I am inclined to believe that the Venezuela adventure is not an indication of American strength, alas, but rather of American weakness, points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
I consider several perspectives below: The moral/legal angle, the alleged oil bonanza, the alleged drug trafficking, geo-politics and geo-economics.
In sum, I am inclined to believe that the Venezuela adventure is not an indication of American strength, alas, but rather of American weakness. To someone like me who is deeply supportive of the US (especially in opposition to China, the G2 condominium (external link) notwithstanding), this is a disheartening conclusion.
The morality and legality angle
Let us summarily dispose of the entire morality-legality question.
At the end of the day, international relations, despite flowery marketing language, is essentially Chanakyan matysa-nyaya -- the big fish eat the little fish, the law of the jungle. Might is right, and that's just the way realpolitik is, let us accept that and move on.
The United Nations and the so-called 'liberal rules-based international order' are syntactic sugar hiding this bitter fact of life.
There are a few implications for the little or medium-sized fish: Deter the big fish.
1. Bulk up, build up your military and economic strength, including your ability to produce lots of military hardware.
2. Build your economic leverage, so that you are an indispensable trading partner nobody can afford to alienate.
3. Build a nuclear arsenal.
This last is significant. Let us consider all the recent (and near-future) invasions by big fish.
Iraq. Libya. Iran. Panama. Vietnam. Afghanistan. Ukraine.
And soon, alas, Taiwan. Ok, I may have missed some here, but none of them have nukes.
If you have working nuclear weapons, and the means to deliver them (such as nuclear-capable missiles, submarines lurking in the ocean depths with nuclear warheads), then it is risky for the invading big fish.
No big fish likes body bags, and they certainly don't like mushroom clouds over their cities.
In addition, there was the stunning silence from the European Union and Britain, which have been moralising to everybody about how wicked it was for Russia to invade Ukraine.
No clutching pearls this time, eh, Eurocrats in Brussels? In fact, EU leaders were positively ecstatic about Trump's intervention in Venezuela.
It is indeed the end of the European century (external link).
Ditto with the United Nations, which, by the way, is pretty much on its last legs so far as I can tell: On 7th January President Trump exited 31 UN agencies and a grand total of 66 multilateral entities.
This, of course, hurts the UN's budget, not to mention its relevance.
In January the US will formally exit the Paris Climate Agreement and the WHO, and it has already exited the UNHRC, UNESCO, and UNRWA.
The newly announced exits include the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN Women's Fund, the UN Population Fund, the International Solar Alliance, the International Renewable Energy Alliance, and so on.
All this fits in with the 'Fortress America' part of the National Security Strategy, which I wrote about at some length (external link) recently.
In my opinion, it is not in the US' long-term interests.
The post-WW II 'liberal, rules-based international order' with America as its centre was quite positive for the US, and its precipitous end will erode pre-eminence, Manifest Destiny notwithstanding.
The problem is that the dollar, sanctions, SWIFT and US Treasury debt are losing their clout.
Summary: Nobody is bothered about morality or legality.
It is hard to judge whether the US regime-change operation in Venezuela is a stroke of genius or an act of pure recklessness.
This is completely orthogonal to the questions of morality and legality involved in such, well, coups, to put it bluntly.
The real issue at hand is twofold: Why did they do it? And what is the long-term fallout from it?
The oil colony: Is it for real?
It could be argued that the unabashed Trump statements about Venezuela's oil are exactly like the British and other European colonisation of many lands in the 19th century.
It can be summarized as: 'We have the guns, we're going to take your butter'.
That may well be true, although it is not discussed in genteel circles, where they pretend the Euros were on an, um... civilising mission.
Trump, to his credit, makes no bones about it: He says in so many words that he will henceforth consider Venezuela's oil to be his, and that it will be used for the benefit of both Venezuelans and Americans.
To be honest, there is some rationale behind this: The infamous Resource Curse, where resource-rich countries end up with the riches being grabbed by both foreigners and kleptocratic local elites, and miserable citizens get virtually nothing.
I am not quite sure how Arab OPEC countries managed to keep their money, and spend it on their own nationals: Possibly because their populations were low, and they were used to authoritarian rulers anyway.
The same with Norway. But the Resource Curse is a fairly universal phenomenon. I bet the global money managers are laughing all the way to the bank.
I remember when I first went to the US, I had a graduate student friend, a woman from Venezuela.
She was there on a generous scholarship funded by oil revenues, just like the Iranians who had studied with me in India.
At least some of the money was going to actual citizens, and wasn't disappearing into tax havens.
I guess socialism did Venezuela in over decades, as we have seen in West Bengal and Kerala.
The country's finances are an absolute mess, through years of economic collapse, US sanctions, and a sovereign default in 2017.
There are enormous debts owed by Venezuela to foreign investors, add up to more than $150 billion, or twice GDP; this includes interest, penalties for default, and arbitration awards for the expropriation (nationalization) of oil infrastructure.
Venezuelan assets abroad (e.g. the CITGO oil retailer) are at risk.
So far as I can tell, the country owes the following:
- Bond default in 2017 (sovereign and State oil company PDVSA bonds): face value $60 billion, now up to $100 billion with accrued interest and penalties. Owed mostly to international asset managers such as Fidelity, Greylock, T Rowe Price (often US based)
- Oil-backed loans of about $15 billion, to be paid off in oil shipments (China and Russia)
- Arbitration awards often based on nationalisation/expropriation of (especially oil-related) assets: around $30 billion (US and Canada based creditors such as ConocoPhillips and Crystallex owed around $8 billion to $10 billion)
This means there's a lot of issues that needs to be settled before Venezuela becomes a normal and substantial player in the world oil market.
Besides, despite the exertions of Chevron, an American oil major that still has operations in Venezuela, I don't think it will be easy to ramp up production there, which has collapsed due to a variety of factors, including the non-availability of naphtha to make the very viscous, heavy crude from the Orinoco Belt more easily transportable.
It is said, however, that a number of US refineries can indeed handle this heavy crude (incidentally Indian refineries such as Reliance's Jamnagar can as well) and so, over time, the oil will begin to flow, although it is going to cost quite a bit to get there.
Their production was of the order of 3.5 million barrels per day in the 2010s, but it has fallen to about 1.1 million barrels now, as the result of infrastructure decay, mismanagement, corruption, and US sanctions.
I have read estimates that it might take as much as $180 billion in investments over the next 10-15 years to bring Venezuela back online at scale.
This means that any dreams of the US tapping Venezuela's vast oil reserves any time soon are unrealistic.
Besides, that could lead to an oil glut, depressing global prices even below the current $50 to $60 levels, which has the side effect of making America's own shale-based oil production unviable.
All this suggests that, despite all the talk of seizing the largest oil reserves in the world, there is reason to believe that this is not the real reason behind the regime change.
Summary: The oil issue is overblown, and nothing dramatic will happen short-term.
What about the drug-running?
There was a lot of noise about how Venezuelan gangs pushing drugs in the US was a major threat, and how that needs to be taken care of.
However, on closer scrutiny, Venezuela is not a major producer of cocaine (production is almost entirely in Colombia, with smaller amounts from Peru and Bolivia).
It serves as a minor transit country for some cocaine, mostly headed to Europe or the Caribbean rather than directly to the streets of America.
Data from the UNODC (UN Office on Drugs and Crime) and the US DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) show no significant direct sea routes from Venezuela to the US; the only known direct route is limited air trafficking.
DEA reports (including the 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment) and UNODC (World Drug Report 2025) consistently show Colombia as the overwhelming source of cocaine entering the US (around 84%+ of samples).
Venezuela ranks low in direct contributions, with most US-bound cocaine transiting through Mexico/Central America via Pacific routes.
Fentanyl trafficking into the United States follows a distinct supply chain, very different from plant-based drugs like cocaine.
The overwhelming consensus from US authorities is that Mexico is the primary source of finished illicit fentanyl reaching the US, while China remains the main origin for the precursor chemicals needed to produce it.
The fentanyl crisis is overwhelmingly a China to Mexico to US southwest border pipeline not linked to Venezuela or South America in any substantial way, per DEA, State Department, and congressional reporting.
Summary: The talk about Venezuela's drug-running is a smoke-screen.
Part 2: Was Maduro's Capture A Warning Shot To China?
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
© 2026