The formula has always stayed the same. First, the Pentagon accuses a resource-rich country, most often one sitting on vast oil reserves, of posing a security threat to the United States. Then come sanctions, diplomatic isolation, calls for “democracy,” and finally, military force. In January 2026, that formula reached its most extreme expression when U.S. forces bombed Caracas and captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Framed as a response to “narco-terrorism,” the operation instead reveals a familiar imperial logic: regime change, resource control, and geopolitical dominance.
At the heart of this logic lies oil. Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world, alongside significant gold and mineral wealth. History shows that such abundance rarely translates into sovereignty when it collides with U.S. strategic interests. Washington’s claim that Venezuela posed an imminent security threat was never convincingly substantiated. Rather, the intervention fits a broader pattern in which security narratives are mobilized to justify coercive action against governments that resist U.S. influence.
The “Donroe Doctrine”
Today, Trump told the public that this tactic was a Don-roe Doctrine move. This pattern is inseparable from the legacy of the Monroe Doctrine. Declared in 1823, it asserted the Western Hemisphere as America’s exclusive sphere of influence. Though unenforceable at the time, the doctrine articulated a long-term ambition: that Latin America would remain politically and economically subordinate to Washington. Two centuries later, this worldview has been revived. The Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy explicitly re-emphasized the Western Hemisphere as a primary focus, pledging to “restore American preeminence” in the region. Venezuela became the test case.
To understand why, one must return to Hugo Chávez. More than twenty years ago, Chávez reignited the Bolivarian Revolution, using oil revenues not for foreign extraction but for public good like healthcare, education, housing, subsidized food, and poverty reduction. Beyond domestic reform, Chávez pursued something more threatening to Washington: a project to liberate South America from U.S. hegemony. Through initiatives like ALBA and Petrocaribe, Venezuela helped construct alternative regional cooperation mechanisms rooted in solidarity rather than dependency.
This defiance came at a cost. The United States responded with escalating sanctions, financial blockades, diplomatic delegitimization, and repeated attempts at regime change. Successive U.S. administrations framed these efforts as defending democracy, yet the consistent target was Venezuela’s refusal to submit to U.S. economic and geopolitical control. Maduro inherited not only Chávez’s political legacy but also the full weight of this pressure.
A Pawn In The Chessboard
But why has the Pentagon waited until now to bomb Venezuela? Notably, before the brutal attack, Maduro told the press that he was willing to “offer the olive branch” to Trump in peace talks regarding drug control. Yet, this offer seemingly came too late after the US already blasted citizens’ fish ships for a vague accusation of drug dealing, at the same time deploying the world’s largest warship, the USS Gerald R. Ford, in the Caribbean Sea.
This build-up means something more than just Caracas. The global balance of power is shifting. BRICS has grown stronger, offering an alternative economic architecture to Western-dominated systems. Venezuela deepened cooperation with China, Russia, and Iran—trading oil outside the dollar system, rebuilding infrastructure, and receiving military and technical support. For Washington, this convergence crossed a red line. Venezuela was no longer merely resisting U.S. influence; it was actively embedding itself in a multipolar order.
The invasion thus serves a broader message: the Western Hemisphere remains America’s “playground.” If Venezuela could be forcibly subdued, other states contemplating strategic autonomy, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and even Brazil, would be warned of the costs. This is not about Maduro alone. It is about reasserting imperial discipline at a moment when U.S. dominance is increasingly contested.
National Outrage vs. Global Concern
The world reacted accordingly. Governments across Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Global South condemned the strikes as violations of international law and Venezuelan sovereignty. China and Russia denounced the attack as armed aggression. Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia warned of regional destabilization. Even within the United States, citizens took to the streets. Protests erupted in Maine, New York City, Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago, San Antonio, and beyond, with demonstrators rejecting a war they viewed as illegal, immoral, and driven by oil rather than security.
The consequences extend far beyond Venezuela. By launching an unprovoked intervention and capturing a sitting head of state, Washington severely undermines its credibility to condemn China’s aggression toward Taiwan or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. International law cannot be selectively applied. When the United States violates the very principles of sovereignty and non-intervention it claims to defend, it normalizes a world where power determines legitimacy.
For Europe, this weakens the normative order it relies on. For Asia, it reinforces the belief that military force is an acceptable tool for settling disputes. For Africa and the Middle East, regions already scarred by intervention, it signals that sovereignty remains conditional for states lacking power. What emerges is a dangerous precedent: any great power may now justify intervention wherever it deems its interests threatened.
It used to be like this in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. Venezuela is not an isolated case. It is a warning. If imperial logic is allowed to override international law, the post-1945 order collapses into raw power politics. And in such a world, no state, large or small, is truly secure.
