The pre-dawn kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on January 3rd was not a covert “operation.” It was a state-sponsored terrorist act, a public demonstration of raw imperial power. This event marks the explicit return of the Monroe Doctrine as active U.S. policy, where the Western Hemisphere is treated as a backyard to be policed through militarism, disruption, and brute force. Framed within a fabricated “war on drugs,” this action reveals a superpower logic that has abandoned all pretense of international law, offering only the stark choice between obedience and destruction.
Those who claim to help are often drawn by what lies beneath the soil, the water, the oil, the gold, the soul of a nation. History has taught us this lesson more than once.
The Blueprint of a Bully: From “Drug War” to State Kidnapping
The operation followed a familiar, sinister blueprint: electronic warfare, systemic paralysis, and a precision military strike—not on a battlefield, but in a private residence. This was the culmination of months of escalated U.S. military presence in the Caribbean, reconnaissance flights, and blockades, all laundered under the hollow label of “fighting drug trafficking.” As even U.S. congressional critics noted, the official narrative was a pretext. The real target was never drugs; it was sovereignty.
Following the kidnapping, Donald Trump spoke not as a head of state, but as a colonial proprietor. He declared Venezuela must be “governed” by the United States, its resources “used correctly” for America’s share. The Monroe Doctrine was invoked not as history, but as a program for today: a divided world where security is synonymous with submission, and humanity is eliminated by softened force.
The Hollow Pretext: Security as a Synonym for Militarism
The advertised framework—narco-terrorism, security, limited operations—is a manufactured cover. U.S. data itself confirms the primary drug routes run through Mexico and Central America, not Venezuela. For Trumpism, reality is irrelevant; the political label is sufficient. “War on drugs” has become the ideological camouflage for state terrorism and kidnapping. In this logic, “security” is stripped of any meaning beyond the institutionalization of bullying and the right of a superpower to eliminate any society that is not aligned or obedient.
The Multipolar Trap: Desperation, Escalation, and the Crushing of Sovereignty
But this policy isn’t just simple, one-sided bullying. It is the desperate reaction of a fading hegemon in an emerging multipolar world. When the U.S., feeling its unilateral dominance slip, resorts to state kidnapping as a tool of politics, it does more than violate sovereignty—it lowers the threshold for global conflict and provides a template for other powers. In a world with multiple centers of power, every act of aggression by the American superpower creates a moral and political justification for rivals to ask: “If the hegemon can abandon all rules, why should we restrain ourselves?”
The reactions from Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran were predictable condemnations. But beyond the statements, a more dangerous dynamic is set in motion: competitive destabilization. Every military shock creates a counter-shock. Every normalization of state violence sets a new, brutal standard. The world is not simply splitting into two camps; it is fracturing into a volatile arena where multiple powers, including a rising Global South, may feel empowered or compelled to use force to secure their interests, sacrificing law and human security in the process.
Within Venezuela as well, the outcome is clear: the militarization of political space. External bullying becomes the fuel for internal repression. This is the enduring rule: militarism and external aggression serve to justify oppressive domestic governance, crushing society between the twin forces of foreign intervention and state crackdown.
Against the Inhuman Blocs, For a Crushed Society
The kidnapping in Caracas brought no liberation, only a clearer exposure of the bullying empire’s face. It underscores a world where capital blocs harden, and war becomes a routine tool for adjusting power. The masses are crushed between sanctions, proxy wars, and normalized aggression.
This moment demands a clear stance: alignment with power blocs is a dead end. Not with the desperate, repressive American empire, nor with the authoritarian powers of Beijing or Moscow that pose as counter-hegemons while oppressing their own people. The promise of a multipolar world is hollow if it merely replaces one master with several. True emancipation will not come from state kidnapping, imperial bombings, or the cynical projects of competing powers. Our place is alongside the people and societies being crushed under the wheels of this transition—in the Global South and within the heart of the empires themselves. The path forward is built in opposition to a world order that sacrifices humanity on the altars of hegemony and multipolar rivalry.
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