『Trump's Venezuela raid foreshadows more turbulence in a new 'great power' carve-up of the world』のカバーアート

Trump's Venezuela raid foreshadows more turbulence in a new 'great power' carve-up of the world

Trump's Venezuela raid foreshadows more turbulence in a new 'great power' carve-up of the world

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 The US military operation in Venezuela in the early hours of January 3, rang the new year in with a bang — even by the current standards of American foreign policy. After months of military build-up and planning, US president Donald Trump gave the go-ahead for the apprehension of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.Operation Absolute Resolve — the codename for this successful effort to capture and abduct a sitting head of state — has no recent precedent other than the US under President George H. W. Bush snatching Panama’s strongman Manuel Noriega some 36 years ago. This latest blatant and unashamed violation of international law confirms even for the last doubter that Trump cares little about rules and norms. As such, it also signals the continuing erosion of what is left of the rules-based international order.For all of the US president’s triumphalism at his post-operation press conference, he cannot be certain that the undoubted tactical success of capturing Maduro will equate to an enduring success of moulding the western hemisphere in his own image. As his predecessors have found in Afghanistan and Iraq, regime change is a fraught and costly business. It is also one that is deeply unpopular among Trump’s Maga base.The temptation for the White House, therefore, is to declare victory after the weekend’s operation against Maduro and quickly move on to other targets while the world is still stunned by the audacity of kidnapping a sitting foreign leader.But any expectations that other countries in the western hemisphere will fall like the proverbial dominoes that Trump’s neo-con predecessors envisioned in the Middle East after the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 are deeply misplaced. And yet the people and leaders of Cuba (long an obsession for Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio), Colombia (the largest supplier of cocaine to the US) and Mexico (the key route through which fentanyl gets into the US) will be deeply worried about their future prospects in a Trumpian world after they got name-checked at Trump’s press conference.The same goes for Greenlanders. Trump has, since his first term in office, repeatedly claimed that the US needs Greenland, which is legally part of EU and Nato member Denmark. And he did so again in the aftermath of the operation against Venezuela, stating over the weekend that the US “need[s] Greenland from the standpoint of national security”. Equally unsettling was the ominous tweet by Maga influencer Katie Miller — the wife of Trump’s influential deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller — showing a map of Greenland in the colours of the US flag, with the caption “SOON”.Much to the dismay of Greenlanders, the US president certainly won’t be discouraged by the meek response from many European officials to the intervention in Venezuela. This, too, is deeply disconcerting, signalling that many of the erstwhile most ardent defenders of international law have given up pretending it matters any more. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, was first out of the block, with a post that started by pointing out Maduro’s lack of legitimacy as president and ended with an expression of concern for European citizens in Venezuela. She just about managed to squeeze in that “the principles of international law and the UN charter must be respected”. But this sounded like — and almost certainly was — an afterthought. A subsequent joint statement by the EU26 (that is, all member states except Hungary) was similarly equivocal and did not explicitly condemn Washington’s breach of international law. The British prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, focused his statement on the fact that “the UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela”, that he “regarded Maduro as an illegitimate President” and would “shed no tears about the end of his regime”. Before closing with his desire for a “safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people”, the former human rights lawyer briefly reiterated his “support for international law”.The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, however, wins the prize for prevarication. Not only did he make almost identical comments about Maduro’s lack of legitimacy and the importance of a transition in Venezuela, he also noted that a legal assessment of the US operation is complicated and that Germany will “take its time” to do so.While there was a mixture of enthusiasm and worry across Latin America, the strongest condemnations came from Moscow and Beijing.Russian President Vladimir Putin had signalled his support for Maduro early on in the escalating crisis at the beginning of December. A statement by the Russian foreign ministry initially merely offered support for efforts to resolve the crisis “through dialogue”. In subsequent press releases, Russia took a stronger line, demanding that Washington “release the legitimately ...
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