LAHORE:
The shocking takeover of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the US military has reached political circles and regional capitals less as a surprise than as a grim reckoning: an open exercise of “imperial” power carried out in violation of established legal, diplomatic and sovereignty norms, reopening the long-lamented “open veins of Latin America.”
Observers warn that the dramatic capture has been the clearest expression yet of a deeper shift in American behavior, signaling a shift away from diplomacy, indirect influence and institutional cover toward overt coercion exercised with remarkable confidence and minimal restraint.
The measure, widely denounced as the “kidnapping” of a sitting head of state, is a form of imperialism adapted to a moment of hegemonic decline, in which sovereignty is increasingly conditional and force re-emerges as a primary tool of political order.
‘Monroe Doctrine renamed’
Imdat Öner, a senior political analyst at the Jack D. Gordon Institute and a former diplomat in Caracas, places the operation within a broader strategic doctrine than a presidential push.
“What we are seeing is a renamed and reinterpreted Monroe Doctrine,” Öner told The Express PAkGazette. “For Trump, ‘the Americas’ means the entire Western Hemisphere.”
He noted that Washington had tested the waters in Panama and Mexico before acting decisively against Venezuela, where Maduro represented “the weakest link in the chain.”
Öner does not expect this approach to be mechanically reproduced outside of Latin America. However, he warned that this is unlikely to go without consequences. “It will have repercussions in other spheres of influence,” he said, particularly in the near abroad of China and Russia, where major powers can learn lessons about the permissibility of unilateral implementation.
‘China as the main driver’
According to Öner, the American president would be more emboldened now, and an emboldened Trump would mean showing less and less patience for diplomacy and more and more dependence on pressure.
“America is getting louder, faster, and more transactional,” he says, describing a posture in which coercion replaces negotiation and strong signals displace strategic ambiguity.
He points out that this change has implications far beyond Latin America. In East Asia, particularly with respect to Taiwan, stronger and more explicit signaling may appear to improve deterrence, but it also increases the risk of escalation. As ambiguity gives way to forceful statements, diplomatic exit routes narrow. “Strong signals are more difficult to reverse,” Öner warned, “for everyone.”
At a structural level, he identified China as the central driver of Washington’s behavior.
As America’s soft power erodes, through the dismantling of development aid, the hollowing out of diplomatic credibility, and the depletion of liberal legitimacy, Washington is doubling down on hard instruments, including sanctions, military deployments, and control over strategic resources.
Energy, minerals and supply chains have become tools of geopolitical application.
Venezuela’s oil wealth lies directly at the intersection of these pressures. With the world’s largest proven reserves, the country represents both a material prize and a symbolic assertion of dominance. Control over Venezuelan energy resources serves US energy interests while undermining China’s long-standing economic commitment to Caracas.
Öner warned against expectations of rapid transformation within Venezuela. Although Maduro has been removed, Chavismo remains entrenched in key institutions.
He does not see an abrupt break, but rather a slow, controlled transition shaped by the Trump administration, which can stabilize the system in the short term and leave the risk of new instability firmly intact.
Observers point out that this pattern of forceful intervention followed by indefinite management is characteristic of neocolonial power. Control is exercised without responsibility, while order is imposed without legitimacy and extraction occurs without accountability.
Neocolonialism without restrictions
For philosopher and professor emeritus at Dublin City University, Helena Sheehan, the operation strips imperial power of even its rhetorical disguise.
He deplored it as “brazen and brutal”, arguing that it represents a form of politics in which might is right “without even bothering to justify it by any other standard”.
Sheehan characterized the raid as symptomatic of an empire in decline, and warned that such decline was unlikely to be rapid or orderly. “His decline will be long and drawn out and there will be much misery yet to come.”
“A significant change”
According to Renata Segura, director of the Latin America and Caribbean program at International Crisis Group, the raid reflects a substantial change in the way the Trump administration now approaches the region.
Segura said the national security strategy published weeks before the operation made explicit that Washington increasingly views Latin America as a defined area of influence rather than a zone of partnership.
Since the attack, statements by Trump and senior officials such as Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reflect a self-conception of the United States as a police power in the hemisphere, guided primarily by American interests, rather than regional stability or international norms.
“And that they are willing to go to great lengths to really achieve what they want.”
He noted that Venezuela is the most obvious target, but the anxiety is regional. Segura pointed out the repeated threats directed at Colombia, Mexico and other countries, where the use of force has been proposed if governments apply policies that go against Washington’s preferences. The message, in his opinion, is not limited to Caracas.
The history of Latin America makes these fears legible. US-backed coups, invasions and military interventions have shaped the region for decades.
For Segura, what distinguishes the current moment is the break with the strategies of recent decades, when Washington depended more on bilateral cooperation, diplomatic commitment and indirect pressure.
Equally significant is the collapse of American soft power. With development and aid mechanisms like USAID effectively dismantled and force increasingly replacing persuasion, Segura sees a return to the interventionist practices associated with earlier eras.
