Power Without Prudence: America’s Costly Misadventure in Venezuela
There are moments in international politics when strength is mistaken for wisdom, and pressure is confused with strategy. The Trump administration’s approach to Venezuela stands as a textbook case of both errors—an exercise in bluster that has yielded neither stability nor democratic progress, while steadily eroding the credibility of the United States itself. At its core, the policy was marked by a remarkable disregard for a basic principle of diplomacy: that sovereign nations, however troubled their politics, do not respond well to public humiliation, coercion, or threats to their leadership. The open endorsement of regime change, coupled with the illegal capture of Venezuela’s sitting president, crossed a line that diplomacy is meant to respect. Whatever one thinks of Caracas’ government, normalising the idea that a foreign power can seize or sideline another nation’s leader is an alarming precedent. Venezuela is a proud country with a long history of resisting ext...
