After U.S. special operations forces snatched Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and brought him to New York Saturday, many of the West’s deepest thinkers worried about the precedent that had just been set. After all, if President Donald Trump can send the military to depose Maduro, what’s stopping China’s Xi Jinping or Russia’s Vladimir Putin from targeting the leaders of their neighbors?
This was the argument of a New York Times news analysis that led its website on Monday evening. “Mr. Trump’s stunning assault on Venezuela has ushered in new uncertainty around the globe,” it read. “With allies and adversaries alike scrambling to reckon with a superpower ready to use force in the service of a transactional, might-makes-right foreign policy.”
The Times is not alone in fearing America’s adversaries might see a green light for their own future military adventures. Richard Haass, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that the “biggest downside” to Maduro’s removal from power “could be the precedent it sets, affirming the right of great powers to intervene in their backyards against leaders they deem to be illegitimate or a threat.” The historian and former Yale professor Timothy Snyder was more succinct. On Monday, he posted on X, citing a Miami Herald story, “The U.S. broke the international system in the service of one faction of the Maduro regime.”
My favorite comment came from Emily Thornberry, UK Labour Party bigwig and chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons. She said in an interview over the weekend with Times Radio that “there is no legal basis for this and it sets a really bad precedent for countries such as China and Russia, who may also think: ‘Well, we’ve got spheres of influence; why can’t we do things like that within our sphere of influence, like Ukraine or Taiwan?’ ”
