By Martin Schapiro
The capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces signals a turning point in hemispheric power relations. This intervention not only reshapes Venezuela’s political future, but also exposes a regional order in which sovereignty is conditional, legitimacy is secondary, and U.S. power faces few effective constraints.
The limited U.S. military operation—carried out by elite forces, with intelligence support and targeted strikes against military infrastructure near Caracas—that enabled the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, signals a willingness by the U.S. government to push the boundaries of what is considered thinkable in pursuit of its objectives in the hemisphere.
Beyond its immediate shock value, the episode carries deeper significance. The detention of a sitting head of state by a foreign power, without legal authorization and in the absence of a declared state of war, marks a qualitative shift in the exercise of power in the Americas. Venezuela thus finds itself at the center of a transformation whose contours are clearer than its destination, and whose consequences are unlikely to unfold in a linear or easily manageable manner.
Redrawing the Limits of Intervention
The Trump administration’s approach to Latin America has not been grounded in partnership, institutional leadership, or regional consensus-building. Instead, it reflects a worldview that treats the hemisphere as a strategic space to be ordered, aligned, and disciplined. Venezuela—long portrayed as both a security threat and a symbol of ideological malfeasance—became the natural testing ground for this posture.
Within this framework, legitimacy is secondary to alignment, and sovereignty becomes conditional on compliance. The administration’s rhetoric has oscillated between accusations of narcoterrorism, promises of economic reconstruction, and assertions of U.S. control over Venezuelan oil. Taken together, these statements reveal less a coherent plan for democratic transition than a conviction that overwhelming power can substitute for political negotiation. What matters is not the formal architecture of authority, but the effective ability to shape outcomes.
This logic does not require permanent occupation, nor does it entail the burdens of territorial control. It operates through leverage. Venezuela’s future, under this view, would be determined not through domestic consensus or regional mediation, but through arrangements forged under American auspices, with local actors adapting to a newly explicit hierarchy.
This logic does not require permanent occupation, nor does it entail the burdens of territorial control. It operates through leverage.
Alignment Over Legitimacy
The striking ease with which the operation was reportedly carried out has raised unavoidable questions. That it could be completed in a matter of hours, without U.S. casualties, casts doubt on the condition of Venezuela’s armed forces—and, more pointedly, on loyalties along the chain of command. While early official statements from Venezuelan authorities condemning the arrest and demanding proof of life were swift, ambiguities from key figures fueled uncertainty about the existence and depth of prior negotiations.
Trump’s favorable remarks regarding acting president Delcy Rodríguez stand as further evidence of the Venezuelan bureaucracy’s willingness to accommodate U.S. demands. Even so, they do little to clarify what comes next. Accommodation under pressure is not the same as consent, and cooperation driven by survival instincts rarely provides a stable foundation for political reconstruction. Conflicting statements about the degree of American control over Venezuela’s political future cannot obscure what appears increasingly evident: any future political configuration will emerge under overwhelming external influence, whether or not this is formally acknowledged.
Accommodation under pressure is not the same as consent, and cooperation driven by survival instincts rarely provides a stable foundation for political reconstruction.
Perhaps the most telling aspect of the Venezuelan episode has been the response—or lack thereof—from Latin American countries. A decade and a half ago, a crisis of this magnitude might have triggered emergency diplomacy, presidential summits, and attempts at collective mediation. Today, the region appears fragmented, inward-looking, and largely incapable of shaping events that directly affect its strategic environment.
The erosion of regional institutions, the absence of coordinated diplomatic initiatives, and the lack of effective mediation efforts have hollowed out the minimal consensus required for collective action. Even countries such as Brazil—traditionally committed to principles of sovereignty and non-intervention—find themselves reduced to declaratory positions: coherent in language, but ineffective in practice. In this vacuum, U.S. power is increasingly likely to become a determining force not only in Venezuela, but across the region’s democracies.
From Venezuela to a More Conditional World Order
The formal justification for U.S. action—the characterization of Maduro as a “narcoterrorist” threatening American security—sits uneasily with the available evidence. Venezuela’s limited role in global drug trafficking networks and its lack of connection to the fentanyl trade dominating U.S. domestic security concerns weaken the credibility of this claim. While corruption and criminal links exist within the Venezuelan elite, they appear fragmented rather than systemic. The recent pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, previously sentenced in New York on drug-trafficking charges, further undermines the consistency of this narrative.
More broadly, the argument that Maduro deliberately engineered mass migration toward the United States stretches causality beyond credibility. Venezuela’s exodus is real and immense, but it is primarily the consequence of economic collapse and authoritarian misrule, affecting neighboring countries and the region at large at least as much as the United States. Migration here is an outcome of governance failure, not a weapon.
Trump’s public statements asserting U.S. control over Venezuelan oil and political direction make the instrumental nature of these justifications increasingly transparent. They point to interests more concrete and enduring than the legal narratives deployed to legitimize the operation.
What makes the Venezuelan case particularly troubling is not only the fate of a single country, but what it signals about the international order. The normalization of forceful intervention justified through elastic security claims further weakens already fragile norms of sovereign equality and peaceful dispute resolution.
The parallel with other contemporary geopolitical flashpoints is uncomfortable. While scale and context differ, the underlying logic—delegitimization of governments, coercive realignment, and the primacy of power over law—resonates beyond the Americas. As such precedents accumulate, incentives for restraint diminish, and the appeal of deterrence through escalation grows.
The parallel with other contemporary geopolitical flashpoints is uncomfortable. While scale and context differ, the underlying logic—delegitimization of governments, coercive realignment, and the primacy of power over law—resonates beyond the Americas.
The removal of Nicolás Maduro closes one chapter of Venezuela’s prolonged crisis, but it does not resolve it. The assumption that his fall will produce democracy or stability rests on a faith in political engineering with little support in recent history. The uncertain timeline for any democratic transition only reinforces a more skeptical reading.
For the United States, the operation may yet encounter its own limits—legal, political, or economic—within its domestic arena. For Latin America, it stands as a sobering reminder of diminished agency. And for the international system, it marks another step away from a rules-based order toward one increasingly governed by naked power.
None of this determines Venezuela’s future in advance. But it does suggest that democracy, like sovereignty, has become more conditional than it was once taken for granted—and that the costs of discovering just how conditional may be borne long after the moment of intervention has passed.
Martín Schapiro is an Argentine international relations specialist whose work sits at the intersection of foreign policy, political economy, and global governance. He served until 2023 as Undersecretary for International Affairs at the Secretariat for Strategic Affairs of the Presidency of Argentina, advising on multilateral relations and strategic international cooperation. He is a frequent contributor to regional debates on hemispheric politics and the international order.
This article is published under the sole responsibility of the author, with editorial oversight. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team or the CEU Democracy Institute.
