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The purpose of international law
Yesterday, the USA attacked Venezuela and captured sitting president Nicolás Maduro. You might have seen this or that pundit on international law on TV explaining how this is against the law of nations. What most people don't realize is what exactly international law is, because it works very different than national law. International law exists by consent. Breaking international law carries very little risk that you will be successfully sued somewhere, and if yes you can usually just ignore the consequences. Breaking international law carries a much higher risk that the previous consent is considered null and void, and that others now consider an action that was previously prohibited to be a valid action.
As could be seen just a few days earlier, last Monday, when Russia claimed that Ukraine had launched a drone attack on Putin's residence, there is a longstanding international agreement that you don't go after a country's leader before you haven't beaten that country in war. Think Saddam Hussein. The reason why international leaders agreed on such a rule is obvious: It is to their own personal benefit. The rule also benefits large countries more than it benefits small countries, because large countries can take over another country by war.
A country like Venezuela has zero possibility to launch a successful invasion of the United States. While it wouldn't be easy for them to attack US political leaders, at the very least that option would be a lot easier than an invasion. We have seen over the last years several examples of assassinations or attempts on US politicians, which showed that even protecting a speaker against a high powered rifle at 500 feet distance is difficult. Protecting a person against a drone attack is a lot more difficult. It isn't to the United States' advantage to have declared open season on foreign leaders.
And that is before considering a part of international law that actually can't be broken, because it is just a rule how other people will see your actions: Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule. The USA will be held responsible for whatever happens for the foreseeable future in Venezuela, and chances are that a lot of what will happen will be pretty bad. And voters will hold Trump responsible. The history of regime change is not a happy one.
- posted by Tobold @ 7:33 AM Permanent Link
This isnt like Panama or Iraq where we took out the strong man and the rest of the power structure fell in line. Maduro isnt Chavez.
We will see what happens to Venezuela and if the US resorts to more strikes if the government doesn't play ball with Trumps "plan" for the country.
: 4/1/26 14:04The Dems will make noise, but unless it benefits them directly this will soon be memory holed. There are also enough Venezuelans in the US to point out how Maduro really was that the Dems may not want to pick this battle.
Time will tell soon enough though. But I do hope the people in Venezuela have their lives improved.
: 4/1/26 15:06Anyway to the point presented in the OP. I don't think "international law" ever existed anywhere else but in the head of intellectuals who wish to believe that the world is beyond "everyone does everything they can get away with".
Attacks on other leaders aren't done, because it's mostly a waste of resources, as all leaders can be quickly replaced. There is no agreement, no "law" just simple math: do I risk my soldiers just to kill one enemy?
It only makes sense if you are damn sure who will replace him AND that the new guy will be somewhat better for you than the old one.
Which leads us to Venezuela. I point to two weird things:
- the US helicopters flew so low and open that they could be taken down by eye-aimed WW2 anti-air guns, let alone the thousands of MANPADs Venezuela had.
- the second in command of Maduro was in Russia, so the US picked a retarded time to attack, as they allowed the Maduro-regime to surely survive and rally the loyalists, who indeed rallied around the vice-president. They could have waited for to return home and capture her too.
My conspiracy theory: it was a US-Russia joint operation. The Russians convinced their buddies in Venezuela to stand down and allow the US to catch Maduro, who was trouble for everyone. Since he's gone, the Russian backed VP can form a more founctional government, who will give up the oil to the US (the Venezuelan oil industry is in ruins and needs tens of billions of $ investment to run again). The Russians will surely get lot of Venezuelan volunteers for their army.
Also the US and Russia could build some trust and goodwill. If one betrayed the other the losses were minimal (a few dozen dead marines at a Russian betrayal, losing a useless proxy at a US betrayal). Now that their op went well, they can trust each other much more.
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