President Donald Trump has turned the military might of the United States against Venezuela, targeting the regime of Nicolás Maduro. This bold action raises a pressing regional question: if Caracas is today’s target, which nation might be next?
Trump, who once campaigned on audacious pledges to annex Greenland and reclaim the Panama Canal, has now achieved the ouster of Maduro. This move signals a potentially open-ended campaign to reshape the Western Hemisphere according to Washington’s dictates.
The operation appears to have been inspired by methods observed elsewhere. “This is genius,” Donald Trump enthused on 22 February, 2022, reflecting on Vladimir Putin’s actions in eastern Ukraine. The once and future American president was impressed, even inspired. “We could use that on our southern border,” Trump mused.
At that time, Trump could not foresee a war approaching its fourth year with over 1.5 million casualties. Similarly, the full consequences of the Venezuelan intervention remain dangerously unclear.
The nation of 28 million is not Ukraine, nor is it Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya. Yet, by ordering strikes to seize the dictator, Trump has plunged the country into profound uncertainty, disregarding the hard-earned lesson of recent decades: wars for regime change are simple to initiate but notoriously difficult to conclude with any genuine success.
Thus far, the administration has completed only an initial, decapitating step. The regime’s structure persists despite the capture of its leader. In his victory address, however, Trump assumed the mantle of a conqueror.
He extolled the “overwhelming military power” demonstrated, seemingly overlooking America’s long history of tactical victories – such as the “shock and awe” in Baghdad – that ultimately devolved into strategic quagmires.
Trump portrayed the hardest part as finished. “We are going to run the country,” he declared, expressing readiness to deploy ground troops and restart the oil flow. Trump’s initial plan involved leaving Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, in power to facilitate American interests.
This strategy collapsed within hours as Rodríguez denounced the US as an illegal, imperialist invader and affirmed Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, forcing a swift pivot to Plan B.
The repercussions will inevitably spill beyond Venezuela’s borders. Trump explicitly framed the attack as reasserting US primacy. “American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again,” he intoned.
This aligns with the recently declared “Trump Corollary” to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which asserts a mandate to eradicate nearly all external influence from the Americas by any means necessary.
The Venezuelan campaign confirms a strategic pivot: the exhausted “war on terror” is being transmuted into a war on so-called narco-terror. Hostilities once focused on the Middle East are now redirecting toward a kaleidoscope of cross-border threats within the hemisphere.
Trump’s definition of these threats remains “almost infinitely porous,” extending to what he frequently terms “the enemy from within.” Notably, during his Venezuela address, he digressed to praise troops deployed to patrol American cities.
With Caracas targeted, the administration’s future objectives are hinted at by its past rhetoric. Trump has previously asserted that “the cartels are running Mexico” – a claim that could furnish all needed justification for intervention. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has concurrently issued warnings to Cuba’s government.
Even in an optimistic scenario where Venezuela stabilises into a pro-American, oil-producing democracy, such an outcome could embolden Washington to test how far it can go in remaking the region. However, best-case scenarios are historically elusive.
More likely, President Trump’s streak of hit-and-run military ventures is approaching its limit. As he himself stated in his first term, “Great nations do not fight endless wars.” The unfolding chapter in Venezuela will test what kind of nation Trump’s America intends to be.
