America’s new doctrine of capture

By taking over a sitting head of state, Washington has replaced international law with the doctrine of unilateral access, writes Imran Khalid.

FOR NEARLY FOUR CENTURIES, the global order has been based on the foundation of Westphalian sovereignty: the idea that a state has exclusive authority over its territory and that a head of state is protected from the jurisdiction of foreign courts.

This principle has not only been challenged in recent times; It was dismantled. capture Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were taken by US special forces in Caracas and transferred to US custody aboard the USS Iwo Jima before flying to New York, marking the birth of what we might call the “Decapitation Doctrine”. This is a shift that moves the world away from universal law and towards a system where geography determines your level of immunity.

Embers Management’s justificationOperation Absolute Determination” is framed as an act of law enforcement rather than an act of war. Washington bypassed the United Nations and the traditional mechanisms of international conflict, relying on a narco-terrorism indictment filed in the Southern District of New York.

The message is as clear as it is shocking: The United States no longer views recognition of a foreign leader as a bar to domestic prosecution. If a leader is convicted by the Department of Justice, he would be subject to the same rights as any cartel boss.

This development is a logical, albeit extreme, outcome of a decade of eroding global norms. We have seen the steady decline of multilateral institutions and the rise of transactional diplomacy. But the United States is doing more than pursuing a fugitive by “managing” Venezuela as President Trump promised on January 3. He makes a new statement Monroe Doctrine For the 21st Century.

This updated version suggests that the United States will act as judge, jury, and jailer in its own hemisphere. This is a return to a “sphere of influence” model, where the rules of the road are written by the regional hegemon.

To understand the seriousness of this moment, it is necessary to look at the history of sovereign immunity. The international system has been operating on the “fiction” of equal sovereignty since the mid-17th century. Whether a nation was a global empire or a small principality, its leader was seen as the personification of the state and thus beyond the reach of foreign domestic law.

This was not a moral judgment, but a practical decision designed to prevent an endless cycle of criminal trials between nations. By breaking this seal, the USA signaled that sovereignty is no longer an absolute right, but a privilege granted by the powerful to the obedient.

The legal community was understandably alarmed. If the United States can arrest Maduro based on a domestic indictment, what’s stopping other powers from doing the same? We are entering the “Legal Wild West.” Imagine a future in which a court in Tehran issues an arrest warrant for a European defense minister, or a court in Moscow indicts a Baltic leader for “crimes against the Russian state.” By removing the shield of sovereign immunity, the United States has introduced a level of personal vulnerability to world leaders that will inevitably lead to a more paranoid and defensive international climate.

This concern is already evident in UN Security Council debates over the legality of the operation, with Russia expelling US diplomats in retaliation and China halting debt talks with Venezuela.

This “judicialization” of foreign policy also sets a dangerous precedent for domestic policy. When foreign policy is conducted through the lens of criminal law, it becomes difficult to make the necessary concessions of diplomacy. You cannot negotiate a peace agreement with someone you label as a common criminal.

In the past, the United States often used “golden bridges” to allow dictators to gracefully leave power. Ferdinand Marcos or Jean-Claude Duvalier. By opting for a New York courtroom over a quiet exile, the United States may find that future dictators will choose to fight to the bitter end rather than risk a life sentence in a Brooklyn cell.

As a matter of fact, on January 5, Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court; Maduro declared himself “kidnapped” and a “prisoner of war”, while his wife emerged with visible injuries from the raid (a gash above her eye and a gash on her forehead).

Moreover, American officials’ transitional control of Venezuela, bolstered by the initial presence of the USS Iwo Jima, creates a political vacuum that may be legally impossible to fill. While Vice President Delcy Rodriguez The reality on the ground is one of America’s trump cards, a fact that has received “unconditional support” from Maduro’s son, who was appointed as acting president by the Supreme Court of Venezuela and extended an olive branch to Trump. Now Maduro’s successor will face the “proxy problem.”

In a period of intense nationalism, a leader appointed or protected by Washington will struggle to gain the domestic legitimacy needed to govern. This is compounded by Cuba’s report that 32 police officers were killed in the raid, Venezuela’s nationwide manhunt for Maduro supporters, and Switzerland’s freeze on assets linked to Maduro.

We are witnessing the transition from the world of rules to the world of access. The United States has demonstrated that its sphere of influence is unrivaled; But the long-term stability of the international system depends on more than the ability to lure a dictator out of his bedroom. This depends on a common understanding of where one state’s power ends and another’s begins.

Washington may have achieved a tactical mastery in blurring that line in Caracas, but in response it left the global order in a state of deep and dangerous uncertainty as oil markets soared and protests spread to US cities.

Imran Khalid is a geostrategic analyst and international relations columnist. His work has been widely published by respected international news organizations.

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