2026 opened with displays of U.S. muscle power, intended to revive the Monroe Doctrine and reinforce American security dominance, an approach that had come under scrutiny after Israel’s strikes on Qatar escalated tensions in the Middle East last year. The Trump administration made clear commitments regarding its sphere of influence and signalled its willingness to reassert the Monroe Doctrine in its National Security Strategy (NSS) released in November. Within two months, the U.S. carried out a military operation in Venezuela to topple the Maduro regime, demonstrating both its strategic will and seriousness in translating doctrine into action.

These developments have prompted reflections on the global order entering yet another geopolitical churn. More importantly for India, they underline the urgency of revisiting its strategic autonomy and reassessing its grand strategy for navigating an increasingly contested global order.

The Donroe Doctrine

Under the Trump administration, the Monroe Doctrine has been reshaped into an offensive deterrent tool rather than a quiet diplomatic, soft-power, and collective-security construct. Earlier, the U.S. relied on pragmatic calculations and preventive diplomacy to address security and strategic challenges within its sphere of influence. The Obama administration even declared that the Monroe Doctrine was over, favouring soft power to maintain influence.

In contrast, the Trump administration rechristened it the “Donroe Doctrine,” which seeks not only to secure the U.S. sphere of influence but also to assert an overt America First mindset through dominant tactics reminiscent of the Cold War era. During Trump’s first term, Washington gradually began rethinking the Monroe Doctrine and incorporating it into its strategic calculus, but this process remained cautious. In the second term, however, the Donroe Doctrine has been accelerated and implemented through three distinct strategies.

First is transactionalism, in which the U.S. focuses on maximising interests through power bargaining, leaving little room for diplomatic manoeuvre. Trade negotiations during Trump’s second administration exemplify this increasingly aggressive transactional approach.

Second is the use of credible threats—sanctions and the overt threat of force as instruments of coercive diplomacy to protect U.S. security and strategic space. While coercion has long been central to U.S. strategic thinking, it has become more direct and forceful under Trump’s second administration, as demonstrated by Operation Absolute Resolve against Venezuela and the escalation of tariff wars.

Third is unilateralism, reflected in withdrawals from international organisations, tariff politics, unilateral military actions, and power-centric approaches to conflict management. These actions are designed to foreground an American-first approach rather than collective or multilateral engagement. The sharp unilateralism of Trump’s second administration is intended to send a strategic message to the global order about the revival of U.S. hegemony.

Although these features differ significantly from the original Monroe Doctrine, its core objective remains unchanged: protecting the U.S. sphere of influence. In essence, the Donroe Doctrine is a blueprint for blitzkrieg-style diplomacy that globalises an America-first approach. It echoes the Cold War-era concept of “preponderant power,” which argues that a single dominant state—such as the U.S. in the post-Cold War era—can prevent major wars by maintaining overwhelming military, economic, and political strength, thereby deterring rivals and enforcing stability.

India’s Grand Strategy

India has placed strategic autonomy at the centre of its approach to navigating the contested global order. This strategy rests on multi-vector diplomacy and diversification—moving beyond fixed superpower orbits while remaining engaged with them to advance India’s interests. While lessons have been learned from the shortcomings of the Non-Aligned Movement, strategic autonomy has now evolved into a broader grand strategy through which India deploys both hard and soft power to assert and negotiate its security and strategic interests.

However, as the Donroe Doctrine begins to shape the tone of the global order and India prepares to confront a more hawkish U.S. diplomatic posture, New Delhi must recalibrate and reassess whether its grand strategy can withstand three critical upcoming tests.

The first is a fresh U.S. blitzkrieg—the threat of heavier sanctions, tough trade negotiations, and repeated episodes of Trump’s belittling tactics against world leaders, including the Indian Prime Minister. India must explore effective re-engagement options while simultaneously withstanding sustained diplomatic pressure from Washington.

The second test concerns diplomatic cushions to mitigate damage. India’s grand strategy must now focus on identifying buffers to contain the fallout from the Donroe Doctrine and the broader geopolitical churn. This requires reassessing the scope for strategically normalising relations with China, reassuring Russia, and exploring alternative strategic mechanisms for Russia–India–China engagement or initiatives, even at discrete or informal levels. Such cushions would allow India to manage superpower relations more effectively, serving both as protective buffers and bargaining chips in negotiations.

The third test is sharp diversification. India must evaluate its readiness to move beyond routine diplomatic engagement and pursue deeper diversification. This entails shifting away from transactional buying-and-selling relationships towards co-creation of technologies, issue-based alignments, and more meaningful engagement with minilateral and multilateral frameworks. It also requires fewer balancing acts and a greater willingness to accept calculated risks in pursuit of national interests. Shallow engagements should no longer be the default; instead, they must be leveraged strategically to build deeper and more durable partnerships.

In essence, diversification, normalisation, and re-engagement should serve as benchmarks for reassessing strategic autonomy and strengthening it against emerging headwinds.

Learning from Kissinger Gamble

India must also draw lessons from its Cold War-era failures, particularly its struggle to diversify and normalise relationships. In the 1970s, Henry Kissinger employed triangular diplomacy against India, using Pakistan as a proxy and China as a strategic partner to limit India’s regional ambitions and counter Soviet influence in South Asia. This approach resembled strategic encirclement, deploying sophisticated power tactics to constrain a country’s influence within its region.

At the time, India pursued elements of strategic autonomy through the Non-Aligned Movement, but this proved inadequate. Its strategic response was constrained by overreliance on the Soviet Union and limited diversification. India missed key opportunities to deepen ties with France, Germany, and Japan, particularly after France withdrew from NATO’s integrated command in 1966. Ultimately, these limitations weakened India’s grand strategy when it was put to the test.

Today, India’s grand strategy faces a similarly critical moment—this time shaped not by the Kissinger Doctrine but by the Donroe Doctrine. New Delhi must avoid relying on limited or incremental approaches. Instead, its strategy must be upgraded to a level that allows it to take calculated risks, withstand U.S. diplomatic blitzkrieg, and navigate an anxiety-ridden global order with greater resilience and confidence.

(The author is a national security analyst specialising in intelligence and security analysis. Views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at srijansharma12@gmail.com.)