Venezuela

With former US President Donald Trump openly declaring that the United States will take Venezuela’s oil, serious doubts persist about how much real power Caracas actually holds over its own future.

To modern eyes, the idea that nations would go to war over bird poop seems laughable, but to 19th-century strategists, it was nothing short of essential.

The US intervention in Venezuela did not emerge in a vacuum. It is part of a long and deeply troubling history of American-led regime change across the world. From Vietnam to Iraq, from Afghanistan to Syria, Washington has repeatedly justified military action as a way to remove “bad regimes” and replace them with democratic systems.

The kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro by the US delivers a stark realization for the entire world: power respects deterrence, not international law.