How Trump's attack on Venezuela created both a problem and an opportunity for Putin
The US military attack on Venezuela on 3 January, and the abduction of the country’s authoritarian, pro-Russian leader Nicolás Maduro, demonstrated that under the new administration, the "right of the strong" has decisively prevailed over the constraints traditionally regarded as binding under international law.
However, the "right of the strong" is not merely about the ability to change power in another country. It also includes responsibility for what happens next. The events in Venezuela, as well as the mistakes made by the Americans, give reason to doubt that such a multi-step plan actually exists.
Read more about the US errors surrounding the Venezuela operation, the implications for the global order and how Russia might respond in the article by Sergiy Sydorenko, European Pravda's editor, who spoke to Hanna Shelest of the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council: Strength over law: how the US operation in Venezuela empowered Moscow and exposed its own weakness.
What happened on 3 January triggered a sense of déjà vu from 1999 and the years that followed, when the concepts of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and its derivative, humanitarian intervention were actively debated worldwide.
The core idea is that if human rights are gravely violated in a particular country, then once a certain threshold is crossed, other states may intervene to forcibly stop those violations.
Another issue is that international law does not contain a direct norm that enshrines the concept of the Responsibility to Protect. As a result, the question of violating a state’s sovereignty will inevitably arise.
On the other hand, if there is political will, it is possible to construct a legal basis to justify US military intervention, starting with the fact that many countries around the world (including Ukraine, incidentally) did not recognise the most recent elections in Venezuela and did not consider Maduro the legitimate head of state; that the country has been subjected to sanctions for human rights violations, and so on.
In reality, however, the Americans themselves have in recent days destroyed the possibility of relying on these arguments.
Such charges may also provoke backlash in the region. And indeed, there is already a negative reaction to U.S. actions in Latin America.
The United States wanted Saddam Hussein to remain, in the eyes of Iraqis, a criminal tyrant and a convicted offender. Instead, he effectively became a "martyr."
Secondly, Trump is further turning other countries against his actions. We have heard statements in which he hinted that Mexico could be next. Even though it has a democratically elected president and a democratically elected government.
Now, however, the question arises: if the Americans act this way on the territory of another state and Trump immediately hints that he "might do it again", where is the certainty that they would not do something similar on their own territory? Given the unpredictability of the current US administration, governments in many capitals are now asking: alright, who is next on Trump’s priority list? Where does he want to change power next?
So this has indeed opened a Pandora’s box.
Trump has to seek a compromise between these impulses. It seems for now that the United States may arrive at a policy resembling the Monroe Doctrine (1823), under which the US acted in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th.
At that time, too, there was American isolationism, but it did not mean that the US focused only on itself. Rather, it meant: this is our hemisphere. We are responsible for the entire American continent. We are in charge here, but we do not interfere in Europe.
The US may now move toward a similar policy.
They would see themselves as a "continental policeman" for North, Central and South America, but would not assume such a role with regard to China, Taiwan, the Philippines or Europe.
For this reason, Trump’s actions will undoubtedly become a green light for the Russians. They will use the events in Caracas to justify their future actions.
Moreover, Maduro’s detention was a painful blow for Moscow – one that it will have to come to terms with. This is already the second time in a year that Russia has failed in its role as a guarantor. First there was Syria, where Assad lost power and the Russians simply washed their hands of the situation.
Russia has lost important leverage in its relations with states in its sphere of influence – the guarantee of regime security and the safety of their leaders.