Does the combined attack in Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro by the U.S. military — forcing him to appear before a U.S. court on charges brought by a foreign jurisdiction — truly change the game in international relations at the start of 2026?
For many, the answer is yes, since it is uncommon even in our time to witness such an event.
There have been very few geopolitical actions carried out as swiftly, with such nonchalance, and without even the effort to create a convincing legal pretense, especially in contemporary history.
Still, to claim that we have entered a new world order, essentially based on brute force and entirely contradicting a previous order suddenly idealized and seen as aligned with international law, is a significant leap we should be careful not to make.
Fundamentally, nothing has changed: Since the dawn of time, elements of military, political, economic, financial, cultural, scientific and other forms of power have enabled their holders to dominate the world. They always will.
What may change from one era to another is the façade given to this domination. That does not mean that international law does not exist or cannot develop.
But it always exists and evolves in the shadow of the golden rule of inequality that prevails between the nations of the earth and among men. In fact, it is shaped by these inequalities; when it is not, it falls short.
A clear and easy example lies in the structure of the United Nations. The Security Council comprises 15 member states, five of which are permanent and hold veto power.
This unequal arrangement matches the reality of the world, at least at a certain point in history.
In contrast, the General Assembly, which brings together almost all the nations on earth, is founded on perfect equality among members.
This means that the United States, Russia, and China have the same weight there as Vanuatu, Tonga, or Antigua and Barbuda. But, understandably, the decisions and texts issued by that assembly carry almost no weight compared to those of the Security Council.
Hence, it is the near-uselessness of this talkative and costly structure, which Charles de Gaulle often mocked. The great French statesman, who referred to the United Nations as "the gizmo," also believed that world affairs should be managed exclusively by the "four greats," namely the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the USSR.
So, if there is international law, it essentially stems from agreements among these four powers and nothing else. Then, what is the difference between de Gaulle’s and Donald Trump’s worlds?
There is one, to be sure, but it is purely formal: the sense of grandeur from the former versus the vulgarity of the latter.
The order established by the victors in 1945, especially in the West, was undoubtedly intended to promote the rule of law. In reality, it was the balance of nuclear deterrence between the two sides that governed the planet, with each, within their own sphere, reminding their "black sheep" of the rules.
Examples include Chile on one side, Hungary, and then Czechoslovakia on the other. Nevertheless, this state of affairs did not prevent the development of international law during and after the Cold War.
Human rights, the duty of humanitarian intervention, the management of armed conflicts, the rights of refugees, and so on — texts have flourished, but the means of armed enforcement have become ever scarcer.
It is not the law that is receding; instead, democracies are struggling. And without democracies, who will uphold the law in today’s world?
That is the real problem of our time. The right-wing and left-wing populisms that are eroding Western democratic values and distorting them are the adversaries to fight.
But how can this be achieved if democracies cannot reverse their weakening trend and, at the societal level, stop the excesses of mindless progressivism that have overtaken part of the well-meaning elite and triggered a mass backlash among the less educated, popular classes?
Donald Trump and Nicolas Maduro are both products of populist models, albeit antagonistic ones. The simplistic, caricatured rightism of the former is perhaps not radically different from the pseudo-leftism of the latter.
Still, this should in no way obscure the good news that, for many Venezuelans — and for much of the planet — the fall of this dictator represents.
Here is a leader who, following in the footsteps of his predecessor and role model Hugo Chavez, claimed to fight inequality in a potentially ultra-rich country by putting everyone in the same boat of poverty — except, naturally, the regime’s friends.
Even so, from an international law perspective, the operation that led to his downfall is illegal. This must be stated and restated. Celebration should not exclude the acknowledgment of illegality, and vice versa.
Moreover, from Lebanon’s perspective, this fall is doubly welcome as it further weakens an “axis of resistance” that, for decades, has been bent on dismantling all the country’s vital forces.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.
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