Venezuela's decision to severely restrict oil exports to the United States signifies a fundamental shift in global power dynamics, demonstrating that smaller nations can leverage multipolarity to resist superpower coercion and assert their economic and political independence.
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Venezuela has just moved to severely
restrict oil exports to the United
States, cutting off a supply line that
American refineries have depended on for
decades. I'm John Mesheimer and I've
been arguing for years that the unipolar
moment is over, that American dominance
is not a permanent condition, that power
shifts, and when it does, the rules
change. What just happened with
Venezuela is not an anomaly. It's not
desperation. It's proof of everything
I've been saying about the structural
transformation of international
politics. This is a calculated strike at
the heart of a relationship built on
extraction, interference, and the
assumption that Caracus would always
bend to pressure. And what's happening
behind this decision is a complete
inversion of power dynamics that
Washington refuses to acknowledge. So,
let me explain to you using the
framework of offensive realism why this
matters, why it was inevitable, and why
it's just the beginning. To understand
why this moment is so crucial, we need
to go back to the late 1990s when Hugo
Chavez took power and began reshaping
Venezuela's relationship with its own
resources. For decades before Chavez,
Venezuela operated as a compliant oil
supplier to the United States. American
companies had significant control over
extraction. Refining contracts were
favorable to Washington. The profits
flowed northward while inequality
deepened in Caracus and beyond. This was
the model. Venezuela produced, America
consumed and the political class in
Caracus accepted the arrangement because
it kept them in power and kept the
system stable. This is what I call the
logic of hegemony. When you're the
dominant power in a region, you can
structure relationships to serve your
interests. Smaller states comply not
because they love you, but because the
costs of resistance are too high. Then
Chavez nationalized the oil industry. He
redirected revenues towards social
programs. He challenged the organization
of American states. He built alliances
with Cuba, with Russia, with China. and
Washington watched as a country it had
long considered within its sphere of
influence began to drift away. The
response was predictable. The United
States supported a coup attempt in 2002.
When that failed, it began funding
opposition groups, applying diplomatic
pressure, and isolating Venezuela in
international forums. But here's what's
interesting. The oil kept flowing. Even
as tensions grew, American refineries on
the Gulf Coast continued processing
hundreds of thousands of barrels of
Venezuelan heavy crude every single day.
Why? Because those refineries were built
for that specific type of oil. Switching
suppliers is not simple. It requires
infrastructure changes, new contracts,
and time. So, the relationship
continued, tense, but functional, held
together by mutual dependence. This is a
key concept in international relations.
Interdependence can constrain even great
powers. America needed Venezuelan oil
just as much as Venezuela needed
American markets. Then in 2017, the
sanctions era began. The Trump
administration imposed restrictions on
Venezuelan debt. Then it sanctioned the
state oil company PDVSA.
Then it froze billions of dollars in
Venezuelan assets held in American
banks. The Biden administration
continued the policy with only minor
adjustments. The goal was clear.
Collapse the Venezuelan economy, force
regime change, and reinstall a
government friendly to American
interests. Now, from a realist
perspective, this made a certain kind of
sense. If you can strangle a rival's
economy without firing a shot, why
wouldn't you? Economic coercion is
cheaper than military intervention and
carries fewer domestic political costs.
But there was a fundamental
miscalculation here and it's one I see
repeated over and over in American
foreign policy. The assumption was that
Venezuela had no choice. Without access
to American markets, without the ability
to use the dollar for transactions,
without international legitimacy,
Caracus would eventually capitulate.
This assumption was based on a unipolar
worldview. It assumed that America's
structural power was so overwhelming
that resistance was feudal. The
sanctions were devastating. Make no
mistake, oil production fell from over 3
million barrels per day to below 500,000
at the lowest point. Hyperinflation
destroyed savings. Millions fled the
country. International trade nearly
stopped. Yet the government in Caracus
survived. It adapted. It found new
buyers in China and India. It rebuilt
parts of its infrastructure with help
from Russia and Iran. And it waited.
This is what I mean when I talk about
the importance of understanding power transitions.
transitions.
The world was changing underneath
American policymakers feet, but they
were still operating with outdated
assumptions. Sanctions can devastate
economies, but they don't automatically
produce political outcomes. In fact,
they often produce the opposite. They
rally domestic support around besieged
governments. They create incentives for
sanctioned states to cooperate with each
other. And they accelerate the
development of alternative economic
systems that reduce dependence on the
west. What changed? The world began
shifting toward multipolarity. This is
the core of my argument about
contemporary international politics. The
unipolar moment, that brief period after
the Cold War when America stood alone as
the world's sole superpower, is over.
China has become an economic superpower
capable of offering financing, trade,
and political cover to nations that defy
the West. Russia retains significant
military power and energy resources.
Regional powers like India, Turkey and
Brazil are asserting independence. In
this environment, the costs of defying
the United States have decreased and the
benefits have increased. Let me be
precise about what I mean by structural
shift. Power in international politics
is not just about military capability or
GDP. It's about the options available to
states and the constraints they face. In
a unipolar system, a small state like
Venezuela has few options. Defying the
hegeimon means isolation, economic
collapse, or military intervention.
Compliance is rational because
resistance is futile. But in a
multipolar system, small states have
choices. They can play great powers
against each other. They can find
alternative patrons. They can survive
economic warfare by diversifying their
relationships. Venezuela calculated that
it could survive sanctions, rebuild its
economy through alternative
partnerships, and use its oil resources
as leverage in a tight global market.
That calculation was correct. And here's
what's crucial. This wasn't just about
Venezuela's agency. The structural
conditions made this possible. China
needed energy and was willing to pay.
India wanted discounted crude amid
global price volatility. Russia and Iran
shared expertise on managing isolated
economies. Venezuela didn't act alone.
It acted as part of a coalition of
sanctioned and semi-aligned states
building parallel systems. This is the
multipolar world I've been describing.
It's not about ideology or values. It's
about the distribution of power creating
space for alternatives to American
hegemony. So let's look at what actually
happened in recent months. In late 2024,
the Venezuelan government announced it
would prioritize oil exports to Asia and
reduce shipments to the United States by
more than 60%. This was not framed as
retaliation. It was framed as economic
pragmatism. Chinese and Indian buyers
were offering better terms, paying in
currencies other than the dollar, and
not attaching political conditions to
their purchases. Within weeks,
Venezuelan crude shipments to US Gulf
Coast refineries dropped from roughly
400,000 barrels per day to under 150,000.
150,000.
Refinery operators in Texas and
Louisiana began scrambling for
alternatives. Some turned to Canadian
heavy crude, but the logistics were
complicated and the chemistry was
different. Others look to Mexico, but
Mexican production has been declining
for years and cannot fill the gap. The
official statements from Caracus were
measured but pointed. Venezuela's oil
minister declared that the country would
no longer accept being treated as a
subordinate supplier while facing
continuous economic warfare. There was
no mention of reversing the decision.
There was no negotiation offer. This was
presented as a done deal. Now, American
officials downplayed the situation. The
State Department said the US energy
sector was resilient and could adapt.
The Department of Energy pointed to
strategic reserves and domestic
production increases. But behind the
scenes, industry insiders were alarmed.
Gulf Coast refineries are critical
infrastructure and they were designed
decades ago with Venezuelan heavy crude
in mind. What traditional media is not
telling you is that this was not a
sudden decision. Venezuela has been
quietly diversifying its export markets
for more than three years. Agreements
with Chinese state oil companies were
signed as early as 2021.
Indian refiners began increasing
purchases in 2022.
What you're seeing now is the
culmination of a long-term strategy, not
a reaction to a recent event. And the
timing is deliberate. Global oil markets
are tight. OPEC plus has been managing
supply carefully. The war in Ukraine
disrupted Russian exports to Europe. US
strategic reserves were drawn down
significantly and have not been fully
replenished. In this environment, losing
access to 400,000 barrels per day of
heavy crude is not trivial. It puts
pressure on prices. It forces costly
adjustments and it exposes the
vulnerability of a system that assumed
compliant suppliers would always be
available. Let me explain something
about the logic of sanctions that most
people miss. Once you impose sanctions,
lifting them becomes a political
problem. It looks like weakness. It
rewards defiance. So even when sanctions
clearly aren't working, governments are
reluctant to reverse course. This
creates what I call the credibility
trap. The policy fails, but admitting
failure is too costly. So the policy
continues and the failure deepens.
Venezuela exploited that trap perfectly.
It endured the pain, found alternatives,
and now operates from a stronger
position than it did 5 years ago.
Meanwhile, the United States is left
with refineries that cannot easily
replace Venezuelan crude, higher energy
costs, and a diminished reputation for
strategic competence. This goes back to
a fundamental principle of power
politics. Credibility matters. When you
threaten consequences and those
consequences don't produce the desired
outcome, your credibility erodess and
once lost, credibility is difficult to
rebuild. For the United States, this
presents a strategic dilemma.
Maintaining dominance requires
credibility, but credibility requires
successful outcomes. When sanctions
fail, when coercion backfires, when
allies drift away, credibility erodess.
The assumption in Washington was that
economic pain would translate into
political surrender. But history shows
that's rarely the case. States endure
extraordinary hardship when their
leadership believes survival is at
stake, and they become more, not less,
resistant to external pressure.
Venezuela's decision to block oil
exports to the United States is a
rational response to what I would call
an irrational policy. Washington treated
Venezuela as a subordinate that could be
coerced indefinitely. Caracus responded
by finding new patrons, new markets, and
new sources of legitimacy. Now, this is
not just about Venezuela. This is part
of a broader trend that validates
everything I've been arguing about the
multipolar world. Watch what's happening
across Latin America. Mexico is
asserting energy sovereignty and
limiting foreign investment in its oil
sector. Brazil is expanding trade with
China and participating in bricks
discussions about alternative
currencies. Argentina is exploring WAN
denominated trade deals. Bolivia and
Nicaragua are deepening ties with
Russia. This is not coincidence. This is
a region re-evaluating its relationship
with Washington and finding that
alternatives exist. The era of the
Monroe Doctrine, even in its modern
forms, is ending. Not because America
chose to step back, but because the
conditions that enabled dominance have
changed. And there's a critical
financial dimension here. Venezuela is
increasingly conducting oil sales in
yuan in rupes and through barter
arrangements that bypass the dollar
entirely. This reduces the effectiveness
of US financial sanctions and
contributes to the gradual erosion of
dollar dominance in global energy
markets. Every transaction that occurs
outside the dollar system weakens the
primary tool of American economic
coercion. The dollar's role as the
global reserve currency depends on
network effects. It's valuable because
everyone uses it. But if enough actors
start using alternatives, those network
effects weaken. Russia sells energy and
rubles and yuan. China promotes the yuan
for trade settlement. Saudi Arabia
discusses non-doll oil sales. These are
not isolated events. They are symptoms
of a system under stress. So what does
this mean going forward? In the next 5
to 10 years, we will see more
resourcerich countries leveraging tight
markets to assert political and economic
independence. We will see more
cooperation among sanctioned states. We
will see more institutions and financial
systems designed to operate outside
western control. The bricks block is
expanding. The Shanghai Cooperation
Organization is deepening. Alternative
payment systems are being developed.
These efforts are still in early stages,
but the trajectory is clear. The
unipolar world is fragmenting and the
tools that maintained it are losing
effectiveness. Venezuela has
demonstrated that even a relatively
small country under immense pressure can
resist a superpower if it finds the
right partners and waits for the right
moment. The question now is not whether
other countries will follow, but how
many and how quickly. Caracus is not
begging for sanctions relief. It's
moving forward without American
approval. It's selling oil to buyers who
pay fairly and respect sovereignty. It's
rebuilding its economy on terms it
controls. This is what the multipolar
world looks like. States pursue their
interests based on the constraints and
opportunities created by the
distribution of power. When that
distribution shifts, behavior changes
accordingly. What we're witnessing is
not a temporary disruption. It's a
fundamental recalibration of power. The
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