The overthrow and alleged seizure by incursive US forces of Nicolas Maduro will send a shiver of dread and alarm across the globe. This power grab is unlawful, unprovoked, and regionally and globally destabilising. It overturns international norms, disregards sovereign territorial rights, and risks creating an state of anarchy within the country.
It is policy crafted from chaos. But this is the world we now live in – the universe as defined by the US President.
The direct attack on Venezuela signifies an extraordinary, dangerous declaration of unchecked American might and comes in the same week that the President menaced military strikes against a further disliked government opposed to the West: the one in Tehran. It comes after months of increasing US pressure through military, economic, and political means on Maduro, encompassing lethal maritime attacks on boats of alleged drug traffickers.
Trump asserts he is acting to prevent illegal narcotics entering the US via Venezuela and to halt an alleged influx of “criminal” migrants. In an repetition of the American incursion into Iraq in 2003, he is also accused of coveting Venezuela’s vast petroleum and natural gas reserves – suspicions reinforced by repeated, illegal US seizures of Venezuelan petroleum carriers.
But Trump’s chief motivations appear to be personal animosity aimed at Maduro, and a wish to resurrect the 19th-century Monroe doctrine by establishing a American zone of control and dominance across the Western Hemisphere.
Regional leaders, such as Colombia’s president, who has clashed with Trump in the past few months, met the takeover with outrage and alarm; not least, perhaps, because they fear they too could become targets of Washington’s aggressive new hegemony. Cuba’s leftwing government has particular cause for concern. It depends significantly on Venezuela’s regime for low-cost fuel and political and economic support.
The US top diplomat has made no secret of his desire for a change in government in Havana. In Panama, too, anxiety levels will be elevated. Trump has in the past menaced military action there, over control of the Panama Canal. Indeed, the reported capture of Maduro recalls the 1989 US invasion of Panama and the overthrow and detention of its leader at the time.
Authoritarian, anti-democratic regimes around the world will be carefully watching Trump’s next steps, as will Washington’s democratic allies. Iran condemned the coup. It has good reason to be fearful. But Russia’s president might not be totally displeased by the removal of his Venezuelan ally.
Trump’s unprovoked resort to violence is not so very different from moves during the invasion of Ukraine. Both have unlawfully assaulted a bordering nation and sought to remove its leadership. For China’s leader, whose forces were last week practising military action against the “separatists” of Taiwan, Trump has just set a precedent he may eventually happily emulate.
Trump’s coup is of great concern to Britain, the EU and democratic Western nations. They ought to, and have to, clearly denounce it. It directly challenges the laws and tenets of the global system they hold dear. The US has yet again disregarded the United Nations and traditional methods of addressing inter-state grievances. And it is proceeding with seemingly little consideration for the subsequent events in Venezuela.
The Caracas government has been decapitated, but remaining high-ranking figures of the regime appear still to be at their posts. They are urging resistance and, possibly, retaliation against the US. There are unconfirmed reports of civilian casualties. If a leadership void forms, public order could collapse, sparking civil war or a potential armed takeover. And it is uncertain whether the latest US military action has ended, or may intensify more.
The idea that exiled opposition leaders will quickly come back and that complete democratic rule will now be reinstated is naive. The next few days will be decisive. And it’s all down to Trump.
Trump’s imprudent move should at last bury his perpetually deceptive characterisation of himself as a “global peacemaker”. It’s past time that European leaders openly acknowledge him for who he is – a global warmaker, a worldwide threat.
Each time he blunders noisily into conflict zones, setting deadlines, delivering final demands, picking favourites and profiting from suffering, the quest for fair and enduring peace is hindered.
Little wonder peace remains distant. And bizarrely, even while presenting himself as a disinterested peacemaker and one who avoids intervention, Trump concurrently conducts warfare on the world. The US conducted record numbers of aerial bombardments in the Middle East and Africa last year, data indicates.
Since returning to office a year ago, peace-loving Trump has launched strikes in Yemen, negligently causing the deaths of many non-combatants after loosening rules of engagement; attacked targets in Nigeria, to counter-productive effect; bombed Somalia, Iraq and Syria; and bombed Iran, where he falsely inflated the success of US strikes on atomic energy sites. He even will not exclude attacking Greenland, a independent land of a NATO partner.
What is occurring inside Trump’s head? A benign interpretation is that in issues of conflict and tranquility, he has no idea what he is doing – no strategy, no clue – and makes up policy as he goes, depending on how he feels.
The more ominous reading says he knows exactly what he’s at, that more and worse are forthcoming. Like previous second-term presidents who ran out of road domestically, Trump finds the world stage offers greater possibilities for the exercise of power and self-importance. He is forging a historical record in blood.
Trump’s reckless, perilously unstable conduct is getting noticeably more severe. His Venezuela “triumph” may embolden him to try further and bigger, unhinged outrages. He parades and postures, shouts for chaos! and unleashes the dogs of war.
A geospatial analyst with over a decade of experience in terrain modeling and environmental data visualization.
