History, Rewritten by Power

Chethana Janith, Jadetimes Staff

C. Janith is a Jadetimes news reporter and sub-editor covering science and geopolitics.

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How will the world change following the US incursion into Venezuela? This article will discuss the repercussions of the American operation into the Bolivarian Republic.

Image Source: (dobetter.esade/ AI Generated)

And suddenly everything changed

This article could make forecasts for Asia for 2026, but there will not be any. More precisely, there will be almost none – for the simple reason that the world changed on January 3. It would seem that it is already difficult enough to shock our contemporaries; conflicts are breaking out all over the globe, topics and people in the news are changing with kaleidoscopic rapidity, technological progress is already beginning to border on the absurd, the information confrontation between the Western and non-Western world is intensifying, the insanity of Western (especially European) politicians is growing stronger with age: the younger, the worse…The list of surprising negative trends is extensive, and it seems the United States set themselves the task of invading Venezuela to achieve a “wow effect” in the most deplorable sense of the word.

On January 3, we woke up in a world where injustice is openly committed, where aggression is not an isolated and punishable phenomenon, but a seemingly self-evident and justified phenomenon, where interference in internal affairs is no longer just something that the Western world has been doing more often covertly, verbally condemning this concept and trying to reproach its competitors for the same thing, but the norm, practically unopposed and openly promoted by the US president from his tribune. Here power reigns, and nobody seems to remember or talk about international law anymore, except Russia and other BRICS countries. Here there is rigid realism, and the strong have the final say.

History repeats itself

At the same time, the rapid development of events with the American attack on Venezuela, the capture of President Nicolas Maduro, and the speeches of Donald Trump and his colleagues, who have already taken it upon themselves to decide Venezuelan citizens’ future, seems bizarre at first glance. However, this is a case in which either the story is developing according to well-thought-out patterns, or one is suddenly teleported into the past, like the hero of one of the novels of the brilliant American science fiction writer Clifford Simak, “Time Is the Simplest Thing.” But unlike the book’s dead past, the current situation is alive and well.

To understand American politics, one should recall the Monroe Doctrine, the coups in Chile and Guatemala, Panama and the Dominican Republic, monsters being trained in El Salvador, the support of dictator Batista in Cuba and the constant threats to the security of this small but truly heroic island state after the change of power, the incitement of civil wars in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, interference in the affairs of each Latin American state, and bringing many scoundrels to power.

All of this has happened before: the deployment of special forces, blitzkrieg tactics, and the use of force against political leaders. Perhaps the most egregious case to this day remains the capture of Panamanian President Manuel Noriega in 1990 (also followed by his transport to the United States and trial on drug trafficking charges). So, the pattern is clear and familiar. One could even say that it is not merely a pattern, but a veritable set of infamous historical clichés.

“This is different”

And this set of clichés is really being instrumentalized at a new turn of history, with renewed force and arrogance, more prominently and practically on live television. Sovereignty? No, you haven’t heard. A fair fight? Come on! International law? What for? The concept of diplomatic etiquette? What is that? Morality and ethics in international relations? Take a glance at Trump’s baseball cap. Congressional authorization? For Goodness’ sake! It was, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio puts it, “not a military operation; this is different…”

Perhaps now the question is no longer whether it really is different or not, but rather the development prospects for the international system as such. How will we navigate such a world? Forecasts have yet to come, but today there will be only two.

Firstly, it can be expected that such a radical change in the legal (or rather, completely illegal) landscape in international relations will encourage countries of the non-Western world to more actively turn to their traditional historical experience of self-defense and defending their rights and interests. For example, China is likely to use stratagems in its policy even more often than before. Vietnam will also do the same. India will bring to light its diverse strategic heritage, and will think about how to use it more effectively to protect itself and its foreign relations.

Due to the richness of cultures and their extensive (especially in comparison with the West) history, each non-Western civilization has sufficient heritage and experience, which is constantly being creatively rethought and should serve national interests. Russia also can, and likely will, turn to its many thousands of years of history, the experience of protecting its own interests, devising a foreign policy course, reaching all its objectives, and achieving victories in military conflicts as quickly as possible through fighting against enemies, bandits, traitors to the Motherland, and the like. Our experience is truly vast, spanning various historical epochs, including the modern stage (for example, the principles of dealing with terrorists, which were exhaustively formulated by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in the early 2000s).

Secondly, US policy (as well as the actions of the rest of the Western world, which are far from the concepts of international law) will stimulate even greater consolidation of the non-Western world, the world majority, the Global East, and the Global South, and strengthen their ties with each other. Moreover, these relations will be not only mainly political, representative, economic, and cultural in nature, but also involve military and technical exchanges, rapprochement and cooperation between the armed forces, maintaining contact between them, and in some cases may even lead to the creation of new military alliances. These alliances could be both bilateral and multilateral, may have vague outlines, cautious formulations, a small set of obligations, and atypically complex rules, but they will be formed, and this will also become a new reality for world politics.

The question of how we will navigate such a world is yet unanswered. We do not choose the time in which we live. People live, love, hope, work, build states and international relations during all times. The constant and growing risks to the world and life that humanity faces should only make its existence more significant, meaningful, and vivid. Even international relations.