At the beginning of 2026, the international world is witnessing events that disrupt the principles of sovereignty and the rules-based international order. Two major issues emerged at almost the same time: the foreign policy of the United States (US) under the administration of President Donald Trump, launching an escalation of policy towards Venezuela involving direct military operations and the detention of President Nicolas Maduro outside the recognized international legal process. (Chris Lau, 2026) As well as strong rhetoric from the White House that raises the discourse of the strategic interests of the United States with control of Greenland. (Sheerin, J., Pomeroy, 2026)
These two issues are manifestations of the direction of the United States’ global policy, which increasingly shows the use of its political superiority to secure its national interests. In the theory of international relations, this phenomenon is a classic example of the securitization approach. A process in which issues are presented as an existential threat, thus overriding legal norms and procedures that affect the actions and policies of a country. (Buzan & Wæver, n.d.)
Economic sanctions, political isolation, and diplomatic pressure have long been applied by Washington through a securitization approach to Nicolas Maduro’s regime on the basis of human rights abuses. (Rodriguez, 2024) However, the United States’ latest approach shows a serious escalation by involving cross-border military operations and the detention of foreign heads of state.
In the modern international order, the head of state is the symbol of the highest sovereignty. Arresting the head of state means not only attacking the regime but also denying the legitimacy of the state as an equal subject of international law. (Benjamin & Hashimy, 2024)
The United States justifies the move as an effort to tackle the transnational crime of “narco-terrorism” and claims an intention to rein in Venezuela’s oil industry as part of global energy stabilization. According to many experts’ narratives, it fuels a debate about the motives of energy and power, not law and security. Many parties view this action as a form of direct intervention against the sovereignty of other countries. (Jeyaretnam and Guzman, 2026)
In Latin America, this move has sparked fears of a return to old patterns of intervention that have been historically traumatic. The issue of borders and asylum claims rejected by the United States due to the existence of a national policy of securitization and the anti-immigrant movement is still an unresolved issue. (Bull, 2020)
Furthermore, through the lens of securitization theory, Venezuela is positioned not as a legitimate political actor but as a threat to the security of the United States and the region. Venezuela has consistently been associated in the domestic framing and discourse of the United States with illegal migration flows, border crises, and socio-economic burdens. Maduro’s arrest reinforces the basis of the narrative that the source of domestic problems comes from outside, so the solution to the enforcement of U.S. sovereignty and national interests must be carried out beyond territorial boundaries.
However, the arrest of foreign heads of state through unilateral military operations is difficult to justify. The reason for law enforcement for transnational crimes does not automatically remove the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention. From the point of view of international law, this event opens the discourse: Can a great power country use military force to enforce its agenda without international accountability? And to what extent can the principle of sovereignty be questioned for their “national interests and security”?
At the same time, three weeks after the operation in Venezuela, Trump voiced a desire to take over Greenland on security grounds. This discourse has sparked strong condemnation from NATO countries and is expected to undermine the foundations of the transatlantic alliance. The United States stated a diplomatic approach in its narrative because it was considered capable of maintaining Greenland’s security, while Denmark was claimed to have failed to overcome the influence of Russia and China.
The United States’ claim to Greenland is not a new phenomenon but rather part of a long history of geopolitical ambition. Washington’s interest in Greenland emerged as early as 1876, when the United States explored the possibility of buying Greenland from Denmark, but the attempt was rejected. During World War II, when Nazi Germany occupied Denmark in 1941, the United States used the situation to invade Greenland under the pretext of preventing Nazi expansion. Since then, Greenland has been a de facto part of the United States’ security zone, although it legally remains under Danish sovereignty. In 1941, the United States built a military and radio station. This treaty was later developed through the 1951 Defense Treaty between the United States and Denmark, which gave the United States the right to build, maintain, and operate military bases in Greenland to this day. (Szymański, 2021)
Geographically, Greenland is located on the shortest path between Russia and the United States through the North Pole. There is a strategic interest that the United States perceives as the first line of defense if there is a possibility of Russia launching intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, this security aspect is only one side of the United States’ interests. On the other hand, Greenland is believed to have strategic natural resources such as gold, tin, iron ore, copper, minerals, and potential oil reserves. Even if there is an ulterior motive of the United States for material interests framed under the pretext of national security, it is not a normative justification for coercive action against the sovereignty of another party. A similar pattern is also seen in the case of Venezuela.
Although it shows two different modes of securitization, the United States’ policy towards Venezuela and Greenland is based on the same strategic logic. In Venezuela, securitization is carried out through the personification of threats, where the state is reduced to a criminal regime figure that must be eradicated. This approach allows for the delegitimization of state sovereignty by targeting the head of state as a security threat. Meanwhile, in the case of Greenland, securitization is not directed at the regime but at the space in the form of territorial securitization. Through the narrative of threats from Russia and China, this region is constructed as a security risk that must be secured and controlled. (Jacobsen & Lindbjerg, 2024) Both of these issues lead to the same consequence, where sovereignty is treated as a negotiable subject when dealing with the narrative of national interests and security of great power countries like the United States.
Decisive action against Venezuela may be seen as an attempt to secure U.S. stability and interests in the region. However, a coercive approach risks increasing regional instability, deepening internal conflicts, and opening space for the intervention of other global powers. This criticism is not just unfounded rhetoric. The UN Security Council and several countries, including Denmark, affirm the inviolability of national borders and that such interventions violate the norms of peaceful conflict resolution and violate the principle of non-intervention and the prohibition of the use of force between states as stipulated in the UN Charter. This principle is the basis of the international order to prevent unilateral actions that interfere with the territorial integrity of a country.
More broadly, the normalization of unilateral actions by great power countries, as in the case of Greenland, has the potential to undermine the rule-based international order. Within the framework of international relations, these dynamics show the tension between geopolitical realism and normative global orders. On the one hand, superpower countries make decisions based on perceptions of strategic interests such as national security and access to resources. On the other hand, when the policy is carried out through unilateral action, the fundamental principles of international law, including sovereignty, non-intervention, and self-determination, are reduced and cause a shift in global norms that should be universally applicable.
In the long run, this situation risks creating a world that is more fragmented, uncertain, and prone to conflict. It has the potential to normalize coercion as a foreign policy instrument. As well as making the global south the most vulnerable party, because it does not have the capacity to balance the pressure from the great powers. Venezuela and Greenland are a reminder that sovereignty is now under fire from a systemic pressure that is testing the future of the international security order.
