Since early September 2025, the United States has conducted at least ten military strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing around forty-three people. The campaign began with a strike on a boat leaving Venezuela that killed eleven people, followed by further attacks through October, including four vessels destroyed on 28 October with fourteen fatalities. Washington has framed the operations as a counter-narcotics initiative, yet no international mandate or regional consent was sought (and indeed the UN has raised concerns about the legality of the strikes). The pattern reflects an increasingly unilateral approach to security, with sovereignty and military capacity used to justify extraterritorial force.
A similar dynamic is visible in the Middle East. On 29 October, Israel broke a ceasefire with Hamas by launching a wave of air strikes on Gaza that killed more than one hundred people, among them 46 children. The
action, described as retaliation for Hamas violating the ceasefire provision about returning deceased hostages’ remains, underscores how sovereign states continue to privilege hard power and self-defence over negotiated restraint when they perceive existential threats.
However, October’s global news also revealed the limits of confrontation. On the sidelines of the Kuala Lumpur Summit, Donald Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping and agreed to roll back existing tariffs, while Xi agreed to delay rare-earth export restrictions. The meeting suggested that economic interdependence ultimately tempers unilateral ambition. Together, these episodes show that while hard power still dominates global politics, its effectiveness is finite. Sovereign states may act forcefully, but long-term stability still depends on cooperation and mutual compromise.