The doctrine became a Cold War tradition

The doctrine resurfaced during the Cuban Missile Crisis and in arguments for supporting or overthrowing Latin American regimes according to their Cold War alignment. Iran-Contra and CIA support for forces based in Honduras were defended as necessary to avoid abandoning it. The comparison with unwritten British constitutional conventions explains how political expectation can bind without a single legal text. By then the doctrine operated like an uncodified constitutional tradition whose disputed spirit could not be confined by statutory wording. Claims to uphold or betray that tradition became powerful tools in domestic political debate.