The most audacious US military venture since the killing of Osama bin Laden typifies muscular new US foreign policy
Daily Telegraph 03/01/26
Within hours of the first US air strikes on Caracas, Donald Trump announced the seizure of his quarry.
Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan dictator, had already been “captured and flown out of the country” along with his wife, declared Mr Trump on his Truth Social network, which might explain why helicopters were seen clattering across the night sky above the capital.
Whatever else may follow, Mr Trump can claim to have executed the swiftest regime change operation in modern history and America’s most audacious military venture since the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.
To have removed Mr Maduro so rapidly must have required the co-operation of Venezuelans on the ground, almost certainly including some of the country’s military chiefs.
He has now gained the dismal distinction of being the first Latin American president to be overthrown by the US since the late Manuel Noriega was driven from power in Panama in 1989.
The reality is that no-one should have been surprised. Mr Trump has long been signalling serious action in Venezuela and his reasoning has been carefully laid out since he returned to power.
It falls under the Trump administration’s new muscular foreign policy of “peace through strength” and is part of a mission to guard America’s long-term interests by going after its foes.
In November, Washington published a National Security Strategy that openly proclaimed a “Trump Corollary” of the old Monroe Doctrine of 1823 asserting America’s pre-eminence in its own neighbourhood.
After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere,” states page 15 of the document, describing this as a “condition of our security and prosperity”.
The strategy promises that the US will strive to “control migration, stop drug flows and strengthen stability and security on land and sea”. To achieve this, it will “assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region”.
Venezuela is not dignified with a mention in this vital document, yet Mr Maduro has discovered exactly what it means when a superpower vows to assert itself wherever needed in its own region.
The dramatic scenes in Caracas amount to Mr Trump’s National Security Strategy in action.
And running Mr Maduro to ground may not satisfy the US president.
Regime change in Caracas could be just the prelude to what American presidents since Kennedy have yearned for, namely regime change in Havana and the end of the hard Left and bitterly anti-American autocracy that has held sway over the island since the late Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.
Venezuela was helping to keep Cuba’s regime in business by supplying the country with free oil. Without this lifeline, Cuba’s leaders will become even more vulnerable to US pressure.
But the immediate question is: who will succeed Mr Maduro and inherit power in Caracas? In theory, Trump has a straight answer to that question.
In 2024, Edmundo González, an opposition leader, defeated Mr Maduro in a presidential election, prompting the regime to claim the result had been rigged and compel its opponent to go into exile in Spain.
María Corina Machado, another opposition leader, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, was banned from contesting that election. Until recently, she was in hiding somewhere in Venezuela.
Either Mr González or Ms Machado would be legitimate successors.
But whichever general collaborated with the US to remove Mr Maduro – and that remains the most plausible explanation for the autocrat’s sudden downfall – may have other ideas.
They may prefer to take power themselves. Would there be a transitional period either before a new election, or the simple accession of Mr González or Ms Machado?
Could an interim military leader be trusted to abide by any timetable for a transfer of power?
These questions will have to be answered and Mr Trump will doubtless wish to be in control as much as possible. That, after all, is what a superpower asserting its “pre-eminence” amounts to.
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