On 3 January 2026, the USA carried out a major military operation in Caracas, Venezuela, resulting in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. They were flown to New York, where they appeared in a federal court accused of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking. The US government justified the action on national security grounds, citing Maduro’s alleged role in directing cocaine and fentanyl shipments through Venezuela in partnership with armed criminal networks, including the Colombian ELN and remnants of the FARC. The operation, ordered by President Trump coincided with the seizure of Venezuelan-linked oil tankers.
The intervention surprised many observers not just because of its scale, but also because political leadership did not shift to opposition figure María Corina Machado, who is widely believed to have won the 2024 elections. Instead, Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, was sworn in as acting president under the Venezuelan constitution. The USA initially expressed dissatisfaction with this transition but refrained from direct regime change. Rodríguez denounced Maduro’s seizure but quickly signalled willingness to stabilise the country and negotiate terms with Washington. The precision of the operation to kidnap Maduro, and the relatively peaceful transition, have led some commentators to speculate that members of the Venezuelan government collaborated with the US to “hand over” Maduro in exchange for preservation of the wider governing regime.
The legality of the USA’s intervention is highly contested. Under the UN Charter, military force may only be used in self-defence (Article 51) or with Security Council approval (Chapter VII). In all other circumstances, the principle of state sovereignty is held to be sacrosanct and should not be violated by the use of force (Article 2(4)). The US justified its actions as a law enforcement operation targeting an indicted individual, but most international lawyers consider the operation a violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty and a breach of international law. The seizure of a sitting head of state is particularly unprecedented, even in a wartime situation. Russia, China, and Brazil condemned the action, warning it could set a precedent for arbitrary power projection. The USA’s veto power in the UN Security Council shielded it from formal sanctions, highlighting the weakness of global institutions when a major P5 power acts unilaterally.
The economic dimensions of the crisis are especially revealing. Venezuela is an oil-rich state (with the largest proven oil-reserves in the world, although much of this is poor-quality heavy crude), and US officials admitted the country’s energy potential was a major factor in the decision to intervene. Trump stated publicly that “American energy companies” would be needed to help rebuild Venezuela’s shattered infrastructure. For dependency theorists, this reinforces claims that poorer, resource-rich states are vulnerable to exploitation by core capitalist powers. The use of military force to gain access to oil reserves undermines neoliberal arguments that global economic integration is based on voluntary cooperation and mutual benefit.
There are also implications for global environmental and human rights governance. The USA claimed to act in defence of Venezuelan citizens suffering under repression and criminality. Maduro’s regime had been accused for years of authoritarianism, corruption, and economic mismanagement. The 2024 presidential election was widely condemned as fraudulent by international observers, and the government faced international sanctions over the use of torture, political repression, and manipulation of the judiciary. The USA, European Union, and several Latin American states had imposed asset freezes and travel bans on Maduro’s inner circle. Human rights groups documented extrajudicial killings and suppression of protests, while economic collapse left much of the population without food, fuel, or medicine. However, the USA’s military approach and the lack of multilateral consensus undermined human rights norms, particularly the norm of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which is typically activated through collective decision-making, not unilateral action.
The operation has further sharpened debate about whether the world remains unipolar or has become multipolar. The USA’s ability to act militarily within, without international approval, suggests continued hard power dominance. Particularly when contrasted with the now four-year “three-day special operation” of Russia in Ukraine, it is clear that the US’ ability to wield military power in a precise and effective way is unparalleled amongst modern great and superpowers. Nevertheless, others may argue that events in Venezuela are in fact evidence of an American retreat to the Western Hemisphere. Trump officials described the move as a reaffirmation of the Monroe Doctrine, jokingly dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine”, which prioritises the Americas as the USA’s sphere of influence. Combined with an “America First” retreat from European security and, supposedly, Indo-Pacific and Middle Eastern entanglements, one could make the case that the US is retreating into a more insular and regional zone of operations and forgoing a truly global reach in terms of power projection.
Maduro’s capture exemplifies the recent trend of hard power overshadowing soft power. The USA resorted to military force rather than diplomacy, rule-of-law processes, or institution-building; reflecting realist assumptions that all states act in an amoral and selfish way to achieve security and power. Despite the USA’s framing of the intervention as a defence of democratic norms, the outcome suggests strategic and economic calculation took priority. The decision not to install opposition leader María Corina Machado, but instead to accept Delcy Rodríguez as interim president, suggests that regime change was not the primary aim. Rodríguez was already embedded within the ruling party and had a working relationship with security and oil sector officials. These developments support realist interpretations of international politics: the operation advanced US strategic interests – securing oil, asserting dominance in the region, and deterring geopolitical rivals – rather than promoting meaningful democratisation. Democratic Peace Theory, which posits that democracies do not fight one another and act more peacefully, fails to account for such actions where material interests clearly outweigh normative concerns.
The longer-term implications of American action in Venezuela are troubling. If the USA can unilaterally capture a sitting head of state without broad international approval, this weakens the credibility of the norms underpinning global stability. China may now feel further emboldened in its assertiveness over Taiwan, arguing that if the USA can breach sovereignty, so can others in their own “backyards.” Russia, already sanctioned over Ukraine, used the incident to accuse the West of hypocrisy, claiming it exposed the selective application of international law. The collapse of consistency in global governance risks a world where great powers act with impunity, and smaller states can no longer rely on legal protections. Some would argue that this was already very much the case, and Trump’s brash intervention has only crystallised an unspoken reality where “might makes right” and there are few shared norms and common rules.