Stephen Krasner once called sovereignty “organised hypocrisy.” The line is often used to mock the gap between principle and practice. Yet the past few days have shown why even a hypocritical rule can still be worth defending.
When the United States seized Venezuela’s sitting president, Nicolás Maduro, in a cross-border raid and flew him to New York, even those who loathe Maduro’s authoritarian record can see the wider damage. A headline operation may satisfy domestic audiences, but it also corrodes the thin habits that keep an anarchical system from sliding into open predation.
The immediate problems are both practical and political. Venezuela has named Delcy Rodríguez as interim president, but the constitutional and coercive balance inside Caracas is now uncertain. The raid involved strikes and fatalities, and it triggered regional disruption that reached civilian aviation, with U.S. airspace restrictions across parts of the Caribbean and hundreds of cancelled flights before the curbs were lifted. In New York, Maduro now faces criminal proceedings on narcotics-related charges, but the method used to bring him there has shifted the argument from law enforcement to coercive statecraft.
Washington’s stated grievance with Caracas is not new. In 2020, the U.S. Justice Department announced narco-terrorism charges against Maduro and other officials, and U.S. policy has since treated the Venezuelan leadership as both a criminal enterprise and a security threat. By August 2025, the United States had raised the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million, reinforcing the message that this was law enforcement plus deterrence, not ordinary diplomacy. That is securitization in plain terms: a political dispute is recast as an existential danger, thereby justifying extraordinary measures.
The deeper issue is what this does to the Westphalian bargain. Sovereignty is not a sentimental idea. It is the core convention that allows states, especially weaker ones, to exist without living in permanent fear of abduction, assassination, or externally imposed leadership change. The UN Charter was meant to civilize power by restricting the use of force to narrow exceptions. Article 2(4) prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Article 2(7) limits intervention in domestic jurisdiction. Article 51 allows self-defence only if an armed attack occurs. None of these clauses was designed to permit unilateral “snatch and trial” operations against a sitting head of state.
Offensive realism explains why this matters without romanticizing anyone. In a system without a world government, great powers often resort to decisive measures to remove threats and demonstrate resolve. The problem is that precedent travels. UN Secretary General António Guterres has already warned that this sets a “dangerous precedent,” and legal experts have questioned its legality in the absence of Venezuelan consent or UN authorisation. China’s Foreign Ministry also denounced the “blatant use of force” against a sovereign state. If such actions become the standard, small states will live as potential targets, not equal sovereigns.
There is also a democratic injury that strategic debates often downplay. Maduro’s rule was widely criticized, and Washington argues that his presidency lacked legitimacy. Removing a government by force or by spectacle weakens the principle that political change should occur through domestic processes, however flawed, rather than through foreign intervention. The recent Middle East template presents a similar contradiction. During the June 2025 Israel-Iran war, regime change talk was openly floated at senior levels. Reuters reported that Israel’s strikes hinted at the ambition of toppling the Iranian regime, and Trump himself publicly mused about “regime change” after U.S. strikes.
The operation’s ripple effects extend to Asia. India’s Asaduddin Owaisi has already used the Maduro episode to urge a similar cross-border “capture” of individuals in Pakistan allegedly linked to the 11/26 attacks. He may be speaking to a domestic crowd, but narratives like this do not stay contained; particularly Hindutva-adjacent impulses can normalize brinkmanship.
Finally, there is a reputational cost for the Westphalian order itself. Despite Washington’s claim to be a guardian of respectful norms, China’s Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence resonate as a baseline for stability, presenting a model as a steadier account of how such an order should work. Through the language of mutual respect for territorial integrity, non-aggression, non-interference, equality, and peaceful coexistence, China argues that sovereignty should not be conditional on power.
A world already short on trust cannot afford sovereignty to become a privilege rather than a rule. In an anarchic system, states assume the worst because survival is not guaranteed. Mearsheimer’s blunt claim that great powers search for opportunities to gain control is not a moral endorsement, but it is a warning about incentives. Venezuela is not only a Latin American crisis; it is a test of whether coercion is replacing consent in global politics. If it is, the future will feature sharper bloc politics, greater arms racing, and even less space for law, diplomacy, and cooperation.