It was the 1820s and leaders in the young United States felt growing pressures from European nations. Russia was trying to expand south from present-day Alaska into land that the United States claimed. France, meanwhile, was preparing to send troops to South America—a little too close to home. In 1823, President James Monroe decided that it was time to tell the rest of the world to stay out of North and South America. This foreign policy became the Monroe Doctrine.