The United States Has Every Right to Restore Order to the Western Hemisphere.
The USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest aircraft carrier in the world, which has recently been deployed to Caribbean waters off the coast of Venezuela.
Source: US NAVAL FORCES CENTRAL COMMAND
Large scale military action against Venezuela now seems imminent at the time of this writing, with President Trump having, de facto via Truth Social, closed off Venezuelan airspace in recent days. There has already been little to no commercial air traffic over the country for at least a week now. The present buildup of military assets in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility is the largest since that which preceded the 1989 invasion of Panama, with numerous American bases across the region having been established, or reactivated. Questions linger endlessly across all forms of media as to the justification for, and prudence of this coming conflict, which the Administration has been anything but explicit in its reasoning for. As of now, even the legal memorandum justifying the airstrikes on the (mostly) Venezuelan drug boats is hidden from the public, and as we understand, Congress as well. No definitive explanation from administration officials has been given, nor will one likely be given until a time viewed to be appropriate.
Venezuela occupies the center of a spiderweb of policy priorities for the present Administration, namely, being the most glaring example of a narco-state synthesis in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the reassertion of American regional primacy, limiting of human trafficking, and a display of military capability after the decline of recent years. Under socialist governance, and a mix of despotism and sheer incompetence, Venezuela under the rule of Nicolas Maduro has bled almost 25% of its population to flight in recent years, contributing heavily to the Biden-era surge of border crossings and unlawful migration into the United States. Notably, Venezuela has been host to military assets from Russia, China, and Iran, posing legitimate threats to the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal, of which regaining control is also a stated Administration priority. While indisputably being the most brazen, Venezuela is not the only narco-state in the region, alongside Mexico, and to a lesser degree the current regime in Colombia, and those in Honduras and Belize, this fringe trend once reserved to the likes of Manuel Noriega has gone mainstream following 35 plus years of American strategic disregard.
As regional hegemon, the United States possesses the sole distinction of having the capabilities, scale, and authority to assert primacy in the Western Hemisphere. It should be of great priority that, narco-states, and military activity in any form belonging to extra-hemispheric powers is entirely unwelcome in our backyard; and in response, a new age revitalization of the Monroe Doctrine is in just cause, with broader implications for the greater array of narco-states present in the region. It is entirely possible that the White House intends to make an example out of Venezuela in the hopes of pressuring those other states to bend to their will without resorting to kinetic action, we will find out soon enough. For now, the renewed strategic presence in the Caribbean is a welcome development and should in large part remain indefinitely.
If anything has been learned so far from the logical conclusions of Francis Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’ hypothesis of 1992, it is that the nature of man, and the nature of states, are constants in the world we live in. In the gleeful jubilance of the post Cold War era, a generation of policy thinkers allowed themselves to be convinced of the notion that the truths of nearly all recorded history before them, were suddenly inverted; that the constants of the world would be Western democracy, prosperity, and self determination, spreading freely across the globe. Generations before them understood that the defining features of our society, and the greater West as a whole, stood in constant peril, inherently opposed to the dominant forces of human nature which have reeked so much repression and devastation through history; and that it could take only a generation of decadence and negligence for the roof to come crashing down. At present, the window is still open to reverse course and reassert responsibility over our inherited obligations, but that time is now preciously finite.
Unlike overseas conflicts of the preceding decades, the problems posed by the Caracas regime have been felt at home by countless Americans, and will only continue to grow under their own weight in the absence of prudent action towards a reversal. Many will never recover from the destruction wrought by drug trafficking and human trafficking, with drug related deaths continuing to rise in the US, and the tax burden of migration as a result of regional instability causing serious strain to various social safety nets. This is not a reality which we must force ourselves to settle for. Starting with Venezuela, the President has an opportunity now to secure a new regional order, one which can be maintained for a long time to come, given the correct oversight and strategic attention.