There is usually a specific, singular moment when something breaks so fundamentally that it can never be put back together. For the international order that the United States spent eighty years building, that moment arrived on a night in Caracas.
In a move that defied decades of diplomatic norms, U.S. forces seized Venezuela’s sitting leader, Nicolás Maduro, in the heart of his capital. There was no UN Security Council mandate, no formal declaration of war, and no clear public authorization from Congress. It was an operation carried out on foreign soil, followed only by a justification: Washington did not recognize Maduro as legitimate.
But it was the rhetoric that followed that signaled the end of an era. Senior U.S. officials and presidential allies did not treat Venezuela as a sovereign state whose territory had been violated. They spoke like an occupying power, openly discussing plans to control Venezuela’s oil sales and revenue indefinitely as a mechanism to reshape the country’s future. This wasn’t a “deniable” CIA operation from 1954 buried in classified memos; this was public strategy, argued at the highest levels, with oil placed at the absolute center.
To understand Caracas, we must go back to the beginning—to the very system the U.S. helped build—and ask the question that now sits underneath everything: What happens when the country that wrote the rules decides they no longer apply?
The Architects of Order (1941–1945)
In August 1941, aboard a warship off the coast of Newfoundland, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill drafted the Atlantic Charter. These were not idealists; they were strategists who had seen the old world collapse into two catastrophic wars because great powers simply took what they wanted.
They imagined a new world based on principles:
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No territorial changes without consent.
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The right of self-government.
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Freer trade and freedom from fear.
What followed was the most ambitious institution-building project in history. The United States was the dominant architect of the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, and NATO. Washington anchored the global financial system to the U.S. dollar at Bretton Woods and pushed for a UN Security Council where it held veto power.
While the justifications were noble—democracy and human rights—the system contained a deliberate tension. These rules, such as Article 2, Section 4 of the UN Charter banning the use of force, were meant to be binding even on the superpower that created them. Especially on that power.
The Pattern of Withdrawal (2017–2021)
The rupture did not happen all at once. Starting in January 2017, a systematic withdrawal began. It wasn’t just a change in policy; it was a dismantling of a way of operating in the world.
The list of exits was exhaustive:
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The Paris Climate Agreement: Leaving the global pact on climate change.
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The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Abandoning a massive trade bloc.
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UNESCO & the UN Human Rights Council: Withdrawing from cultural and rights-monitoring bodies.
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The Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA): Unraveling years of multilateral diplomacy.
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Arms Control: Exiting the INF Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty.
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The World Health Organization (WHO): Attempting to leave during a global pandemic.
While treaties have legal exit clauses, these moves sent a clear message: Constraints are optional. Multilateralism is conditional.
Case Study: Cruelty as Policy
The shift moved from exiting agreements to breaking international law. In April 2018, the U.S. implemented a “zero tolerance” policy at the southern border. This resulted in the systematic separation of thousands of families.
UN experts warned that detaining children in these conditions was punitive and, in some cases, amounted to torture. Pediatric leaders called it child abuse. Because the system never reliably tracked the families it tore apart, over a thousand children remained separated years later. For a country that helped write the modern human rights rulebook, treating these rules as optional transformed cruelty into a mechanism of policy.
Case Study: The Death of Accountability
In January 2020, a U.S. drone killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, at Baghdad International Airport. While Soleimani was a designated adversary, the legality of the strike was highly suspect. The administration claimed he posed an “imminent threat,” yet reports later showed the strike had been approved months in advance.
The UN special rapporteur concluded the strike was unlawful, violating Article 2, Section 4 of the UN Charter and Iraqi sovereignty. There were no consequences. Furthermore, the administration revoked Obama-era rules requiring the government to report civilian deaths from airstrikes outside war zones. Casualties didn’t stop; they just stopped being reported. Public accountability disappeared.
The New Expansionism (2025)
On January 20, 2025, the rhetoric shifted toward 19th-century expansionism. The President declared that the U.S. would again consider itself a “growing nation” that “expands our territory.”
The subsequent ambitions shocked the global stage:
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Greenland: Pushing for acquisition from Denmark “whether they like it or not.”
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The Panama Canal: Declaring an intent to “reclaim” it through powerful threats.
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Canada: Floating the idea of it becoming the 51st state via “economic force.”
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The Gulf of America: An executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
This culminated in the Caracas raid. By treating sovereignty as a technicality and oil as a prize, the U.S. signaled that the post-WWII era of “rules” had been replaced by the era of “might.”
The Cost of Cynicism
The danger of these precedents is that they do not vanish when an administration ends. They stay on the books as tools for the next leader. When the U.S. removes the language that once softened its power, it exposes the fragility of the international order.
When the country that designed the system demonstrates that the system doesn’t bind it, other nations see a permission slip to follow suit. The consequences eventually come home to ordinary Americans:
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Internal Power Shifts: Acting without Congress sidelines the branch of government meant to represent the people.
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Global Fragility: Without cooperation, pandemics spread faster, supply chains break, and energy costs spike.
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Retaliation: The erosion of norms invites economic and cyber warfare.
For decades, the story of American power was that it was “constrained.” That story has collapsed, leaving only cynicism in its wake. Once a superpower teaches the world that rules are optional, it should not be surprised when the world starts acting accordingly. When the world finally pushes back, it won’t be the generals or presidents who pay the price—it will be ordinary citizens.