Can U.S. decide who can govern in Latin America?

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The U.S. decision to launch large-scale air strikes across Venezuela and capture its President Nicolás Maduro and his wife is a profound violation of international law and a stark reminder of how the old Monroe Doctrine logic continues to poison hemispheric relations in the 21st century.

Far from projecting strength or stability, this operation broadcasts the message that Washington still claims a unilateral prerogative to decide who can govern in Latin America and at what cost to civilian lives.

Labeling Maduro a "narco-terrorist" and placing a multimillion-dollar bounty on his head does not create a legal right to bomb another country's territory and seize its leader. The United Nations Charter is explicit that regime change by force is not an acceptable tool of statecraft, especially when pursued unilaterally and without Security Council authorization.

As a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson noted, "Such hegemonic acts of the U.S. seriously violate international law and Venezuela's sovereignty, and threaten peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region. China firmly opposes it."

When the U.S. decides unilaterally that its strategic priorities justify detonating ordnance in a foreign capital, Venezuelan civilians become collateral abstractions, not rights-bearing individuals supposedly protected by the liberal order Washington claims to defend.

This is the most corrosive hypocrisy at the heart of the operation. U.S. officials talk of helping Venezuelans "restore democracy," yet democracy is reduced to a pretext for externally engineered decapitation of a government Washington dislikes.

To millions across Latin America, the message is unmistakable: Elections and sovereignty matter only until they collide with U.S. preferences. At that point, the vocabulary of human rights is repurposed to sanitize brute force.

The old Monroe Doctrine logic is behind the attacks.

The Monroe Doctrine began as a warning against European colonial meddling in the Western Hemisphere, but quickly evolved into a self-granted license for unilateral intervention by Washington. What was framed as anti-imperial protection of the Americas became, in practice, a declaration of U.S. hegemony over them.

Critics have long pointed out that the doctrine carried no internal restraint on U.S. behavior; it condemned the European empire while mimicking its methods in the hemisphere.

The strikes on Venezuela and the capture of Maduro are a textbook case: A European gunboat has been replaced by U.S. special operations aircraft, but the underlying principle that Washington alone determines permissible governments in its "backyard" remains intact.

Even judged on cold strategic terms, the operation is reckless. Toppling or capturing leaders rarely produces stable democracies; it more often yields fragmented states, radicalized opposition, and long-term anti-American sentiment.

The precedent is also dangerous. If the U.S. claims a right to cross borders, bomb a capital and seize a head of state based on unilateral accusations and indictments, norms erode quickly when the most powerful state treats them as optional.

The strikes on Venezuela should force an uncomfortable reckoning in Washington: While the White House is thinking to cooperate on climate, migration, or economic integration in the Western Hemisphere, clinging to the Monroe Doctrine's mentality guarantees a future of instability and resentment rather than partnership.

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