In The Dark Knight, Alfred Pennyworth, while explaining to Bruce Wayne the raison d’être of the man known as the Joker, a role so good that Heath Ledger shuffled off his mortal coil after playing the disturbing character, explained: “Some people aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”Now that might sound like Donald Trump. It’s close, but it’s not. Trump is not beyond reason, and there is some method to his madness. He does want money and power, and he can be reasoned with. On other things, Trump is ambivalent. Over the years, lots of well-meaning folks, think-tankers, journalists, columnists, and others who couldn’t find meaningful employment, have wasted time, effort, and ink trying to figure out what makes the man tick. They have tried to explain what the Trump Doctrine is, which, based on what one has read, can be anything from wanting a Big Mac to a new ballroom in the White House to kidnapping a democratically elected, well, elected, leader.The thing is, since James Monroe, every American president has tried hard to find a cutesy phrase to explain his foreign policy and raison d’être. Figuring out Trump’s policies, of course, is harder than figuring out quantum mechanics. Still, the instinct remains the same.The Monroe Doctrine deemed that Europe shouldn’t meddle in the Western Hemisphere.The follow-up Roosevelt Corollary added that while Europe couldn’t meddle, the US would also intervene to preserve order, life, and property in the Western Hemisphere.

Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy added that Europe couldn’t meddle and that the US would control the Western Hemisphere through money, debt, and banks.FDR’s Good Neighbour Policy deemed that Europe wouldn’t meddle and that the US would dominate without open military occupation.The Truman Doctrine expanded beyond the Western Hemisphere to say it would stop communism anywhere in the world.The Eisenhower Doctrine put the focus on the Middle East to block Soviet influence.The Kennedy–Johnson Cold War practice involved overthrowing governments it disliked if they appeared left-leaning.Nixon’s Doctrine promised to supply weapons and money but asked allies to fight their own wars.The Reagan Doctrine promised to actively roll back left-wing governments across the world.The Bush Doctrine was to strike them anywhere, unknowns and facts be damned.The Obama Doctrine believed in drones in the air and no troops on the ground.All of which brings us to the Trump Doctrine, the philosophical, geopolitical, and logical conclusion of the various doctrines American presidents dreamt up to justify their desire for global hegemony.The refreshing thing about the Trump Doctrine, as opposed to all the others, is that Trump doesn’t pretend to be some force of good.He doesn’t have the colonial hangover of Europeans who pretended their endeavour to enslave natives was some sort of White Man’s Burden and not a plan to sell opium.He doesn’t have any delusions of grandeur about making the world a better place, though he does believe his mere existence is making the world a better place.A case in point is Nicolás Maduro’s recent abduction, whose mock dancing was the final trigger for Trump. How dare someone else think they could win a dance-off in the age of YMCA? The next thing he knew, Maduro, along with his wife, was being extracted to the US, where they even got the age-old treatment.The Trump Doctrine, meanwhile, is very simple.The first is his absolute non-belief in the rules-based international order, a term he finds as meaningful as a salad. For Trump, the guy with the biggest stick makes the rules.For years, Trump has wondered, ever since watching the Tehran hostage situation, perhaps the first time he expressed any sort of views on foreign policy, why a country like America, which has the biggest stick, cannot make the world bend to its will. He sees the world in broad spheres of influence. Xi has his sphere of influence. Putin has his.As long as they stay out, they can do whatever they want in their own spheres. It is exactly the dystopian world that Motihari boy George Orwell imagined in 1984.The second is summed up by an Akshay Kumar meme from Phir Hera Pheri, the question every website asks these days whenever you try to read an article: “Paisa laya?”Trump views everything as the next deal.Whoever is willing to cut him a deal is a friend. Everyone else is a foe. Ergo, Trump has no problem breaking bread with nations as diverse as Pakistan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Syria, as long as they are willing to improve Trump’s relationship with Mammon.The third is revenge, drawn from the grand tradition of Sardar Khan or Maximus Aurellius Derridius. If you are oriental, that is: “Humra zindagi ka ek hi maqsad hai: badla.” If you are occidental, that’s: “I will have my revenge, in this life or the next.” Trump cannot abide it when someone cocks their snook at him. When Obama mocked him, he ensured he would end up in the White House, going so far as to dismantle the liberal order that worshipped at Obama’s altar. For Trump, Maduro was a goner the moment he danced mocking him. An insult is something Donald Trump doesn’t take lying down. All the European leaders who mocked him would pay fealty to him. Anyone who dared mock his legacy would be brought to heel.

After his first presidency, he was hounded out, deplatformed, impeached, indicted, raided by the FBI, and written off in exile. But unlike Napoleon, Trump managed to return from exile, with the wrath and fury to ensure that anyone who had ever mocked him would pay. And now he has the world at his feet.All of which brings us back to the original question: what really is the Trump Doctrine? It’s simple. We are America, b****. We do what we want. (PS: Europe should call me Daddy.)The truth is every American president has treated international laws with the same disdain with which an alcoholic treats his liver, with wanton disregard for the consequences. Most of them pretended it was for the greater good. Donald Trump doesn’t.