Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro was nabbed in Caracas. The military operation marks an important turn in global affairs. The Trump administration has made no secret of its rejection of the “rules-based international order” that has been the ideal since the end of the Cold War. In its place, the administration has promised to pursue policies that will buttress America’s national and civilizational interests in a competitive global system. Arresting Maduro fulfills that promise.
Previous administrations have been hostile to Maduro. Obama sanctioned some of his close associates. Both Trump and Biden put a bounty on his head. Sending special forces to Caracas was certainly a dramatic escalation. But anyone who read the recently released and much-discussed National Security Strategy could have predicted it.
The document reasserts America’s Monroe Doctrine, which for two hundred years has justified American dominance of the Western Hemisphere. Venezuela had become the lynchpin of resistance to that dominance in Latin America and, through alliances with China, Russia, and Iran, a challenge to American interests in the wider world. Trump decided that the United States needed to take stern measures to overthrow Maduro and bring Venezuela and its oil reserves into America’s orbit.
I’ll leave it to experts to debate the legality of Maduro’s arrest in Caracas. But I cannot refrain from pointing out that our post–9/11 legal regime accords great latitude for military action. The Trump administration deemed Maduro to be the head of a “narco-terrorist” organization earlier this year. I’ll venture that this designation ensures that the use of U.S. military personnel in Venezuela falls within the letter of the law.
Legality aside, what are we to think of the morality of Trump’s action?
Although the White House justifies that operation as an arrest, not an invasion, the Russian foreign ministry’s altogether hypocritical denunciation of the “act of armed aggression against Venezuela” expresses an element of truth. Military assets were employed to arrest Maduro, and Venezuelan sovereignty was violated. Moreover, as I suggest above, the administration clearly acted for reasons of state, not simply to bring a criminal to justice. Therefore, we are wise to assess Trump’s decision under the morality of war.
The Catholic Church advances a doctrine of just war. It includes many criteria for assessing reasons to go to war, as well as moral constraints on how warfare is conducted. These elements of just war doctrine are rooted in the biblical presumption in favor of peace. The morally licit use of violence aims to restore and secure a tranquility of order.
A well-established rule of law brings tranquility of order. It need not be perfect in its justice. The mere existence of reasonably decent and predictable laws is sufficient. The post–Cold War ambition to create a global rule of law (rules-based order) reflected that ideal. Unfortunately, global realities have dictated otherwise.
Over the last decade, the greatest threat to the global tranquility of order has been the relative decline in American power. Put simply, American weakness, real and perceived, has invited challenges to the global order that was once backstopped by American cultural, economic, and military power.
If we filter out partisan rhetoric, in 2026, the main foreign policy arguments boil down to a debate about how to restore a global tranquility of order. In this debate, both sides presume that American power plays a crucial and central role.
In one fashion or another, Trump’s critics envision a renewal of the rules-based order. For example, they argue that the United States should expel Russian forces from Ukraine, and that this must be done in close cooperation with our allies, as we strive to build an ever-more unified world.
The Trump White House thinks otherwise. It regards the post–Cold War system as a cause of the relative decline in American power. What’s needed is a new approach, one that recognizes the reality of significant adversaries and seeks to reestablish the cultural, economic, and military foundations for American predominance in an interest-based rather than rules-based global order.
The Trump administration recognizes the need to consolidate the American capacity to contain China. This imperative is the leitmotif of the recent National Security Strategy, the unspoken meaning of every sentence in the document, from start to finish.
The Trump administration’s approach to Russian aggression in Ukraine reflects this imperative. At every turn, the White House has whipped European nations toward greater military expenditure, while criticizing them for self-imposed economic disabilities and civilizational malaise. I doubt that policy planners in the Trump administration seek to eliminate the Russian threat to Europe’s borders (which may be an unattainable goal in any event). The goal is to strengthen the European capacity to meet that threat, and in so doing, to consolidate Western civilization’s resources for the larger global struggle with China.
The White House can take a more straightforward approach in the Western Hemisphere. The original Monroe Doctrine was formulated to prevent the fledgling American nation from being dominated by European powers operating in the Western Hemisphere. It was largely defensive: Keep France and England out. Today, the Monroe Doctrine means ensuring that the hemisphere functions as a unified and effective foundation for American power. This requires gaining control over energy, trade, and military security throughout the hemisphere. The intransigent regime in Venezuela was a significant impediment to achieving that end.
The Trump administration envisions an interest-based global system in which great powers compete—and America is the first among equals. Will this system bring a tranquility of order? Those with longer memories will recall the resentment caused by earlier American interventions in Latin America, resentment that nurtured a generation of anti-Americanism. Perhaps the twenty-first century will see different outcomes. A muscular approach may backfire. The same holds for global affairs. Perhaps Putin and Xi will become more aggressive, seeking to expand their spheres of influence to meet America’s efforts.
Time will tell. If the interest-based order brings conflict, we’ll judge the Caracas “enforcement action” an ill-considered step down a fateful path. If the Trump administration can navigate toward a relatively stable global system, we will regard it as wise, one of the foundations of the twenty-first century’s tranquility of order.
