January 3, 2026

The news from Caracas is still sketchy, but the picture emerging is one of unprecedented escalation. Apache gunships over the capital, explosions in the streets, and reports that President Nicolás Maduro has been abducted by US forces.

If confirmed, this is a watershed moment. Whatever one thinks of Maduro—and his record of corruption and repression is well-documented—he is a head of state. The abduction of a sovereign leader by a foreign power tears up the rulebook of international relations that has existed, in some form, since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

In this emergency podcast, I argued that this event signals the final death of the “rules-based international order.” That order, established by the US in 1945, was always selective and often hypocritical. But it maintained a veneer of legality that allowed for diplomacy and soft power. Under the second Trump administration, that veneer has been stripped away. The US is no longer acting as the “world’s policeman” but as a global gangster.

The Return of Sphere of Influence

This action confirms that we have moved into a world of raw power blocs. Roosevelt once envisioned a “concert of great powers” policing their own spheres of influence. Trump seems to be enacting a dark parody of this vision. By treating Latin America as its exclusive backyard—enforcing a violent corollary to the Monroe Doctrine—the US is signaling to other powers like Russia and China that might makes right.

Vladimir Putin will undoubtedly see this as vindication. If the US can decapitate a regime in Venezuela to secure resources or political points, why can’t Russia do the same in Ukraine? The moral high ground that the West used to criticize the invasion of Ukraine has been dynamited.

Resource Wars and the Loss of Soft Power

The motivation here is likely twofold: spectacle and resources. Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves. For an administration obsessed with resource acquisition and transactional deals, seizing control of these assets is a logical, if criminal, step.

However, the cost is the total evaporation of American soft power. The ability to present America as the “good guy”—the cowboy in the white hat—is gone. Trump’s administration revels in the “quiet part out loud.” They embrace the role of the bully, believing that fear is a more reliable currency than respect.

But fear is brittle. By acting so flagrantly outside the law, the US risks uniting the Global SouthGlobal South Full Description:The Global South is a term that has largely replaced “Third World” to describe the nations of Africa, Latin America, and developing Asia. It is less a geographical designator (as it includes countries in the northern hemisphere) and more a political grouping of nations that share a history of colonialism, economic marginalization, and a peripheral position in the world financial system. Bandung is often cited as the birth of the Global South as a self-aware political consciousness. Critical Perspective:While the term implies solidarity, critics argue it acts as a “flattening” concept. It lumps together economic superpowers like China and India with some of the world’s poorest nations, obscuring the vast power imbalances and divergent interests within this bloc. It risks creating a binary worldview that ignores the internal class exploitations within developing nations by focusing solely on their external exploitation by the North.
Read more against it. We are already seeing the acceleration of “de-dollarization” and the strengthening of alternative alliances like BRICS. This intervention may secure oil in the short term, but it accelerates the isolation of the US in the long term.

What Comes Next?

The question now is: what is the endgame? Kidnapping a president does not automatically install a friendly government. A full-scale invasion like Iraq in 2003 would require a political will and tolerance for casualties that the American public simply does not possess. Orchestrating a coup requires a pliant military, which Maduro has spent years purging of disloyal elements.

It is possible that this hasn’t been thought through at all. It may be theatre designed to distract from domestic scandals or economic woes. But in the world of geopolitics, theatre has real consequences. The abduction of Maduro is a Rubicon moment. We are now in uncharted territory, where the only law is the law of the jungle.

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Part 3: Tidied Transcript

Nick: Hi there and welcome to this special emergency podcast from Explaining History.

It is January 3rd, 2026. The news reports are sketchy, but it appears that overnight the United States has attacked Venezuela. There have been Apache gunships over Caracas, low-flying aircraft, and explosions. If the reports are accurate, President Nicolás Maduro and his wife have been abducted by US forces.

Whatever you think of Maduro—and he is a thug—he is a head of state. The abduction of a sovereign leader by a foreign power sets a terrifying precedent. It signals that 2025/26 is the pivot year where the post-WWII order finally collapses.

Roosevelt once imagined a world of “Four Policemen”—the US, UK, USSR, and China—each managing their own sphere of influence. We seem to be entering a dark version of that world, but without the stability Roosevelt hoped for. Instead of a concert of powers, we have a world of naked aggression.

The idea of a “Pax Americana” and a rules-based international order is over. That order was always applied selectively—weak nations went to The Hague; powerful ones didn’t. As Noam Chomsky noted, if the Nuremberg lawsNuremberg Laws Full Description: A set of anti-Semitic and racist laws that institutionalized the racial theories of the Nazi ideology. They provided the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews, stripping them of citizenship and prohibiting marriage between Jews and non-Jews.The Nuremberg Laws marked the transition from social prejudice to legal apartheid. By defining who was a “Jew” based on ancestry rather than belief, the state created a racial caste system. These laws legitimized discrimination, removing the protection of the law from a specific segment of the population. Critical Perspective:These laws demonstrate how the legal system—often viewed as a protector of justice—can be weaponized to commit crimes against humanity. By rendering Jews “socially dead” and stripping them of their rights as citizens, the state prepared the ground for their physical destruction. It proves that legality is not the same as morality; the Holocaust was, technically, “legal” under the laws of the time. were applied universally, every post-war US president would have been hanged. But this action destroys even the pretense of legality.

We are entering a world of power blocs. The US, China, and Russia will operate in their spheres with impunity. This is a gift to Vladimir Putin. By flagrantly violating Venezuelan sovereignty, the US legitimizes Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and China’s threats towards Taiwan. Trump likely doesn’t care; his worldview is transactional. He might even prefer a world where great powers cut deals over the heads of smaller nations, unencumbered by international law.

China has positioned itself as a defender of international law, contrasting its stance with American lawlessness. While it’s naive to think China would be a liberal hegemon, the US under Trump is doing the “quiet part out loud.” Previous administrations—Reagan in Grenada, Bush in Panama—conducted interventions, but usually with a veneer of justification. Trump revels in the gangsterism.

The “tormented masculinity” of the Trump administration presents bullying as strength. They tell their base: “You have to be the bad guys to survive.” This shreds American soft power. You can’t be the “Leader of the Free World” while kidnapping foreign presidents.

What happens next? Kidnapping Maduro doesn’t install a pro-American government. A full-scale invasion like Iraq in 2003 would require an appetite for casualties that doesn’t exist. A coup requires a pliant military, which isn’t guaranteed.

This feels like a scheme that hasn’t been fully thought through. It might be theatre to distract from domestic issues, perhaps related to the Jeffrey Epstein files or economic trouble. But it is an example of how not to run an empire.

Even Nigel Farage, usually Trump’s chief cheerleader, has described this as “nearly against international law,” which suggests even he is struggling to defend it.

If you are listening from Venezuela, stay safe. We are in uncharted territory.

Take care, everyone. Bye-bye.