US and the doctrine of unilateral force

Geo-economic interests drive American aggression against Venezuela, deprive the smaller country of its sovereignty, and disturb the world order.

On January 3, large-scale US airstrikes on Caracas were set against the backdrop of heightened tensions in the Caribbean and recent interdictions of vessels alleged to be carrying narcotics in Venezuelan waters. The White House framed the operation as a necessary effort aimed at dismantling narco-terrorist efforts threatening to destabilise the region.

It is important to situate America’s aggressive military action into perspective. The large-scale operation on Venezuelan territory and the capture of its leader is based on much more than just the drug-trafficking and weapons charges being levelled against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. President Donald Trump alleged that Maduro maintained close ties with powerful drug cartels responsible for the flow of narcotics into the US, contributing to rising overdose deaths, and that his government possessed dangerous weapons hostile to US interests.

Long-standing concerns over irregular migration from the southern hemisphere were also folded into this narrative, with the President claiming that Caracas deliberately emptied its prisons and facilitated the entry of criminals and patients from mental institutions into the US, claims that critics argue may serve as post-hoc justification for the use of force. Reports suggesting the capture of President Maduro, however, point towards objectives extending beyond law enforcement. They indicate a possible attempt to operationalise regime change, consistent with a revamped US national security strategy that treats American primacy in the Western Hemisphere as non-negotiable.

In this context, allegations that Venezuela has hosted Russian military facilities revive the logic of the Monroe Doctrine historically invoked by Washington to resist extra-hemispheric interference, now repurposed to legitimise unilateral US action. Venezuela’s close relationship with the Kremlin under its left-leaning government thus appears to be a central trigger for Washington’s response.

The White House has since stated that it seeks to oversee a “safe, orderly, and judicious” transition of power in Venezuela, signalling continued US involvement in the country’s political future.

Alongside this, Washington indicated plans to revive Venezuela’s oil sector, a move with clear strategic benefits, given that the country holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves. The promise of economic reconstruction, however, remains inseparable from the political and geopolitical costs of the intervention.

The American operation reveals a broader geoeconomic strategy embedded in US-Latin America relations, one that extends beyond counter-narcotics justifications. It unfolded against the backdrop of Venezuela’s vast hydrocarbon reserves and Maduro’s sustained refusal to reopen large-scale oil trade or allow meaningful American corporate participation in Venezuela’s energy sector. As a result, US business involvement and extraction activity in Venezuela have remained negligible, while China has emerged as the country’s principal importer of crude oil.

Despite its economic decline, Venezuela remains central to global energy markets and the US’s strategic competition with China and Russia. Even as the US administration urged renewed engagement, American oil firms reportedly stayed away amid political volatility, making regime change and the prospect of a US-backed government increasingly appealing.

The implications are graver than they look, as, legally, the strike sits on uncertain ground. International law prohibits the use of force against another state’s territory unless authorised by the United Nations Security Council or justified as self-defence against an armed attack. Drug trafficking, however serious, does not meet that threshold under established international jurisprudence. Legal scholars argue that such US action sits uneasily with customary international law, as the undertaking of a large-scale military strike and the pursuit of regime change amount to a direct breach of Venezuela’s sovereignty in the name of national security.

Analysts warn that Washington has risked not just erosion of the rule of law, as the UN Secretary-General stated, but also brought itself to the doorstep of potential war crimes under International Humanitarian Law if the hostilities are recognised in light of severe civilian damage. By framing military action as a law-enforcement necessity, Washington risks diluting the legal distinction between policing and warfare, a boundary that has long protected weaker states from unilateral intervention.

The broader implication is the gradual erosion of the rules-based international order that major powers themselves claim to uphold. If military strikes become an accepted tool for managing economic risks, criminal networks or political defiance, international law risks being reshaped by power rather than principle.

Strategy of territorial assertion

The US actions towards Venezuela reinforce a permissive global climate where unilateral force eclipses legal restraint. China’s territorial ambition towards Taiwan is increasingly advanced through graduated coercion that fuses geoeconomic pressure with rehearsed territorial encirclement, a strategy Beijing has pursued consistently but with growing scale and confidence.

China’s approach was most clearly demonstrated during the Justice Mission 2025 military drills in December. Several exercise zones extended into areas within 12 nautical miles of Taiwan’s coast, marking a significant escalation in proximity and intensity.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the drills as a “punitive and deterrent action” against Taiwan independence forces and their external supporters, embedding territorial escalation within a long-standing sovereignty narrative rather than presenting it as a novel response.

Against this backdrop, Venezuela’s national sovereignty has been violated with apparent impunity to safeguard Washington’s perceived strategic vulnerabilities in the Caribbean arising from Russia’s presence in the region. While Venezuela remains a fully functioning sovereign state, the situation appears markedly different in the case of Taiwan. In his New Year’s address, Xi Jinping reiterated that reunification with Taiwan is “unstoppable”, framing territorial consolidation as a historical and sovereign inevitability rather than a discretionary policy choice.

Taken together, these military actions and political statements reflect a deliberate strategy of incremental territorial assertion consistent with Beijing’s long-standing Taiwan policy. The strategy is further reinforced by an international environment in which unilateral economic coercion and selective legal enforcement by major powers, particularly its principal competitor, the US, continue to occur with limited multilateral constraint, thereby lowering the perceived legal and reputational costs of sustained territorial pressure.

(The writer is a professor of Economics and Dean, O P Jindal Global University, and a visiting professor at the London School of Economics)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.