The US action in Venezuela, while seemingly a display of power, signifies a contraction of American global influence and a retreat into asserting dominance within its own sphere, a shift that redefines the US role and creates dangerous vacuums exploited by rivals like Russia and China.
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It was dark and it was deadly.
>> Trump's attack on Venezuela and the
remarkable capture of Maduro,
>> it was an incredible thing to see,
>> is less a triumph of American power than
a symptom of its contraction. It
indicates a weakening US power,
expanding its regional sphere of
influence while abandoning its global
one. This is the biggest redefinition of
the US role in the world since World War
II. I mean, I watched it literally like
I was watching a television show. And uh
if you would have seen the the speed,
the violence, it was an amazing thing.
>> This is theatrics. Trump is intoxicated
by the theatrics of war. He [snorts]
relishes the spectacle, the momentary
surge of dominance, like a more dramatic
version of a TV rating spike, and the
knowledge that his act of war will
eventually slide out of the news cycle,
only to return later as material for
Trump to reframe as myth. The United
States is shedding its claim to global
stewardship and retreating into
dominating its own sphere of influence.
This retreat carries a dangerous
corollery because of course Russia and
China must therefore have a sphere of
influence of their own. America asserts
its control over its backyard from South
America to Greenland. China asserts
control in East Asia. Russia in Eurasia,
India is in between. And then there is
Europe. And Europe is in theory
America's ally. that in practice it is
neither ally nor foe but a kind of
irrelevant expendable space from Trump's
point of view. Now it's funny and
unfunny that as Trump attacks Venezuela
and captures Maduro, Europe's response
is to escalate its degree of monitoring
the situation very closely.
>> I want to ensure that I've got all the
facts at my disposal. In a world sliding
into a politics of spheres of influence,
Europe does not obviously have a sphere
of influence of its own. Indeed, Eastern
Europe and Western Europe can't even
agree on what constitutes Europe proper.
Europe's response to the collapse of the
post 1989 global order is to pretend
that this collapse is happening more
slowly than it is. Europe's incapacity
to condemn Trump's action normatively
weakens the grounds on which Europe
condemns Putin's brutal invasion of
Ukraine. To change this, European
leaders would have to get themselves on
a stronger footing in their domestic
politics. Temocratic centrist leaders
who are besieged by a crisis of
legitimacy in their domestic politics
are not going to make good strategic
leaders on the international stage. Now,
where are the Russians in this? Putin,
like the Chinese, has backed Maduro for
years. Only a few months ago, Putin and
Maduro signed a strategic partnership
and economic cooperation agreement, and
their last official phone call dates
back to December 11th. Moreover, the
image of Maduro blindfolded and in
handcuffs is the stuff of Putin's
nightmares because that is Putin's
ultimate fear about his own potential
end. But but but but [music] but Ukraine
matters to Putin a thousand times more
than Venezuela. And while Russian
officials have condemned Trump's [music]
actions, Putin as yet hasn't. Moreover,
in recent history, Putin hasn't done
much to help Maduro. Contrast this with
2018 when upon the US declaring the
election in Venezuela illegitimate, the
Russians sent 100 military personnel and
two strategic bombers. Essentially Putin
is admitting the Monroe Doctrine here.
He knows that the corollery of America
running its backyard is that Russia may
be allowed to run its own backyard.
There is then a challenge that Trump's
action presents for Putin. Namely, it
generates pressure on Putin from the Z
radical side. There are many
disanalogies between Putin's invasion of
Ukraine and Trump's attack on Venezuela.
However, one thing that stands out
pictorially is Trump's sublime and
instant success and Putin's spectacular
incapacity to overwhelm Ukraine in four
years of war, having lost hundreds of
thousands of personnel and the whole
army full of military equipment. Several
Z radical accounts mocked the Kremlin on
Telegram and even Mr. Dugan's account
posted, "Do as Trump does." But overall,
this is a net gain for Russia because
Trump's actions advance Putin's vision
of the world. Now, where or who is next?
First, everybody in South America and
Central America knows that their
sovereignty is no more fragile than it
used to be. Second, Greenland annexation
is now a serious risk. There is no
reason why Trump can't declare the US
military bases their sovereign American
territory. Three questions matter to
Trump. Is Greenland in our sphere of
influence? Do they have resources we can
exploit? And will it make good TV? And
the answer to all three of these
questions is yes. Thirdly, Trump's
action can't embolden Putin in Ukraine
because he's already maximally
emboldened. But it can embolden Putin to
escalate his hybrid war against Europe.
Because if Venezuela is Trump's, then
Putin can think that Estonia and Poland
are certainly Putin's. And fourthly,
it's important for us to keep two things
in mind at the same time. On the one
hand, Maduro is an illegitimate
authoritarian and a political disgrace.
On the other hand, Trump's actions make
the world a more dangerous place, make
America weaker and do nothing to help
democratic forces in Venezuela.
Understand that from Maduru bad, it does
not follow that Trump's actions are
good. Fifth, Trump's remark that America
will run Venezuela is magical thinking
because first decapitating the regime
does not eliminate the regime. It's
still there without Maduro and
eliminating the regime is not something
you can do without collapsing the state.
So there is no plan whatever for what
happens next. Six, the attack on
Venezuela captures a rare convergence
inside the Trump administration. Here,
Donald Trump's might is right politics
align with the interests of the neocons
inside the administration. Venezuela and
Iran function as a kind of ideological
reservation for neocons. Marginalized on
China and compelled to tolerate
grotesque indulgence of the Kremlin.
Submissive neocons in the Trump
administration led by Marco Rubio are
allowed to have a little party in this
limited domain. Now, having analyzed
Trump's action politically, I want to
ground it ethically for us. The attack
on Venezuela is an arbitrary political
action inspired not by lies, but by
power that stops even pretending to tell
the truth and relies on spectacle to
make truth irrelevant. Its actions are
justified not by lies, but by the
performance itself. We're not going back
to the 1930s, but this particular
element of fascism will be part of the
authoritarianism to come in the West.
That doing bad things with shiny success
makes them right. This power is
scornful, not just of international
norms, [music] US citizens, Venezuela's
citizens, America's allies, but of truth
itself. In some respects, this is
special to our post-truth age. But it is
also universal. When empires decline,
they become insular and lose patience
with reality. Trump's politics are
repellent because they embody decay and
post truth with such unmbarrassed
brashness. Yet their ugliness should not
obscure the ideological logic at work, a
logic which Trump himself does not
understand. But if you want to
understand it as Trump doesn't, then
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