By Spyros Tsaparas, Junior Analyst KEDISA
Introduction
In the first days of 2026, the United States conducted intense air strikes in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas and successfully captured its head of state, Nicolas Maduro[1]. Within the span of a month, a warning of tariffs being issued was used against a NATO ally over Arctic territory [2]. These two events may look completely irrelevant when comparing them, but in reality, they’re part of a larger doctrine that reflects a radical change in U.S. foreign policy. Similarly to how the Monroe Doctrine saw the U.S. exerting its influence over the Americas, this new American doctrine favors direct coercive assertion and treats the Western Hemisphere (including Greenland) as a field where international law is negotiable and economic initiatives are used as leverage instruments. Specifically, this analysis will examine this doctrine through theoretical frameworks and the cases of Venezuela with the Maduro capture as well as the threat of tariffs to a NATO ally.
Case studies
The first case study is Operation Absolute Resolve which took place on January 3rd, 2026. This operation successfully captured Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro with the legal/political framing being of narcoterrorism charges instead of the traditional ideological regime change, as a promotion of democracy, that previous administrations stepped on [3]. Regime change by the U.S. is not new but the language being used is. It signals a dramatic change on how the United States approaches the world. It’s precisely a doctrine change because now the law is whatever America decides it is. Evidence of this is the fact that Maduro is going to be tried in a domestic court, rather than an international one. It signals that the United States is willing to bend the law to promote their interests if that’s necessary. Similarly, the Greenland crisis also reflects this change in doctrine. President Donald Trump shifted gradually to a more aggressive rhetoric as Denmark, a NATO ally, ruled out talks to cede Greenland. Initially, Greenland was to be purchased, then Denmark would face heavy tariffs if they didn’t comply and finally military action was not ruled out in order to acquire the territory [4]. Directly threatening an alliance member signals clearly that the United States is shifting away from its role as the protector of the Western world to a more isolationist approach favoring national interest first. Ultimately, both cases show common characteristics as to coercion instruments, a unilateral timeline and indifference to international law. With these shared points, can we conclude to the nature of the new foreign policy doctrine the U.S. is already field testing?
Theoretical Framework
In reality, this new U.S. doctrine takes a page from international relations theory and loosely applies it to justify its own actions. President Trump’s own team has branded its foreign policy ‘flexible realism’ [5]. They base their foreign policy doctrine on political realism, essentially arguing that state interests come first and when power needs to be exercised, it will. These points were indeed proven by the intervention in Venezuela and the threatening of Western allies. However, what the Trump administration failed to notice is that the realism they are applying is completely different from its theoretical basis. Classical realism does indeed view the global political arena as anarchical and sees the state’s interests as the primary goal of conducting statecraft [6]. However, the figures that applied the theory like Cardinal Richelieu or America’s own Henry Kissinger would completely look down upon present day America’s doctrine. That’s because both figures counted on their allies to promote their own interests and never acted against them. In the case of Cardinal Richelieu, in order to defeat the Habsburgs and consolidate power in France, he allied with states that no minister before him dared to. As a result, when the thirty years’ war was over, France emerged as a major power in Europe and in the world. On the other hand, Kissinger, while navigating the U.S. through the cold war, under the Nixon administration helped Western allies when they were under the communist threat and used the U.N. as the legal consensus for international affairs. As a result, using both historical examples and realism’s own theoretical framework it becomes apparent that the Trump administration’s use of realism is wrong. While the government claims they apply their foreign policy based on the theory, the reality is that they take some parts of the theory and produce a result that’s uncoordinated with both its historical predecessors and the theory itself.
It comes with a heavy cost for this new American doctrine to be presented as realist and in practice, violate the theory’s principles. For one, given the importance realism places in maintaining alliances, going against that principle could break the NATO alliance. With emerging powers like China or Russia trying to topple the U.S. and the dollar, publicly threatening allies could create mistrust regarding the validity of Article 5. On principle, Article 5 states that if a NATO member is attacked every other member state should defend it [7]. However, if the nation leader of the alliance threatens another member of NATO, the alliance may not come to that member’s aid in case of a conflict. Additionally, realism doesn’t advocate for miscalculated strikes against enemy states, because it threatens to upset the balance of power. When military operations take place to “kidnap” an opposite head of state, rogue states can use this paradigm to launch their own operations against leaders they see as unfit. As a result, the anarchical world politics arena will truly embrace this character and the fragile balance of power will be highly difficult to be restored. To conclude, conducting foreign policy for the sake of projecting power and basing it falsely on theoretical groundworks, it’ll inevitably produce unwanted results. It can damage alliances from the inside and most importantly deteriorate the world’s balance of power, thereby giving rise to an unwanted future.
Conclusion
Based on the most recent actions of the Trump administration it’s safe to conclude that the United States is developing a new foreign policy doctrine based on power projection and prioritizing national interest over conventional approaches. Its theoretical framework claims to be political realism but in practice it is almost the complete opposite of it. As a result, it threatens to work against the doctrine’s own objectives. National interest will not be served as major Western allies are feeling increasingly isolated from the United States, putting the North Atlantic Alliance at serious internal risk. Additionally, power projection may also fail, as adversary states like China and Russia could use American playbooks to capture leaders they are not aligned with. The question that occurs is, if this doctrine continues being followed how much can the Western allies endure before deciding to completely abandon the United States?
Bibliography
‘A Guide to Maduro’s Capture and Venezuela’s Uncertain Future | Council on Foreign Relations’. 8 January 2026. https://www.cfr.org/articles/guide-maduros-capture-and-venezuelas-uncertain-future.
Korab-Karpowicz, W. Julian. ‘Political Realism in International Relations’. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2026, edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2026. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2026/entries/realism-intl-relations/.
Lissner, Rebecca, and Mira Rapp-Hooper. ‘The False Promise of “Flexible Realism”’. Foreign Affairs, 26 March 2026. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/false-promise-flexible-realism.
NATO. ‘Collective Defence and Article 5’. Accessed 18 August 2026. https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/introduction-to-nato/collective-defence-and-article-5.
‘Trump Tariff Threat over Greenland “Unacceptable”, European Leaders Say’. Accessed 13 August 2026. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4qjwk9n2no.
U.S. Department of War. ‘Trump Announces U.S. Military’s Capture of Maduro’. Accessed 13 August 2026. https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4370431/trump-announces-us-militarys-capture-of-maduro/.
‘Why Does Trump Want Greenland, and What Could It Mean for Nato and the EU?’ 21 January 2026. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74x4m71pmjo.
Endnotes
[1] US Dep. War, ‘Trump Announces U.S. Military’s Capture of Maduro’.
[2] ‘Trump Tariff Threat over Greenland “Unacceptable”, European Leaders Say’.
[3] ‘A Guide to Maduro’s Capture and Venezuela’s Uncertain Future | Council on Foreign Relations’.
[4] ‘Why Does Trump Want Greenland, and What Could It Mean for Nato and the EU?’
[5] Lissner and Rapp-Hooper, ‘The False Promise of “Flexible Realism”’.
[6] Korab-Karpowicz, ‘Political Realism in International Relations’.
[7] NATO, ‘Collective Defence and Article 5’.
