Regime change in Venezuela: Echoes of Iraq 2003
The forcible abduction of President Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores — not only Maduro’s wife but a former head of the National Assembly — along with the killing of at least 80 civilians and military personnel, including 32 Cuban guards of Maduro, clearly represents a serious violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and the United Nations Charter.
Trump’s assertive approach resembles the gunboat diplomacy of the 1850s, in which military powers seized resources from weaker nations. This confrontational approach reinforces the view that the US’s usual 21st-century foreign policy emphasises violence and dominance. The recent rise in violence and Maduro’s abduction are linked to a new National Security Strategy, issued by the White House in November 2025, that openly announces a “ Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.
The case for hemispheric dominance has roots in President James Monroe’s 1823 declaration, where he regarded Latin America as within the US sphere of influence and warned against foreign incursions, a stance known as the Monroe Doctrine. Theodore Roosevelt further expanded this concept in 1904 by introducing the “Roosevelt Corollary,” asserting that the US would act as an “international police power” to deter European interference and safeguard US interests in the Western Hemisphere.
Today, Trump's new National Security Strategy revisits the Monroe Doctrine corollary:
On December 2, 1823, the doctrine of American sovereignty was immortalized in prose when President James Monroe declared before the Nation a simple truth that has echoed throughout the ages: The United States will never waver in defense of our homeland, our interests, or the well-being of our citizens. Today, my Administration proudly reaffirms this promise under a new “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine: That the American people—not foreign nations nor globalist institutions — will always control their own destiny in our hemisphere (Trump, 2025)
The Trump administration made clear that Venezuela and its enormous oil reserves, the largest globally, are the main focus of these aggressive measures, rather than the unsupported claim that Maduro is engaged in illegal drug trade. Trump openly stated in media interviews and provocative social media posts that US military actions will only intensify “Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us”. In support of these threats, the US intercepted oil tankers at sea in a manner resembling piracy and enforced a naval blockade — an act of war intended to deprive Venezuela of resources.
The recent assault on Venezuela is not the inaugural instance of the US undertaking actions against that nation. The pressure campaign commenced in the early 2000s when Hugo Chavez endeavoured to alter the terms of existing oil agreements. During the 1990s, nearly all prominent international oil corporations were present in Venezuela, investing in and exploiting Venezuelan oil. BP, CNPC, Conoco, Chevron, ENI, Exxon, Petrobras, Repsol, Shell, Statoil and Total, among others, had significant business interests.
In 2001, Hugo Chávez's government unilaterally enacted the Decreto con Fuerza de Ley Organica de Hidrocarburos (Hydrocarbons Law), which established state ownership over all oil and gas reserves and regulated upstream exploration and extraction via state-owned companies. It did, however, allow private firms — both domestic and foreign — to participate in downstream activities such as refining and marketing sales. This action angered US oil giants such as ExxonMobil and Chevron, which called on the George W Bush Jr administration to pressure Chávez to reverse the nationalisation of the industry.
This tension led to an April 2002 US-supported coup that temporarily removed Chávez from power and placed him in detention, before widespread protests forced his return. Between December 2002 and February 2003, the White House supported an executive lockout in the critical oil sector, backed by corrupt trade union officials aligned with Washington and the AFL-CIO. After three months, the lockout ended through an alliance of loyalist trade unionists, mass organisations, and oil-producing countries overseas.
In 2007, the Chávez government initiated another wave of nationalisations, undoing the decade-long privatisation and transfer of operations to US-based corporations. This step was taken after ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips declined to agree to new terms for continued heavy oil extraction in Venezuela’s Orinoco River basin, indicating their exit from one of the world’s largest oil regions. Four other oil companies — US-based Chevron Corp, BP PLC, France’s Total SA and Norway’s Statoil ASA — signed deals to accept minority shares in the oil projects under new terms set by Chavez’s government.
Following Chávez's death and Maduro's election in 2013, Venezuela’s economy contracted sharply amid a drop in global oil prices. As a result, the country experienced widespread migration and a sharp decline in living standards. Many factors have contributed to Venezuela’s crisis, including mismanagement of oil wealth, criminality, lawlessness and the black market. While all of these have undoubtedly played a part, the global decline in oil prices has been the primary cause of Venezuela's difficulties.
In 2014, after some hesitation and discussions in the early part of the year, Saudi Arabia launched an oil price war in tandem with the US. The US supported the policy to undermine the influence of oil-dependent Russia, something it apparently considered more important than supporting its own fracking sector. Access to cheap imported oil was also considered good news for US consumers and industry in general. Whether or not there was a clearly planned and agreed strategy, there seemed to be an unmistakable convergence of interests between the Saudi and US positions.
However, this strategy of keeping oil prices down did not necessarily destroy the Russian or Iranian economies. Instead, the hardest-hit oil-producing nations were in South America and Africa, where petro-states such as Libya, Angola and Nigeria suffered. The worst-affected country of all was Venezuela, the most disastrously oil-dependent state in the world. Oil accounts for 96% of exports and more than 40% of government revenues.
This situation was worsened by strict economic sanctions imposed during Barack Obama’s Democratic administration, which have since been further intensified. The escalation of sanctions by the US government has created further difficulties for Venezuela, with Maduro blaming the sanctions for an effort to overthrow his government.
US involvement in the country since has included coup plots, attempted assassinations and the landing of mercenaries on Venezuela’s shores. The first Trump administration sought to install its preferred president, Juan Guaidó, an unelected and largely unknown right-wing legislator, whose “interim government” failed to win popular backing and was only effective at stealing millions of dollars in US aid funding.
The latest National Security Strategy document set the stage for the recent aggression toward the Venezuelan regime:
After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests (National Security Strategy, 2025: 15).
Venezuelan oil
After capturing Maduro and Flores, Trump stated at a media conference from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida: “We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” He added the goal of the intervention in Venezuela was to take control of the country and its oil resources. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars,” Trump declared. Trump warned of escalating military onslaught if there was any resistance: “We are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so.”
Venezuela is known not only for its vast oil reserves but its wealth of other vital resources. The country holds notable gold reserves, primarily in the southeast (the Guiana Highlands). Diamond deposits occur in the Guiana region, although they are less extensive than those of gold and bauxite. Venezuela also has documented deposits of copper, nickel and manganese, along with smaller amounts of coltan and cassiterite associated with emerging mining areas. Surveys suggest that significant quantities of uranium and thorium may also be present.
Major US financial firms, including hedge funds and asset managers such as Goldman Sachs, BlackRock and T. Rowe Price, are positioning themselves to benefit from Venezuela’s abundant oil and mineral resources. They are targeting distressed assets of the state oil company PDVSA, as well as opportunities in gold, diamonds, and rare-earth minerals. The Wall Street Journal reported that top hedge funds and asset managers are planning to send a delegation of about 20 business leaders to Caracas in March. They will evaluate what one investor described as $500–$750 billion in “investment opportunities,” focusing on the energy sector and infrastructure over the next five years.
Venezuela holds approximately 300–303 billion barrels of proven reserves, making up about 17% of the world's total, and slightly surpassing Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, a key point is that roughly 75% of this volume consists of extra-heavy crude from the Orinoco Belt in eastern Venezuela. These oils are similar to bitumen, with API gravity typically between 8–14°, making them highly viscous under reservoir conditions and rich in sulphur and metals.
The claim of “largest reserves” mainly refers to the largest booked quantities of very heavy and extra-heavy oil, which are especially difficult to extract. Although Venezuela has the largest total proven oil reserves, most of them consist of extra-heavy oil, which is thick and highly viscous, making it more costly to refine than light conventional oil.
Therefore, expecting quick gains from controlling these resources is unrealistic. It requires substantial, long-term investment, and even then, extracting heavy oil is only economical when global oil prices are very high. Extracting oil from the ground would necessitate staggering levels of investment to develop the required technology, infrastructure and expertise. Restoring Venezuela’s oil output to its late-1990s peak of 3 million barrels daily would need an additional $20 billion in capital investment beyond what the top five US oil companies spent worldwide in 2024, according to consultancy Rystad Energy.
Also, even if the Venezuelan oil sector is developed with significant investment from oil giants or with US state funds, this may not benefit the US economy. The shale oil sector is extremely significant for the US, transforming the country into the world’s leading oil producer, drastically reducing reliance on imports, boosting exports, reshaping global markets and providing major economic benefits. This “Shale Revolution”, powered by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, has fundamentally altered US energy security and the US’s role in the global energy landscape.
Currently, the US is the world’s largest producer of shale oil, but its production is highly dependent on continuous drilling to sustain growth. For thousands of public and private shale operators, a revitalised Venezuelan oil industry would worsen the market glut. Shale drilling is costly, and companies need a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, to trade above $60 to turn a profit. Its price fell below $56 a barrel soon after Trump’s operation against Venezuela.
Geopolitical motives
There is a clear geopolitical motivation behind this aggression against Venezuela, rather than a purely economic one. Gillian Tett of the Financial Times described Trump’s policies as “an ugly form of ‘retro imperialism’ based on a sphere of influence mantra – and naked plunder”. In the traditional sense of spheres of influence, Trump’s actions can be perceived as a strategic endeavour to prevent other powers from gaining access to Venezuela’s abundant resources.
In an interview on NBC, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked why the US needs to control Venezuela’s oil industry. He responded, “We don’t need Venezuela’s oil. We have plenty of oil in the United States. What we’re not going to allow is for the oil industry in Venezuela to be controlled by adversaries of the United States”, naming Russia, China and Iran. “This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live. And we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operations for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States, simple as that.”
In this context, the conflict with Venezuela serves a key geopolitical goal. The invasion of Venezuela and the detention of its president are, as Trump stated, intended as a “warning” to “anyone who would threaten American interests”. Referring to his new National Security Strategy, Trump declared that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.” Referring to the notorious “blood and iron” speech by the nineteenth-century Prussian military leader Bismarck, Trump hailed the assault as a reaffirmation of the “iron laws that have always determined global power.”
The immediate targets of this policy are governments in Latin America that may act against US global interests. Speaking of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Trump warned in the language of a street thug: “He has to watch his ass.” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth added, “America can project our will anywhere, anytime,” drawing a direct comparison between Venezuela and the US bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities last year: “Maduro had his chance,” he sneered, “just like Iran had their chance — until they didn’t”.
However, the threats extend beyond Latin America. Trump is warning both allies and enemies across the hemisphere. Besides Venezuela and Iran, the US conducted bombings in five other countries last year: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Nigeria in December. Trump has threatened war with Mexico, suggested annexing Greenland and Canada, and insisted that the Panama Canal remains “non-negotiable” for US control.
The message to China is explicit and assertive. Just hours before the attack, Maduro met with a high-level Chinese delegation, led by Beijing’s Special Representative for Latin American and Caribbean Affairs Qiu Xiaoqi, to emphasise energy cooperation. The US raid, coordinated with this meeting, was a provocative move intended to disrupt the expanding relationship between China and Latin America. China has already surpassed the US as South America’s main trading partner and is projected to become the leading partner across Latin America and the Caribbean by 2035.
Iraq 2003 and Venezuela 2026
The Trump administration’s actions are not only criminal but demonstrate a dangerous level of recklessness. Trump, a sharp critic of the US invasion of Iraq, will now have to heed the words of one of the US architects of the Iraq War, Secretary of State Colin Powell: “If you break it, you own it.”
Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, likened Trump’s actions to the 2003 Iraq invasion. That invasion caused severe economic collapse, rising unemployment, increased divisions within the country, more violent resistance, civil strife, and ultimately empowered certain ISIS factions. When Obama announced the official end of the Iraq war and began the troop withdrawal in 2011, Iraq was left deeply traumatised and with a collapsing economy.
The conflict lasted eight years, resulting in more than 200,000 Iraqi civilian deaths and the loss of 4492 American service members. More than 32,000 service members were injured. The war’s total cost reached about $6 trillion, it destabilised the region, and Iraq was left with another authoritarian and unstable regime. The 2003 invasion was a significant and costly error. Even some prominent advocates of the war have since labelled it “a major mistake,” a catastrophe, or the “ single worst decision ever made.”
Similar to what Trump and his administration have repeatedly announced — namely that they now care about Venezuela and promise freedom and growth for the country — just three weeks before the Iraq War began, then-president Bush made similar promises about Iraq. He addressed the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), emphasising the need to establish a “free Iraq.” By “protect[ing] Iraq’s natural resources from sabotage” and ousting the Saddam Hussein dictatorship, Bush hoped Iraqis could “fully share in the progress of our times”.
In the period leading up to the 2003 invasion, Iraq was often characterised in various media and political discourse as a nation on the brink of collapse, grappling with profound social and economic decay. Almost the same language can be found in the mainstream media in the West about Venezuela under Maduro.
The ongoing actions against Venezuela are even more reckless than Bush’s campaign in Iraq, appearing as a disaster waiting to happen. On January 10, Trump announced plans to impose a dictatorship in Venezuela, saying the country would be run by figures such as Rubio, Hegseth and other Trump officials. This ignores the reality that Venezuela, with its 30 million inhabitants and over 350,000 square miles, cannot be governed by Washington insiders. Such an occupation would demand hundreds of thousands of US troops and a challenging urban warfare campaign to deal with widespread resistance.
Trump underscored this by stating he is not afraid of having “ boots on the ground if we have to have [them].” It should be noted that the 2003 Iraq invasion involved more than 100,000 coalition troops, with a further 125,000 from the US. Over 340,000 US personnel were deployed in the region to support the campaign in Iraq.
Iraq, which has a smaller population than Venezuela, had already suffered ten years of sanctions. Still, it proved extremely difficult and costly for the US army to establish a stable system of control in the country, and eventually had to withdraw without achieving anything significant. Even in Washington, now many describe the 2003 intervention and following occupation of Iraq as “the biggest U.S. foreign policy blunder since the war in Vietnam”.
The invasion of Iraq was planned under the concept of rapid dominance and coordinated by a High-Value Target (HVT) Cell in the Pentagon. While attempting to hit Hussein through HVT, due to the kill chain time (the time between getting the intelligence and the missile impacting) being too long, many civilians were hit instead.
It was thought that drones would shrink the kill chain to zero by waiting for the target to appear and then launching a missile, without the time to assess collateral damage. During and following the invasion, precision strikes unsuccessfully targeted purported lairs of various Iraqi Commanders, as well as Hussein. Not so lucky, according to former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Marc Garlasco, were the “couple of hundred civilians, at least” who were killed in the strikes.
By invading Iraq, the second-largest crude oil producer in OPEC, the US was expecting to gain physical and strategic control over energy supplies in the Middle East. Yet the Iraq created after the 2003 invasion, in which over 7500 civilians were killed in six weeks, the “new, democratic Iraq,” from the start showed signs of weakness in terms of power and societal cohesion.
Already poor, Iraq after the invasion and by 2009 remained weak and vulnerable in all its contexts: the political, the social and the economic, being exploited, lacking internal support and any capacity to cope with the total breakdown of security. Its citizens suffered the daily attacks of neighbouring states, terrorist groups, insurgents, and the occupying forces.
Even after the occupation officially ended in 2011, the damage done to Iraq went beyond the personal safety of its citizens: it extended to the identity and values of its communities, their sense of belonging and of being protected, their sense of living in a “homeland.” The result is domestic unrest and threats to national and regional security, especially when the state is weak and therefore vulnerable.
The military occupation required to control Venezuela could also lead to a bloody and extended conflict in the country, throughout Latin America and potentially beyond. As in Iraq, it could be very costly for the occupying power and lead to human insecurity at high levels: personal, economic, political, food, health and energy.
Hegemonic decline
The Trump administration’s aggressive stance can only be fully understood within the broader crisis of US hegemony. Politically, many concealed motives likely shape Trump’s actions, including efforts to distract from the shocking revelations about the Epstein sex-trafficking network, which involved high-profile figures from the financial sector and government apparatus.
Greater US interests are at stake here. The US seeks to counteract its long-term economic decline by resorting to militarism and conflict. The bases of US global dominance have significantly weakened. Gold prices have exceeded $4300 per ounce, indicating a decline in confidence in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. With the national debt above $38 trillion, US fiscal liabilities are at record highs. This total reflects years of fiscal pressure and includes funds borrowed by the federal government, mainly through Treasury securities.
Those attempts to seize Venezuela’s oil and the renewed US influence over the Western Hemisphere are viewed by the ruling elite as crucial to maintaining its long-term economic and geopolitical power. The Trump administration appears serious about the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere, as clearly emphasised in the latest National Security Strategy document. We may be entering into a new era of rogue superpowers, ushered by Trump. All of this could be a prelude to a clear sphere of influence agreement with the powers in the Eastern Hemisphere: China, Russia, and possibly Middle Eastern oil powers.
Before Trump’s assertive campaign against Venezuela and his threats to other nations, this century had already seen tragic wars in the Middle East, North Africa and Ukraine. These conflicts are a direct result of what Giovanni Arrighi described as a Hegemonic Transition during a time of systemic chaos, where “the incumbent hegemonic state lacks the means or the will to continue leading the system of states.”
This long and protracted period of hegemonic transition from the Euro-Atlantic core to Asian economies, especially China and India, like every other period of hegemonic transition and instability in which “the old is dying, and the new cannot be born”, creates morbid symptoms. In many parts of the world, including the US and Europe, new forms of authoritarianism have emerged within the context of global crisis, severe austerity measures, economic nationalism, racism and xenophobia.
When a major power or superpower’s influence diminishes, it impacts the global order and creates instability. The US has been in decline for the past forty years, a trend that became more evident after the Cold War. Despite remaining the world’s leading economic and military power, it faces significant challenges such as sluggish economic growth and a long-term decline in its industrial sector. This decline in productive capacity, coupled with the growing disparity between productive and financial wealth, results in repeated financial and economic crises worldwide.
This mainly causes the collapse of the global order and leads many ruling elites to adopt unchecked economic and political nationalism. The West as a whole lacks the resources to support its policies in regions such as the Middle East, Africa, Ukraine and Southeast Asia. The emerging powers, on the other hand, aspire to a new world order for the global system but lack the real leadership capacity to achieve it. They are currently unable to assert their authority over regional and global conflicts. As a result, leadership, order, and governance at regional and global levels are no longer assured.
The world is currently in a fragile imbalance as the global hegemon’s decline continues, described aptly by Financial Times chief commentator Martin Wolf: “US power has retreated both geo-politically and economically, and we are living, once again, in an era of strident nationalism and xenophobia.”
Furthermore, Trump 2.0 demonstrates imperialist aggression similar to that of the 19th century. These aggressive escalations in the 19th century heightened tensions among the world’s major military powers and led to dangerous conflicts that eventually culminated in World War I.
We will have to wait and see how current geopolitics unfold to determine whether they will cause another significant global upheaval.
Bulent Gokay is professor of International Relations at Keele University. Lily Hamourtziadou is senior lecturer in International Relations & Security at Birmingham City University.
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