When President Donald J. Trump publicly confirmed that United States forces had captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and transferred them to American custody, the reaction across the world was swift and unsettled. The news travelled faster than diplomacy could respond. Some greeted it with applause, others with outrage, many with disbelief.
Yet beneath the shock lay an old and unresolved argument that refuses to go away. What gives America the authority to police the world, and who, if anyone, polices America?
The United States has lived with this question since the end of the Second World War. It emerged from that conflict not only victorious but dominant, with an industrial base untouched by devastation, a military stretched across oceans, and an economic system capable of underwriting global recovery.
Power followed responsibility, and responsibility quickly blurred into intervention. From that point onward, Washington found itself repeatedly pulled into crises far beyond its shores, sometimes invited, sometimes resisted, often condemned.
Sovereignty is the word most often raised against American intervention. It is a powerful principle, anchored in international law and moral logic. Nations are meant to govern themselves without external coercion. Borders are not suggestions. Flags are not decorations. But sovereignty was never intended as a licence for chaos. It was not designed to shield leaders who hollow out institutions, criminalise the state, or export instability while invoking national pride as cover.
This tension sits at the heart of American action across decades, from Central America in the late twentieth century to the Balkans in the 1990s, the Middle East in the early 2000s, and Latin America today. Intervention does not usually begin as an abstract desire in Washington. It takes shape where governance collapses and the consequences refuse to remain local.
Venezuela offers one of the clearest modern examples. Nicolás Maduro did not seize power through a sudden coup. He inherited authority from Hugo Chávez, whose populist revolution promised dignity for the poor, redistribution of oil wealth, and freedom from foreign domination. Over time, that promise decayed. Institutions weakened. Checks and balances eroded. Elections lost credibility. Power concentrated around a shrinking elite. Corruption deepened and professionalism drained from public service.
The economic collapse that followed was not marginal or cyclical. Venezuela’s gross domestic product shrank by more than three quarters over roughly a decade, a contraction comparable to countries devastated by full-scale war. Once Latin America’s richest oil economy, Venezuela slipped into sustained recession, hyperinflation, and fiscal paralysis. Inflation surged into the thousands of percent at its peak, wiping out salaries and savings. The national currency became practically unusable. Barter returned in some communities. Public sector wages fell to levels incapable of sustaining basic life.
Poverty followed with brutal speed. Independent assessments placed more than nine in ten Venezuelans below the poverty line at the height of the crisis, with extreme poverty becoming widespread. Hospitals ran without basic supplies. Doctors emigrated. Electricity grids failed repeatedly. Water systems collapsed. Ordinary citizens queued for food and fuel while those close to power insulated themselves through access and privilege.
The human consequence spilled far beyond Venezuela’s borders. More than seven million Venezuelans fled the country, making it one of the largest displacement crises in modern history, rivalled only by conflicts marked by open warfare. Neighbouring countries absorbed millions, straining labour markets, social services, and political systems. What began as domestic misrule became a regional emergency.
Alongside humanitarian collapse came darker allegations.
In 2020, United States prosecutors accused Maduro and senior figures in his circle of collaborating with drug cartels and armed groups to traffic cocaine into North America. The indictment was not rhetorical. It detailed alleged networks, routes, and coordination with insurgent organisations. Bounties were attached. Washington argued that Venezuela had moved beyond being a failing state and had become a criminal hub with international reach.
For years, these accusations existed on paper. Sanctions tightened. Diplomats issued statements. Maduro remained firmly in place. That endurance fed a dangerous illusion familiar to entrenched leaders across history. Survival began to look like immunity. Control of territory and security forces was mistaken for legitimacy.
History suggests otherwise.
In 1989, American forces entered Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega, once an ally, later an embarrassment, finally a defendant. He was captured alive, flown to the United States, tried, and imprisoned. Slobodan Milošević was transferred to international custody through coordinated pressure. Saddam Hussein, long portrayed as untouchable, was eventually pulled from hiding and placed before a tribunal. These were not sentimental exercises. They were calculated decisions. Killing ends a life. Trials expose a system.
The reported capture of Maduro and his wife follows that same logic. The United States possesses overwhelming lethal capability. Its intelligence networks, surveillance reach, and special operations forces form the most sophisticated military apparatus ever assembled. If elimination had been the objective, it would not have required prolonged debate or public justification. Arrest, not assassination, was the chosen path.
That choice matters. It punctures the mythology that sustains authoritarian rule. Dead leaders become symbols. Detained leaders become defendants. Courts dismantle narratives that speeches cannot. Evidence erodes propaganda more effectively than bombs.
This episode also reopens a debate often clouded by misunderstanding, particularly around American law. Many assume that any use of U.S. military force without explicit congressional approval is illegal. That assumption is incorrect. Under the U.S. Constitution, the President serves as Commander in Chief. Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, presidents of both parties have long exercised the authority to initiate limited military action without prior congressional authorisation, provided certain conditions are met.
That framework allows a president to act to defend U.S. forces, citizens, or national interests, requires notification to Congress within forty-eight hours, and limits operations to sixty days, with an additional period for withdrawal, unless Congress authorises continuation. Congress retains power after the fact through funding decisions and withdrawal orders. If Congress does nothing, the action stands. This system has governed American practice for over half a century and has been used by Republican and Democratic presidents alike, from Grenada to Kosovo, Libya, Syria, and beyond.
One may oppose a specific action. That is legitimate. Pretending the framework does not exist, or that it is selectively invented, is not serious constitutional thinking.
Still, the larger question remains. If Washington acts as enforcer, who restrains Washington?
There is no neat answer. International institutions exist, but they mirror power realities rather than transcending them. The United Nations Security Council is constrained by vetoes.
International courts depend on cooperation they cannot compel. No global authority can detain an American president or general against the will of the United States. This imbalance fuels resentment, suspicion, and fear. It also explains why American actions attract scrutiny unmatched by those of weaker states.
American leaders themselves have long wrestled with this burden. Dwight Eisenhower warned against unchecked military influence. Barack Obama spoke of humility and limits. Donald Trump criticised endless wars and questioned the cost of intervention. Yet even sceptical presidents confront the same dilemma. When instability threatens security, allies, or domestic interests, inaction carries its own price.
The capture of Maduro exposes another uncomfortable truth. Interventions do not materialise in functioning, accountable societies.
They arise where leadership failure produces vacuum and contagion. Drug trafficking does not remain local. Mass migration reshapes continents. Economic collapse destabilises regions. In that sense, the sharpest blame does not rest in Washington. It rests with leaders who dismantle their own states and then invoke sovereignty when consequences arrive.
Modern power also operates quietly. Surveillance does not require occupation. Financial systems log movement. Communications leave trails. Intelligence agencies map patterns long before streets erupt. As one former intelligence official once observed, no one truly disappears. They only postpone accountability.
This reality should sober rulers who believe distance, bravado, or defiance guarantees safety. Geography has shrunk. Impunity has an expiry date. One can go to sleep as a president and wake up as a detainee, transported across borders not as a symbol of power but as an ordinary suspect before the law.
Yet restraint must frame this moment. Force, even when justified, must never become routine. Each intervention reshapes norms. Each precedent echoes beyond its target. Arresting a leader is not the end of responsibility. What follows matters more. Due process, transparency, and respect for law will determine whether this episode strengthens or corrodes the global order.
The world does not need a reckless enforcer. It needs power disciplined by rules and conscious of consequence.
For leaders everywhere, the lesson is stark. Nations do not collapse by accident. Crises are cultivated. When governance becomes predation and authority becomes extraction, the soil is prepared for external intrusion. America does not roam the world at random. It arrives where doors have already been broken from within.
History is unforgiving to those who mistake survival for legitimacy.
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, NEWSCOUNT
