reads as vulnerability" in the Arctic is supported by the federal supply records. The Parliamentary Budget Officer recently estimated that our new Polar Icebreakers likely won't be operational until the early 2030s. When you combine that with the recurring lapsed spending on northern infrastructure in the Public Accounts, it is clear why Washington is getting nervous. They are looking at a ten-year gap in our physical capacity to actually enforce sovereignty.
That’s a really important data point — thank you for adding it.
The timeline gap you’re pointing to is exactly the kind of thing that tends to stay buried in procurement documents, but it matters enormously once doctrine shifts from implicit to operational. When presence, infrastructure, and response capacity lag by a decade, it’s not surprising that others read that absence as vulnerability rather than intention.
What concerns me most isn’t that Washington notices this — it’s that doctrine thinking tends to simplify complex realities. Long timelines, budget cycles, and federal–provincial friction don’t translate well into security frameworks built around speed and readiness. From that perspective, your point about icebreakers and northern infrastructure helps explain why the Arctic keeps resurfacing as a pressure point.
This is also why Canada’s current emphasis on institutions and rules-based order makes sense to me. Until physical capacity catches up, norms and law are doing real work on our behalf — and we should be clear-eyed about that even as we work to close the gap.
Interesting read.
Not likely intended by the author, but I kept thinking that while the Monroe doctrine might have been claimed to be about reducing yet more direct-European colonialism in what Europe claimed was the “Western Hemisphere”, the Donroe doctrine is actually about increasing US colonialism (itself an ongoing expression of European/British settler-colonialism).
While Canada may feel like a target of the USA for some, I don’t know if the identity and values of those settler-colonial governments (and their ideological loyalists) are sufficiently different to warrant any actual rebranding. This is different from the huge differences (identity, values, history, etc) that exist between British North America and Mexico, Central America, Caribbean, South America, Greenland or Iceland (if the US claim to Guam is supposed to make any sense, then so does Iceland).
Even if the USA did want to do some rebranding, I've not yet been convinced that Canadian loyalists or Canadian institutions would do much to push back. I don't think the War of 1812 would be continued in the same way it was when it was put on pause.
Thanks for this, Russell. The colonial lens you’re bringing is a valid and important one, particularly in how power has historically been exercised across the hemisphere.
My intent here was narrower: to look at how doctrinal language is being revived and repurposed in contemporary U.S. policy signals, and how that shift is perceived by middle powers like Canada today — regardless of the deeper historical continuities underneath it.
I agree that these doctrines don’t emerge from a vacuum, but for this piece I was focused less on rebranding motives and more on how changing rhetoric and behaviour alter strategic assumptions in the present moment. I appreciate you engaging with it from your perspective.
Thanks for engaging. I knew my thinking was beyond the scope of the article.
I agree that the change in rhetoric and behaviour needs to be taken very seriously, including adequately recognizing that it isn't only about one individual (Trump), one executive branch, or one political party.
Separating from the institutions of Canada for a moment, which is separate from the population that has been granted Canadian citizenship, my social circles have been offering very mixed messages of what the "Canadian" response to this change should be.
People who aren't normally very political, and I wouldn't have thought would care, have been all "elbows up" and boycotting US brands – and trying to convince others to do the same. Several on the more conservative side of the mainstream Canadian political spectrum.
People who have been flag-waiving patriots (some actively involved in the labour movement, so not on the "right" for those who believe this is a partisan issue) are the ones that still have residences in Florida and not only continue to do the snowbird thing, but invite their above age 18 ("adult") grandkids to also party in Florida for spring break (yes, all 3 generations thinking this is a perfectly reasonable thing to continue to do, and don’t understand why anyone would question it – and even get offended if anyone brings it up).
I see many different reactions to the obvious changes, although I've yet to see much to indicate the average Canadian citizen would actually fight to stay Canadian if the US governments actually decided to be more aggressive.
Note: Thinking longer-term as my mind naturally does, as I don't think of institutions like Canada in human-years as I don't think of institutions like Canada in human terms, I have a different perspective. I'm just noting that there seems to be a range of takes on current geopolitics from more mainstream Canadians.
I think that’s a fair read. What you’re describing — that instinctive Canadian tendency toward nuance rather than absolutism — is real, and often a strength.
My concern is less about Canadians being inattentive, and more about how quickly external assumptions can shift when doctrine hardens faster than public consensus. That gap is worth watching.
I appreciate you laying out what you’re seeing on the ground.
“The ICC, and other related organs, are just an outgrowth of Cold War strategy. We built them in our image to further our interests. Once they no longer serve our national interest, why should the US care?”
THE ABOVE IS A QUOTE FROM AN AMERICAN GENTLEMAN ON A RELATED SUBSTACK SUBJECT.
For Leni and Neela,
I suppose I can’t argue the logic of this gentleman’s viewpoint from his perspective. So it does cause me to believe that the middle nations, we in Canada and elsewhere should not be disabused by the fact that international law is permanent. I might also challenge the gentleman’s assertion that the US created all of them solely. NATO and the ICC come to mind. With regard to ICC, the US was a founding nation but it was never ratified in the US congress.
This is exactly the tension I’m trying to surface — and I appreciate you naming it so plainly.
I don’t think you’re wrong about how many U.S.-led institutions emerged from Cold War strategy, or that power helped shape the rules. Where I part ways with the quoted view is on the idea that this makes international law disposable once it becomes inconvenient.
For middle powers like Canada, the durability of rules isn’t about believing they’re permanent or pure — it’s about insisting they remain operational. The moment doctrines replace institutions outright, we move from negotiated order to hierarchy.
That’s where the Monroe → “Donroe” shift matters most: not that power exists (it always has), but that it’s now being asserted openly, with less patience for shared constraint. For countries like ours, that’s not abstract — it’s existential.
I don’t think the answer is naïveté about power. It’s vigilance about which tools still slow it down.
I agree exactly! I thought the gentleman’s statement was somewhat arrogant, but I remained “Canadian polite” with the thread.
Thank you for laying out the subject in clear fashion. Canada, currently has a 10% tariff on its potash as imposed by the USA. Ninety percent of US imports of potash are supplied by Canada. The recent US-Belarus agreement provides limited sanctions relief to Belarusian potash companies. Belarus has approximately 20% of the world supply of Canada, we have the other 80%.
It is a shame that the US has provided this sanctions relief especially with a country aligned with Putin’s Russia and likewise not a friend of Ukraine. It sounds to me like the US is seen to be helping their own farmers without acknowledging that their own imposed tariffs on Canadian potash are still really hurting their farmers.
As for Arctic security, we have taken big steps recently but not soon enough. The Navy AOPS patrol vessels will hopefully work overtime up north in addition to frigate patrols when ice / seasons permit. To be an optimist, better late than never…
Thank you for this — and welcome. I really appreciate you taking the time to lay out the potash details so clearly.
You’re putting your finger on the uncomfortable overlap between trade, security, and alliance politics. Canada’s potash position gives us leverage on paper, but without a clear strategy it also creates pressure — especially when U.S. policy oscillates between tariffs on allies and sanctions relief for aligned autocracies.
Your point about Arctic capacity lands as well. We are moving, but the lag matters. In a moment where doctrines are becoming more explicit and enforcement-minded, timing and presence start to count as much as intent. Better late than never — but never early enough if others are already acting.
Glad you’re here for the conversation.
Thank you, Leni. I appreciate your comments!
I really wonder if our physical capacity will ever recover. We can hope. The other day I was watching a series called Extreme Railways by Chris Tarrant. The episode which covered his trip from Moscow to the Yamal Peninsula was very telling. One country had clear priorities for accessing the Arctic, Canada did not. I encourage readers to check it out.
That’s a really telling comparison — thank you for sharing it.
What stands out is exactly what you’re pointing to: clarity of priority. Russia decided long ago that Arctic access mattered and built for it. Canada talked sovereignty, but often delayed the hard work of infrastructure and presence.
That gap matters much more in a “Donroe” world, where presence becomes proof and absence gets read as vulnerability — even when legal sovereignty is clear.
I appreciate the recommendation and will check it out. Grounded accounts like that often make the stakes clearer than policy papers do.
Happy Friday, Leni.
I did some light work in trade policy many years ago, and I've watched how quickly rules-based order went from being a boring technical phrase to something that sounds almost quaint when you say it in meetings with American counterparts. It's not that they're against rules, it's that they increasingly see rules as things that apply after vital interests are secured.
Canada keeps invoking international law because, as the article says, because they have to. They don't have the leverage to do otherwise. But we should be honest that the international rules we're counting on were largely written and enforced by the very countries that are now openly prioritizing specific doctrine rules over legal process.
What do they do if the guarantor of the rules-based order decides it needs to act outside those rules? They can't enforce Arctic sovereignty through strongly worded statements at the UN. That stuff doesn't work anymore.
I hate living in this uncertainty.
PS Thank you for reading my Medium article.
Happy Friday, Neela — and thank you for this. Your observation about rules being treated as something that comes after vital interests are secured rings painfully true, and you’re right: that shift is often felt first in the room, long before it shows up in policy documents.
I also agree that Canada leans on international law not out of naivety, but necessity. For middle powers, rules aren’t idealism — they’re infrastructure. When the guarantors start treating them as optional, the uncertainty isn’t abstract; it’s lived.
And yes — I understand that unease. I feel it too. Part of why I write this way is to try to name the moment clearly without surrendering to it.
PS: Your Medium piece was excellent. It struck me as exactly the kind of work that would find a receptive, engaged audience via Substack publication as well — thoughtful, grounded, and willing to sit with complexity.
Thank you so much Leni
I wish you the best weekend :)
Is this the article you were referencing?
https://medium.com/workmanshit/american-exceptionalism-brought-to-you-by-bombs-and-kidnapping-9e881a76fd82
yes that is Neela’s article that I was referencing.
Thank you — that framing is exactly what I was trying to surface.
Resource abundance without strategy can be a liability as much as an advantage. Potash looks like leverage on a balance sheet, but in a security context it can just as easily invite others to define the terms if we don’t. That tension — leverage paired with pressure — is what makes this moment feel different, and why the doctrine framing matters so much.
Really appreciate you drawing that line so clearly.