In the early days of January 2026, as the world looked forward to a move toward stability after years of friction, the roar of more than 150 warplanes and bombers over Caracas and the images of Nicolás Maduro’s arrest by U.S. Special Forces sent a massive shockwave through the international community. Donald Trump – a president who consistently claimed to be the one to end “forever wars” – has now, through the execution of “Operation Absolute Resolve,” initiated a new chapter of naked interventionism that threatens not only the future of Latin America but the very bedrock of international law. A recent report by The New York Times has revealed that these extensive airstrikes resulted in the deaths of at least 40 people, including civilians in residential apartments in the city of Catia La Mar; a bitter truth that has cast a long shadow over Washington’s claims of a “high-precision surgical operation.”
The Trump administration has disregarded the national sovereignty of a United Nations member state by accusing Maduro of “narco-terrorism.” Yet, the core critique lies not with Maduro’s political persona, but with the precedent Washington has set. Under the United Nations Charter, the recourse to force against the territorial integrity of nations is prohibited. If any power is permitted to arrest the leader of another country on its own soil based on domestic indictments, the concept of “sovereign immunity” will effectively cease to exist. This action, carried out without the authorization of the Security Council, has – in the words of analysts from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) – completely demolished the “rules-based order” that Washington claimed to lead for decades. From now on, rival powers can justify their own aggressive actions in their respective spheres of influence by emulating this behavior.
The most jarring aspect of this affair is Trump’s candid use of the word “run” regarding Venezuela. In interviews with the media, he emphasized that until a transition to a “desirable” government occurs, the United States will oversee the country’s vast oil resources to recoup the costs of its military campaign. This approach, described by Chatham House as “resource imperialism,” challenges international norms regarding national ownership of natural resources. As The Guardian writes, this is a return to an age where might makes right, and alleged benevolent motives have been reduced to a bloody commercial contract.
The bitter experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan have proven that decapitating a political system without a plan for “nation-building” leads only to chaos. A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) warns that toppling Maduro in this manner has turned Venezuela into a quagmire for criminal gangs and will send a new wave of refugees toward the borders. Even within the United States, think tanks such as the Cato Institute argue that the President, by ignoring Congress, has bypassed the Constitution and hollowed out American democracy from within. When military force is utilized for economic objectives, diplomatic tools become futile globally; in the words of The Hindu, this is a blatant act of aggression that has sacrificed collective security at the altar of populism.
Furthermore, the erosion of multilateral diplomacy following this action has created a deep rift between the Western bloc and emerging powers. As noted in analyses by Foreign Policy, this aggressive posture drives countries toward increasing militarization and the formation of parallel defensive alliances to insulate themselves from the risk of similar interventions. By ignoring global consensus, Washington has accelerated the trend of geopolitical confrontation and sacrificed international cooperation in vital areas to the mistrust born of military unilateralism.
The fall of Caracas and the arrest of its leader – now in New York awaiting trial – sounds the death knell for the credibility of the norms that preserved the post-World War II world from absolute anarchy. With this move, Washington has effectively replaced “sovereign equality” with the logic of “might makes right,” and instead of laying the groundwork for a sustainable democracy, it has planted a seed of systemic insecurity in international relations. When national sovereignty is auctioned off for the price of oil and political gain, no nation will feel secure under the shade of international law. The legacy of this intervention is not liberty, but a world where borders are fragile, laws are toothless, and peace is held hostage by individual whims; a path at the end of which no superpower’s victory can compensate for the heavy price of the moral collapse of the global order.
Sarah Neumann has a PhD in political science from Humboldt University of Berlin also taught some courses there.
