Today’s Venezuela will have a long and unpredictable road to travel before it can escape the shadow of the Noriega era. Operation Absolute Resolve will either bring the United States to the summit of hegemony or act as a fuse that ignites the collapse of the rules-based global order.

(Social media @realDonaldTrump)In May 2024, I penned an article that framed Europe’s existential dilemma starkly: either fade into obscurity as the "conti

In 2025, Ukraine gradually changed from a battlefield confrontation to a complex contest centered on cease-fire terms, postwar arrangements and the responsibilities of the world’s major powers. The war in Ukraine did not end in 2025, but a new reality was clearly defined.

America’s actions in Venezuela lay bare the lengths Trump’s administration will go to uphold American hegemony in the Western hemisphere. The rest of the world now must operate around the real potential of American military intervention until further notice.

For a mathematician, 2025 might stand out for being a “perfect square”: 45 multiplied by 45, a rare symmetry. But its significance goes far beyond numerical elegance – it marks the year the postwar global order expired, and a new one was about to be born.

The most important question stemming from America’s intervention in Venezuela is not whether it violated international law and norms, but what it reveals about the future of the liberal international order. Contrary to what some commentators say, that order is not collapsing, since its core pillars remain in place and the alternatives to them are still weak. But sustaining it will now involve more frequent discretionary US actions, and it will become increasingly unclear where the thresholds for future interventions lie.

When lawless behavior by powerful nations can be carried out with virtual impunity—with no significant international opposition—a civilized world order founded on rules rather than brute force can no longer be guaranteed.

Underneath the public press jabs that go on between East and West, the realm of resource competition is reshaping the relationships between Europe, China, and Russia as states move to secure immediate needs of oil and other resources.

The international community looks to the United States to be a champion of partnership, not to reduce global health to a mere tool of geopolitical competition. The choice Washington makes now will echo for generations.

The United States remains committed to global primacy. That’s been a longstanding ambition that cuts across party lines inside the Beltway. Its security doctrines, diplomatic rhetoric and military posture continue to project the image of an indispensable nation whose umbrella guarantees the survival of allies from Europe to Asia. Yet beneath this facade, a widening gap has emerged between Washington’s strategic ambitions and its material capabilities.