We Live in Interesting Times!

Arnd Jurgensen

SWinxy, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The time has come to wake up to a new global reality.   With the actions the government of the United States took in attacking the State of Venezuela and abducting its President and First Lady, this new reality can no longer be denied.   The government of the United States considers itself unconstrained by either domestic or international law in the pursuit of its policy agenda.   This must be recognized regardless of how one might feel about the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro or the regime that governs Venezuela.   The violation of Venezuelan sovereignty was an unambiguous act of war, not simply a law enforcement action to bring a fugitive to American justice.   While American troops may no longer be in the country, the aggression continues with the blockade imposed on Venezuela by the US military.   Such violations of the sovereignty of a state are justified under the UN charter only if they are a. authorized by the security council of the UN or b. if in response to an imminent threat posed by the country in question.  Neither applies in the current case.   This makes it a war of aggression which, according to Robert Jackson, the American judge who oversaw the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, is the highest crime under international law.   These violations of Venezuelan sovereignty did not begin with the Trump administration but enjoyed bipartisan support since at least 2002 when the Bush administration was complicit in the attempted overthrow of the democratically elected government of Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez.   They have continued with a series of “sanctions”, a form of economic warfare, ever since. 

While the Trump administration made some feeble attempts to frame this action as a legitimate defense against an attack, by classifying fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction, there is no evidence that Venezuela produces or is involved in the smuggling of fentanyl into the US.   Even the notion that it was a regime change operation, motivated by concern over democracy and human rights, was undermined by Mr. Trumps acknowledgement that it was all about oil and by his decision to leave the regime intact, under the leadership of Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodrigues.   These actions were furthermore taken by the Trump administration without authorization from, or even informing Congress, an apparent violation of the US constitution and the War Powers Act (1974).  

All the above should be concerning enough on its own but in the larger context of policy statements made before and since this operation, it should set off alarm bells in every capital around the world including and indeed especially in Ottawa.   That larger context includes the extensive unilateral use of military power against Iran, Nigeria, Somalia…, the publication of the U.S. National Security Strategy that calls for US unquestioned dominance of the Western Hemisphere and explicit threats against the sovereignty of Panama, Greenland/Denmark and Canada upon taking office.   It is worth noting that Venezuela was not even among these states mentioned by Mr. Trump at the beginning of his term.  In the aftermath of the Venezuela attack Mr. Trump has further threatened similar actions against Colombia, Cuba and Mexico.   He also openly stated he views neither international law nor the US Constitution as constraints, only his “morality”.

Taken together these developments represent a fundamental turning point in the trajectory of the international system.    This system has for centuries been understood as one in which “the powerful do as they will and the weak suffer what they must” or to put it differently as one in which “might makes right”.    As such war as a means of advancing the national interest of states was considered normal, until the technical capacities of states and their willingness to wage total war against entire populations made this reality unacceptable.   WW1 demonstrated the unprecedented brutality of modern industrial warfare and generated the immediate attempt to replace this system with a form of global governance and conflict resolution in the form of the League of Nations.   The US was the driving force in its creation even though it never became a member.   This was followed by the Kellog Briand Pact to outlaw war as a tool of statecraft.   Both failed to prevent the nightmare of WW2, which brought the reality of total warfare into sharp relief with the firebombing of entire cities and culminating in the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.    Led again by the US, the UN was explicitly created to “spare future generations from the scourge of war” through the creation of the U.N. and international law, in the form of the U.N. charter.   Though flawed in many ways, these institutions successfully prevented war between major powers and ushered in a period of unprecedented progress and stability for the past 80 years.

With the actions of January 3, the Trump administration has loudly announced that it considers these efforts quaint.   Trump advisor, Stephen Miller, unambiguously declared that we live in a world where the only currency that counts is force and power.   With respect to Greenland, he stated that no one will militarily fight a US takeover of the island.   He did not mention Canada, but he should not need to.   The implications for Canada are clear as day.   Just as Trump declared that the US needed Greenland for national security reasons, he also suggested that Canada must become the 51^st state.   He then immediately launched a form of economic warfare against Canada, unconvincingly justified by Canada’s role in flooding the US with fentanyl and illegal immigrants while also suggesting that Canada was not doing enough to protect the arctic.   The military option has not been explicitly put on the table but as Caroline Leavitt put it with respect to Greenland, is always available to the president as “commander in chief”.   In neither the case of Greenland nor Canada are the national security justifications offered any more convincing than the accusation that Venezuela is flooding the U.S. with fentanyl.   Both Canada and Denmark/Greenland are members of NATO and as such fully integrated into the US security architecture.   Yet we wait in vain for a full-throated defense of international law from the international community as a whole or from other members of the NATO alliance.

Trump and his minions are describing their foreign policy orientation as “flexible realism” but to what extent it reflects the principles of the “realist” understanding of international relations is questionable.  It is certainly true that “realists” put power at the center of their analysis and have little faith in the ability of international law or multilateral institutions to provide security for states.   But they do not dismiss either as irrelevant, as the Trump administration appears to be doing.   Even “offensive realists” like John Mearscheimer acknowledge that great powers have an interest in stabilizing their dominance through the creation of institutions and norms.   The U.S. did so through the creation of the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions at the end of the second world war.  The USSR did so, far less effectively within its sphere of influence and China is doing so through the creation of BRICS, SCO etc.   The creation of such institutions is part of a quest for hegemony, in which lesser powers see that dominance as legitimate though a kind of “hegemonic bargain”.    The great power maintains public goods, such as security and freedom of navigation, in return for which the lesser powers don’t question the position of the dominant power.  In this context, great powers are freed from having to constantly maintain their dominance through military means and bullying.  

There is little evidence that Trump understands the benefits of either international law or multilateral institutions.   The administration appears to conflate realism with unilateralism.   This is particularly evident in its willingness to antagonize allies in the pursuit of territorial expansion, specifically with respect to Canada and Denmark, drawing into question the future of the NATO alliance.   It is also evident in his trade policies that have likewise been directed against key allies in Europe, North and Latin America and East Asia, while he has largely backed away from confrontation with adversaries like Russia or China.

The return to “spheres of influence” made explicit in the 2025 NSS document, may indeed have overtones of “realism” as Mearsheimer explained to the NYT, but it is also a recipe for more military aggression around the world.    The assertion of the Donroe Doctrine, or more accurately a return to the Roosevelt Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine (in which Teddy Roosevelt claimed the authority to violate the sovereignty of states in the western hemisphere if they were not ruled responsibly), makes this all too obvious in the western hemisphere.   It’s implications in the rest of the world should be too obvious to need spelling out.   It legitimizes the Russian invasion of Ukraine and any further move by Russia to keep its sphere of influence in order, leaving the boundaries of this sphere ambiguous.   It would also seem to legitimate similar moves by China in its neck of the woods.   Thankfully, China has shown no appetite to expand its territory by invading its neighbors, apart from Taiwan (which it sees and much of the world acknowledges, as Chinese territory), but that could change.

All of this is happening as on February 7 the last treaty limiting the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia expires amid extensive efforts by both (and China) to upgrade their nuclear arsenals.   Russia has suggested it will voluntarily continue to abide by these limits but there are no negotiations to extend the treaty.  Are we cursed to “live in interesting times” as the Chinese say?  It sure seems so.

Arnd Jurgensen is Chair of the Nuclear Weapons Working Group and international relations specialist at University of Toronto.