A US Aircraft Carrier Heads to Latin America, and It Could End Up Helping China

Defence

The sharpest published objection to reviving the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America comes not from Beijing or Brasília but from a Washington think-tank that spends most of its time arguing for a harder American line.

Elbridge Colby, who runs policy at the Pentagon, told defence ministers of the Americas in Cusco this week that the region had been neglected for a generation. He asked them to spend more, cooperate on counter-narcotics strikes, and protect critical assets from outside powers.

Reuters read that last phrase as meaning China. Colby himself acknowledged the historical objection to the doctrine and argued that his critics hold a distorted view of it.

The English-language wires carried the demands and largely passed over the rebuttal. It appears in a Reuters account of his remarks.

The venue was the Conference of Defence Ministers of the Americas, a multilateral forum rather than a bilateral visit. Colby was asking the ministers in the room to sign up.

Why hawks doubt the Monroe Doctrine can beat Beijing

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies is not a dovish institution. It argues for confronting China, Russia and Iran, and it thinks Washington neglected Latin America for too long.

It also thinks the current approach is self-defeating. In its own analysis of the naval buildup, the foundation wrote that the deployment would undermine the Pentagon’s readiness against China and Russia.

Its argument is mechanical rather than moral. Ships that deploy must afterwards be maintained, and crews that deploy must afterwards train.

Extended missions in one theatre therefore reduce the forces available for a crisis in another. The foundation warned that a one-dimensional approach would fail and create openings for exactly the powers it wants excluded.

What the carrier’s year actually cost

The carrier Gerald Ford left Norfolk in June 2025 for European waters. In October it was ordered west to the Caribbean, and it was there in January when Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was captured.

Its departure from the Mediterranean left Europe and the Middle East without a carrier for a period. Stars and Stripes calculated at the time that nearly a fifth of the navy’s deployed warships would sit in Latin American waters.

The record does not support a simple story. In February the Ford was sent back across the Atlantic and struck Iran at the end of that month, so its long deployment cannot be laid at Latin America’s door alone.

It came home in May after 326 days, the longest carrier deployment since the Cold War ended. On Tuesday it entered a Norfolk shipyard for repairs expected to take months.

The arithmetic of eleven carriers

The American navy owns eleven aircraft carriers. Maintenance and training mean only about three are at sea at any moment.

On our own arithmetic that is roughly twenty-seven percent of the fleet afloat, so sending one strike group to the Caribbean commits close to a third of the available force. The Pacific command wants one for China, the Middle East command for Iran, the European command for Russia.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, which sits nearer the political centre, noted that the Caribbean rarely saw carriers for decades. It also judged them poorly suited to the surveillance work of catching smugglers.

A carrier assigned to one ocean is unavailable in another. That is the trade-off the foundation is pointing at, and it holds whatever one thinks of the drug war.

What this means for the region

A defence minister in Cusco was asked to buy into a strategy whose own supporters question whether it can be sustained. That is a different calculation from being asked to join a winning side.

Colby’s answer was that the doctrine’s best tradition lies in strengthening Latin American nations rather than dominating them. Reuters notes that critics associate the doctrine with decades of American intervention.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Monroe Doctrine actually American policy?

The phrase is mostly a shorthand used by reporters and by critics. Washington has published a national security strategy and a defence strategy that prioritise the hemisphere, and Colby invoked the label rather than avoiding it.

Why does a hawkish think-tank oppose a hawkish policy?

Because it judges the policy poorly designed rather than too aggressive. Its objection is that Washington should not rely solely, or even primarily, on the military instrument, and that overusing the fleet weakens deterrence elsewhere.

What should an investor watch next?

Whether Washington attaches money to the demand. A request that Latin American governments raise defence spending, without American economic or diplomatic instruments alongside it, is a fiscal cost for countries already running deficits.