Russia Ukraine war

Lets look at the Monroe Doctrine with respect to the USA
and then apply it to this Ukrainian war.

Here are the 4 main points of the US Monroe Doctrine:

(1) the United States would not interfere in European affairs;

(2) the United States recognized and would not interfere with existing colonies in the Americas;

(3) the Western Hemisphere was closed to future colonization; and

(4) if a European power tried to interfere with any nation in the Americas, that would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States.

Its recent application:
(a) Cuban Missile Crisis
(b) The debunking of the Allende Government in Chile
(c) Venezuela (pending)

Now let's look at a hypothetical?

Lets assume that Mexico joins China's SCO and China lands some armed forces hardware
in Mexico with Chinese military advisors (just like NATO does in East European countries)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation

Does anyone here think that the US would not intervene and if necessary
send in the cavalry to Mexico to remove this perceived national security threat?
IMO that would happen because of the US sphere of influence as illustrated above
in its Monroe Doctrine , especially (3) above, would click in.

So is it a difficult to imagine that Russia too has its own "sphere of influence " as a Nuke
Power. IMO it has for its own security concerns just as the USA has its Monroe Doctrine.
In fact the USA extends its Monroe Doctrine to Ideology as evidenced by its
role in the debunking of the Allende Socialist Government in Chile in 1973
with Venezuela (pending IMO)

Of course the US has managed to get around the Monroe Doctrine (see (1) above)
by forming NATO and working from within as NATO's most influential member and
as such it can interfere with with "European Affairs" contrary to (1) above.

Now the big question is: Is it realistic for Russia as a Nuclear Power to have
a "sphere of influence" with respect to its neighbours? Keep in mind in Geopolitics
is no higher authority than the State (The UN has failed in being a higher power when it comes
the permanent members of its Security Council)

So the yardstick seems to be: "If its good for the Goose, then its good for the Gander"

example, China has 14 neighbouring countries and it is evident that Xi and his
party are working like beavers on that "sphere of influence. Even Australia
a middle power (to be generous) has our "sphere of influence" among our neighbours
that is evidenced with the hoo-haa about the Solomons and other pacific islands
falling under the influence of China

The philosophical question is: Does Russia have a right to a "Sphere of Influence "
with its neighbours just as the US has asserted its Monroe Doctrine and as China
now in the process of doing? It would be hard to argue that the US has this right while
Russia hasn't based on any consistent principles of national security or examples from
recent history .

When it comes to home, our No 1 perceived threat is that China is seen to be invading
our "sphere of influence" eg The Solomons etc so how do we defend that if we
maintain that its a country's sovereign right to choose its economic and military partners as
we are now proposing for the Ukraine & Georgia.