Power, law and empire: Seismic implications of American military operation in Venezuela – Firstpost
In the early hours of 3 January 2026, the United States unleashed a major military operation on the sovereign territory of Venezuela that instantly rewrote the assumptions of international politics. US forces struck multiple targets in Caracas and other urban centres, detained Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and transported them to New York to face US criminal charges — all without the approval of the United Nations Security Council or the consent of the Venezuelan state.
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This extraordinary act of extraterritorial force, arguably unprecedented in this era, poses the most serious challenge yet to the post-1945 legal order. It is an action that violates the core tenets of the UN Charter, obliterates the longstanding — if imperfect — claim of a “rules-based global order”, and sets a dangerous precedent for great-power conduct worldwide.
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The Venezuelan government, regional authorities, international legal scholars, and world capitals have reacted in shock: many denounce the strikes as a flagrant violation of sovereignty and international law, while others hail them as a triumph over a corrupt and undemocratic regime. This divide is emblematic of a world where norms are no longer constraints but instruments of convenience.
UN Charter Under Assault
At the core of this crisis lies an indisputable legal fact: the use of force against a sovereign state, especially one lacking imminent aggression against the attacker, is prohibited by Article 2(4) of the UN Charter — a provision that neither the United States nor any other permanent member of the Security Council can unilaterally override.
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The United States claims that Maduro’s capture was justified because he was subject to longstanding US indictments — including for alleged narco-terrorism — and because Washington has linked his government to criminal networks. Yet no recognised international mandate or Security Council authorisation was secured for this operation. The US rationale should therefore be more critically examined, as criminal charges in a domestic court cannot be elevated into a lawful basis for a military invasion of a sovereign state. Furthermore, self-defence, the only generally acknowledged UN Charter exception, plainly does not apply in this case.
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The US government’s description of the mission as part law-enforcement action and part strategic intervention only deepens the incoherence. As one international law expert told Reuters, mixing law-enforcement rhetoric with an overt regime-change agenda undermines any claim to legality. Without clear authorisation from the United Nations, the operation stands in stark violation of the Charter’s prohibitions on the use of force.
This is not a marginal technicality; it is a fundamental assault on the architecture designed to prevent the violent resolution of international disputes. If the world’s most powerful state can enter another country, depose its leadership, and haul away its sitting president as a criminal defendant without consequence, there is little left to deter other powers from doing the same.
A Dangerous Precedent
The United States frames its operation as a battle against criminality and autocracy. Yet the broader message resonates not only in Washington or Caracas but also in capitals from Beijing to Moscow, and from New Delhi to Tehran.
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Countries including China, Russia, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Cuba, and Iran have condemned the strikes as blatant violations of sovereignty and international law that threaten regional and global stability. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke of a “serious affront” to territorial integrity; Mexico and Colombia warned of humanitarian and diplomatic consequences; Cuba denounced the intervention as “state terrorism”.
The unravelling of legal restraints emboldens other powers with territorial ambitions or regional goals that clash with existing norms. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was justified by the Kremlin in terms of security and historical narrative, not law, and the world’s failure to penalise that breach has already eroded faith in the post-Second World War framework. Now, Washington’s move could be seen by Beijing as a licence to further militarise claims in the South China Sea or to coerce neighbours on its periphery with impunity. In each instance, great powers interpret law as subordinate to strategic ends — a logic that increasingly defines contemporary great-power behaviour.
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Even within the Western alliance, divisions are deep. Some states urge de-escalation and respect for the law; others express uneasy support for Maduro’s removal but lament the method. This fracture underscores how fragile consensus has become around the norms that once underpinned global governance.
Hypocrisy of the ‘Rules-Based Order’
For decades, the United States and its allies have championed the notion of a “rules-based international order”, anchored by institutions such as the UN, treaties on non-proliferation and human rights, and norms against aggression. Yet in practice, the application of these principles has long been selective.
From Iraq in 2003 to interventions in Libya and Syria, the US has previously bypassed UN mandates. However, even those actions typically involved at least a thin veneer of legality or multilateral cooperation. The January 2026 operation in Venezuela breaks that pattern: it was launched without congressional approval, without a Security Council resolution, and with a stated intention — as cited by senior US officials — to exert control over Venezuela’s political and economic assets, including its oil reserves.
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The hypocrisy is not innovative; what is recent is the boldness with which it is displayed. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, still a leading figure in US politics, criticised the operation as “unlawful and unwise”, noting that it harked back to a bygone era of interventionism and undermined US global standing.
This disconnect between rhetoric and action corrodes trust. When great powers invoke international law to criticise others but flout those rules when it suits them, norms lose their normative force and become perceived as instruments of geopolitical pressure rather than universal restraint.
China, Russia and the Shifting Balance
In a multipolar world, the consequences of such violations extend beyond diplomatic rebukes. China’s foreign ministry explicitly condemned the US operation, calling it a “blatant use of force” that threatens peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean. Russia likewise denounced the intervention as armed aggression against a sovereign state.
For these powers, the legal order has long been secondary to strategic imperatives. Both Russia and China have consistently prioritised territorial or influence-related objectives — in Ukraine and the South China Sea, respectively — over international rulings or arbitration. Their responses to the Venezuela crisis reveal not just condemnation but an opportunity to frame Western norms as hollow and hypocritical.
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This rhetorical positioning is not without strategic purpose. By highlighting US violations of international law, Moscow and Beijing aim to strengthen their own claims against Western criticism. If the United States can seize the leadership of Venezuela without consequence, then what moral basis exists for condemning Russian actions in Ukraine or China’s maritime assertiveness?
The result is a global environment in which great powers feel justified in wielding force, unconstrained by the very norms they once publicly upheld. This, in turn, encourages competitive militarisation, hedging by smaller states, and a fracturing of the institutional mechanisms designed to manage conflict.
Price of Unilateral Aggression
The immediate human and political consequences in Venezuela are profound. Caracas and other cities witnessed explosions and civilian casualties in the strikes that preceded Maduro’s capture, and Venezuelans remain shell-shocked by the abrupt collapse of their government’s autonomy and the palpable uncertainty surrounding the country’s future.
Maduro’s Vice President, whose status itself is contested, claims that he remains the legitimate leader, further complicating questions of recognition and governance.
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The democratic arguments used to justify intervention — that Maduro’s government was corrupt, autocratic, and illegitimate — have little legal bearing when measured against the UN Charter’s explicit prohibition on foreign military coercion. Domestic political legitimacy and international legal legitimacy are distinct, and violating one to assert the other undermines both.
Moreover, the operation places enormous pressure on regional stability. Governments across Latin America are acutely aware that Venezuela’s sovereignty has been breached by the United States, raising fears of future interventions and the erosion of non-interference norms. The spectre of humanitarian crisis, refugee flows, and economic disruption now looms large.
Conclusion
The US military operation in Venezuela is more than a dramatic headline; it is a turning point in the international system. It exposes the fragility of the rules-based order and the willingness of powerful states to discard legal constraints when national interests, ideology, or resource calculation demand it. It demonstrates that sovereignty is respected only when convenient, and that power reigns when laws are treated as malleable.
The implications are vast: for global justice, for slight and medium powers, and for international organisations whose authority depends on adherence to foundational norms. If the United States, the self-proclaimed defender of international law, can bypass that law, then others will too.
In this innovative epoch, law no longer restrains — it legitimises power only when power consents to it. The Venezuelan episode does not merely signal a dangerous precedent; it heralds a world where the strong act freely and the weak watch in silence. And in such a world, peace and democracy — once safeguarded by law — may find no refuge at all.
(Amal Chandra is an author, political analyst, and columnist. He tweets @ens_socialis. Anmol Kumar writes on international relations, defence, geopolitics, and foreign policy. He tweets @anmol_kaundilya. Views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of Firstpost.)
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