Venezuela and the Return of Imperial Power
By Basheer Luqman Olarewaju,
The January 3, 2026 military strike on Caracas, reportedly codenamed Operation Absolute Resolve, marks a watershed moment in global politics. By deploying more than 150 aircraft alongside elite Delta Force units to forcibly extract a sitting head of state, President Nicolás Maduro, the United States did far more than conduct a targeted operation.
It struck at the philosophical and legal foundations of the modern international system. In one decisive act, the core principle of sovereignty, as codified by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, was rendered negotiable. For nearly four centuries, the Westphalian Order has anchored global stability on a deceptively simple idea: that each state, regardless of power, ideology, or internal condition, retains supreme authority over its territory and domestic affairs.
The assault on Caracas, conducted without a United Nations mandate and absent explicit Congressional authorization, signals a retreat from that consensus. It suggests a return to a pre-modern logic of international relations, where borders are permeable to power and legitimacy is defined not by law, but by force. This action dismantles the fragile framework that, however imperfectly, has restrained direct interstate conflict by sanctifying territorial integrity.
By framing the intervention through the language of human rights, criminal governance, or regional stability, Washington has taken the doctrine of humanitarian intervention to its most extreme and dangerous conclusion: regime change through direct abduction. The implication is stark. Sovereignty is no longer inherent; it is conditional.
A state’s internal failures, political defiance, or strategic inconvenience can now serve as justification for its violation. The precedent is not subtle. It announces to the world that legal norms may be suspended when power deems them inconvenient. It invites every major power to anoint itself judge, jury, and enforcer within its perceived sphere of influence.
If this logic is accepted, interventions from Crimea to the South China Sea become not aberrations, but templates, each justified by elastic interpretations of security and morality. The global consequence is a drift toward neo-imperial competition, where international law becomes ornamental and coercion regains primacy. Presented as a singular act of justice, the Caracas operation instead accelerates the erosion of the rules-based order.
States will now assume, rationally, that treaties offer no protection against overwhelming force. The likely response is predictable: rapid rearmament, hardened alliances, intensified bloc politics, and the open treatment of weaker states as strategic terrain rather than sovereign entities.
The walls of sovereignty, painstakingly constructed over centuries of war and diplomacy, have been breached. What emerges is a “post-sovereignty” environment in which the strong act without restraint and the weak absorb the consequences. If the United States can justify the extraction of a foreign leader under domestic legal constructs such as “narco-terrorism,” imitation becomes inevitable.
Russia could pursue similar operations in Eastern Europe. China could “apprehend” leaders in contested maritime zones. Each would cite national security, each would claim legal necessity.
Such erosion of the UN Charter’s foundational principles creates a legitimacy vacuum that history associates with systemic collapse or world war. International order does not disintegrate in a single explosion; it frays, precedent by precedent, until restraint becomes irrational.
Whether Venezuela becomes the spark for a recalibration of global power or the opening chapter of a darker interventionist era remains unresolved. The response of allies and rivals alike will define the century ahead. Either new, enforceable constraints on power will emerge, or states will exploit the new permissiveness to pursue imperial ambitions under rebranded doctrines.
For Africa, and particularly Nigeria, the implications are immediate and sobering. The Caracas precedent exposes sovereignty as a fragile shield when unbacked by institutional strength and domestic legitimacy. It demonstrates that internal disorder can be weaponized externally, transformed into justification for intervention.
For states managing insurgency, corruption, or governance deficits, domestic vulnerabilities now translate directly into national security risks. Nigeria must therefore confront a hard truth: continental stature offers no immunity in a world where power overrides principle. The primary defense is not rhetorical condemnation, but visible, irreversible institutional reform. Weak governance, security vacuums, and rule-of-law failures are no longer internal embarrassments; they are strategic liabilities.
Nigeria must close these fault lines decisively.
Beyond internal reform, Nigeria must pursue a strategic diplomatic offensive. It should lead the formation of a Sovereignty Bloc within the African Union and BRICS+, anchored on a binding mutual defense commitment that treats an assault on one member’s sovereign leadership as an assault on all.
This is not a rejection of existing alliances, but an assertion that sovereignty must be collectively protected in a multipolar world. The moment also demands a shift from passive diplomacy to assertive continental doctrine. Africa must operationalize the principle that African problems are resolved by African institutions, leaving no political vacuum for foreign intervention.
This requires empowering mechanisms such as the African Standby Force with real authority, speed, and intelligence integration. The objective is deterrence: to make unilateral intervention politically costly and militarily prohibitive. Equally vital is what may be called the legitimacy shield. Governments anchored in public trust are far harder to undermine than those isolated from their people.
The narrative used to justify intervention in Venezuela relied heavily on institutional decay and popular suffering. Nigeria must ensure that no such narrative can plausibly be constructed against it. That requires credible elections, responsive governance, professional security forces, diversified global partnerships, and a military capable of raising the cost of interference beyond acceptability.
The world of 2026 is no longer governed by settled rules, but by contested power. Nigeria, and Africa at large, must now decide whether they will act as defenders of the sovereign order or drift into its casualties. The Caracas precedent has made neutrality an illusion.