In the early hours of January
3, 2026, the sitting president of Venezuela was captured by the U.S. military
and sent to New York, where he would face a federal indictment involving the trafficking
of narcotics to the United States. President Trump’s decision to go forward
with the military plan no doubt had to do with the South American state’s
tremendous oil reserves, just as President George W. Bush’s decision to invade
Iraq surely had something to do with that Middle Eastern state’s oil fields. Elected
representatives at the federal level of the U.S. have known since 1974 that skyrocketing
gas prices could easily result in voter-resentment. Whether the capture of
Maduro was motivated by his drug activity reaching the U.S. or Venezuela’s oil,
the invasion and capture by U.S. forces is in line with the Hobbesian notion that
might makes right, and even that 90% of ownership of property lies in possession.
Lest it be thought that President Trump broke with precedent internationally in
capturing the sitting president of another country, his strategy can be
understood as being along the trend that had been gaining traction because the
post-World War II international order had become hamstrung in the impotence of international
bodies including the International Criminal Court and the United Nations.
The various reactions of the
leaders of other South American sovereign states provide a sense of the
confusion regarding the “new way” that was taking hold internationally amid the
power vacuum. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s reaction, for
example, treated the U.S. military strike as crossing “an unacceptable line,”
and thus as establishing a precedent wherein one country can legitimately
invade another.[1] “Attacking
countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward
a world of violence, chaos and instability, where the law of the strongest
prevails over multilateralism,” Lulu wrote.[2]
Apparently he was unaware of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s
genocide in Gaza—both of these cases being flagrant examples of raw military
aggression in violation of international law. So, President Trump’s military
action can hardly be described as a “first step toward world of violence, chaos
and instability.” Furthermore, Lulu’s appeal to multilateralism flies in the
face of the paralysis in the UN Security Council due to the five permanent veto-powers—at
least one of which had been protecting Russia and another backing up Israel
even in committing a holocaust against a people that at least some high
officials in the Israeli government viewed as subhuman (i.e., dogs). It was not
the first time in modern history that a people has been viewed as subhuman, and
thus as deserving, like rats, of extermination. Unlike that case, no coalitions
of the willing were willing to take on Russia and Israel in 2023 and even in at
least the two subsequent years, which has allowed the naked aggression to take
hold and actually become a precedent before the U.S. military captured Maduro.
Also, apparently oblivious to
the intractability of the post-WWII world order, Colombian President Gustavo
Petro called for an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States
and the United Nations. Because the General Assembly is militarily impotent and
the U.S. has veto-power in the Security Council, and the Organization of
American States has no actual power, Petro’s plan demonstrates the utter lack
of redress against the “new way” of might makes right then gaining even more
traction. Perhaps at least China could then stage a military strike in Israel
to capture Netanyahu and his henchmen and deliver them to the International
Criminal Court. At least then the Hobbesian state of nature would paradoxically
be aiding in the enforcement of international law against genocides and
holocausts. Waking up to such news on January 3, 2026 would indeed have been quite
a Christmas present, albeit delivered late.
Also oblivious to the military
aggression of Russia and Israel, Chilean President Gabriel Boric stated, “Chile
reaffirms its commitment to basic principles of international Law, such as the
prohibition of the use of force, non-intervention, the peaceful settlement of
international disputes, and the territorial integrity of States.”[3]
Chile’s commitment means absolutely nothing, as that South American state had done
nothing to organize an international coalition to push Russian troops out of
Ukraine and Israeli troops, who were gangraping young Palestinian boys, out of
Gaza (and the West Bank). A precedent for such a coalition can be found in U.S.
President George H.W. Bush removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the early
1990s, without invading Iraq because the coalition did not support that.
Unfortunately, the international community of nations did not act on that basis
against Russia and Israel. Hence Boric’s demand that the “Venezuelan crisis
must be resolved through dialogue and the support of multilateralism, and not through
violence or foreign interference” can be likened to one hand clapping alone in
a forest.[4]
That such a demand is even made as the post-WWII world order laid wayward
largely defunct as regards military invasions and even a genocide begs the question
of why no governments were working constructively toward international
institutions that could enforce international law against aggressive national
leaders.
To acknowledge that the ICC
and the UN had become utterly impotent and yet to do nothing to give rise to a
new world order, especially as military invasions and even a holocaustic
genocide were being allowed to run their respective courses unincumbered, was where
the world was as 2026 began. In 2025, a former undersecretary of the UN admitted
to me at Harvard that the UN could not be adequately reformed because the veto-powers
in the Security Council would never divest themselves of that power. A new
institution would be necessary for international law to mean anything more than
a guideline for governments to voluntarily follow when doing so suits them. In
the meantime, the U.S. and Israel could circumvent the International Criminal
Court with impunity, and the E.U., mired in anti-federalist ideology, could not
step up to push Russian troops out of Ukraine. President Trump had plenty of
precedents for his military strike in Venezuela even though capturing a sitting
president was admittedly novel. It is precisely through such incrementalism
that a series of precedents becomes ensconced as a new status quo in
international relations.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
