The US military strike on Venezuela and the capture of its President Nicolás Maduro echo a long and familiar American pattern in Latin America, even as the operation crosses a historic threshold.
For more than two centuries, Washington has intervened across the region through military force, covert action and economic pressure. This operation, however, marks the first direct US military attack on a South American country.
After Maduro’s capture, President Donald Trump framed the move as a reassertion of US power. He said American dominance in the western hemisphere would “never be questioned again”.
Since the mid-19th century, US interventions have ranged from occupations and invasions to efforts to remove governments. One of the closest precedents came in 1989, when US forces moved into Panama to capture ruler Manuel Noriega.
US intelligence agencies also played key roles in undermining elected governments and supporting military dictatorships in countries such as Brazil, Chile and Argentina. Yet open military action largely remained confined to Central America and the Caribbean. Venezuela breaks that long-standing pattern.
Maurício Santoro, a professor of international relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said the move signals a clear shift in US foreign and defence policy.
He noted that the Trump administration’s new national security strategy, published weeks earlier, openly calls for an expanded US military role in the region.
The strategy outlines what it describes as a “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which is an explicit policy outlined in a recent US National Security Strategy (NSS) that asserts the United States’ right to restore American preeminence and deny non-hemispheric competitors influence in the Western Hemisphere.
The original 1823 doctrine promoted the idea of “America for Americans” and later served to justify US-backed coups across Latin America.
Historians say the scale of the Venezuela operation sets it apart from recent history. Alan McPherson, a history professor at Temple University and author of A Short History of US Interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean, said in his interview with The Gurdian “Nothing comparable has occurred since 1989.”
He said the action fits a familiar pattern but remains shocking in its directness. He added that many believed the era of overt US imperialism, in which Washington secured political outcomes through military force, had ended in the 21st century.
Nearly every country in Latin America has experienced some form of US intervention. Mexico lost more than half of its territory after a US invasion in the 1840s.
The conflict ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on 2 February 1848. Under the terms of this treaty, Mexico ceded approximately 55 percent of its pre-war territory to the United States. This vast area included all or parts of the modern-day US states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, as well as portions of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
In exchange, the United States agreed to pay Mexico $15 million and assume about $3.25 million in debts that the Mexican government owed to US citizens. The border was established along the Rio Grande and the Gila River to the Pacific Ocean, though a small additional strip of land was later purchased through the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 to facilitate a southern railroad route.
Cuba endured repeated US occupations after 1898, followed decades later by the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion.
The Bay of Pigs invasion was a failed 1961 CIA-backed attempt, using US-trained Cuban exiles (Brigade 2506), to overthrow Fidel Castro’s communist government in Cuba, resulting in a major embarrassment for the Kennedy administration, strengthening Castro’s power, and pushing Cuba closer to the Soviet Union, ultimately setting the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934 and later supported the Duvalier dictatorship. as a Cold War bulwark against communism, despite its human rights abuses, leveraging Haitian instability and fears of another Cuba.
In Brazil, Chile and Argentina, US agencies advised security forces during Operation Condor. Panama remains the closest historical comparison. In 1989, US forces invaded the country to capture Noriega. Hundreds died, and Guillermo Endara took office as president.
Whether Venezuela will follow a similar path remains unclear. Trump has said the United States would “run” the country until a “proper transition can take place”.
McPherson warned that such interventions rarely bring lasting stability. He said US actions almost always create long-term problems of political succession.
Based on past interventions, Venezuela is unlikely to become a stable, US-aligned democracy quickly. History suggests prolonged political turbulence, contested legitimacy and regional backlash are far more probable. In that sense, Venezuela does not break from history — it confirms it.
