OPINION: Global impact of America’s invasion of Venezuela

Ryan Montgomery, Staff Writer

Standing high in the sky in Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister Mark Carney made a speech to the World Economic Forum on Jan. 20, where he sounded more like a prophet and less like a former banker: like he was gazing into a crystal ball instead of a balance sheet.

“It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry,” he said. “That the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”

For all of human existence, the relationship between different tribes, nations, and empires has been characterised by strength or its lack. And for the past 80 years, the international system has been governed by something rare in history: rules.

This was the norm for essentially all of human history. The idea of an ‘international’ law was absurd, law and rules were something that states imposed on their citizens, not something that applied to states themselves. 

That was, until after the Second World War, when a new system was built from the ashes of the old, one based on international law. Amid the rubble of Europe and Asia rose a system in which all states were equal based on their inherent right to exist, not based on the strength of their armies. 

A system where disputes between states would be hashed out on the United Nations’ (UN) debate floor, not on the battlefield. Where democracy, free trade, and universal law would usher in an equal new order. 

This was a shift so seismic in international relations that it’s almost difficult to explain how unique the past 80 years have been. The idea that bigger states shouldn’t bully smaller ones, that every state, no matter the strength or size, is equal, was nothing short of revolutionary. 

Origins of the rules-based system

China, a superpower of 1.4 billion individuals, is equal under the law to Micronesia, a minuscule island nation with about the same population as Red Deer, Alta. This was a radical idea in diplomacy. 

From this change, international borders calcified, and the age of conquerors was over. The new campaigns were to be made on the field of commerce, not battle. Countries focused on integration rather than competition, and traded conquest for global prosperity. 

The last time such an international regime was attempted was after the First World War, when the League of Nations, a sort of prototype of the UN, sought to govern the world based on international law rather than strength. This system, however, was deeply flawed and met its end at the hands of dictatorial expansionism. 

There is a principle in debate known as Godwin’s Law. This axiom states that as an online argument goes on, the chance of someone bringing up the Nazis to prove a point exponentially increases. The comparison between Adolf Hitler and President Donald Trump is used to such a nauseating extent that I feel lazy even insinuating it. But, if you’ll indulge me for just a bit, I swear I have a good reason for doing so. 

In 1936, Hitler demanded from the Western allies of Britain and France the green light to annex the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia (modern-day Czechia) inhabited by a majority of ethnic Germans.

With Hitler threatening invasion, the Allies held a conference in Munich to negotiate with the Germans, and by negotiate, I mean they gave Hitler everything he wanted.

The Munich Conference is famous because Britain and France failed to uphold the post-First World War balance of power. They tried to meet military force with diplomatic negotiation, and they bent like reeds in the wind. 

Munich is important because it was the time and the place where Hitler learned he could take what he wanted, and no one would stop him.

For President Trump, that revelation came at Caracas. 

America takes a new path

On Jan. 3, the American army attacked the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and kidnapped the country’s President, Nicolas Maduro. 

This was not the first time the U.S. has ever invaded a Latin American country and replaced its leader, far from it in fact. The difference between those varied ‘interventions’ and this one is the U.S. government’s justification for it: they didn’t have one.

In the Americans’ previous escapades in Latin America, they always had a reason. Whether it was a weak justification, they at least felt the need to construct a narrative beyond ‘we wanted it, so we took it.’ Whenever a state sought to violate international law, it had to be rigorously justified. The facade of the rules-based order was always carefully maintained. 

Even the blatantly dictatorial Russian President Vladimir Putin made up altruistic justifications for his imperialist invasion of Ukraine, claiming that they were invading Ukraine to protect the rights of the local Russian population and to ‘de-Nazify’ the country. Both noble goals on paper, which crumble under the slightest scrutiny. 

Compare this to Trump’s justifications for Caracas, which were that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela with the explicit purpose of selling its oil reserves to American corporations. 

When the US president is more blatant about his conquests than the Russian dictator, that’s when you know that the rules don’t matter anymore. 

In response, no one did anything. Not the UN, not other countries, nor the American Congress. America, the steward and leader of the old world system, invaded a sovereign nation for expansionist ideals, and there were no consequences. Like the Roman god Saturn, who devoured his own son, the United States destroyed its own world order.

In the weeks since the invasion, the President has significantly ramped up his sabre-rattling rhetoric against Canada and Greenland. On Greenland, Trump said that he “no longer felt an obligation purely to peace,” and that Greenland is “our territory.” Could you imagine a democratically elected leader saying that 10 years ago?

The question that remains is, now that the world system is dead, what will rise in its place? A world of competing great powers carving up the world like a roast at a dinner party? 

Canadians have long prided ourselves on our peaceful manner and renunciation of all things martial and bellicose. But in a world where words don’t stop bullets anymore, where we can’t count on the true meaning of friendship to protect our borders, what is to be done? 

Maybe the only thing to do is keep your chin down, have your feet shoulder-width apart, and put up your dukes.