THIS is with reference to the report ‘US grabs Maduro in outrageous Venezuela raid’ (Jan 4). The attack by the United States on Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife through kinetic military action constitute a direct use of force against a sovereign state. It not only breaches Venezuela’s territorial integrity, but also its political independence, which is a clear violation of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter.

Dispatching armed forces into another country to abduct its head of state squarely qualifies as ‘aggression’ under international law and is unequivocally illegal. Yet, as the Greek philosopher Thucydides famously said, “the powerful do whatever they can and the weak suffer what they have to”.

On what moral or legal grounds, then, can the West object if tomorrow China launches a ‘special operation’ to seize the president of Taiwan, or Russia tries to do the same with Volodymyr Zelensky? No sovereign tolerates another sovereign within its territory, nor does international law permit such a conduct.

The end of the Cold War emboldened the US. Having emerged victorious, with Russia weakened and China still developing, the US found itself without a peer competitor and entered endless wars, often without serious consideration of long-term consequences.

From Afghanistan to Iraq, from Libya to Syria, and from shielding Israeli war crimes to using Ukraine as a pawn, the US-led West has behaved as the global policeman, repeatedly violating the very international order it established after the Second World War.

These actions have not only weakened the order, but also shattered the myth of Western credibility and moral authority.

US hegemonic actions have affected not only its adversaries, but its allies as well. Europe’s influence began eroding after the Second World War, but after the Cold War its strategic autonomy became deeply compromised. Acting largely as a collection of US satellite states has had profound, psychological and political consequences for Europe.

What the world is witnessing today in Eastern Europe, Gaza and now Latin America reflects not confidence, but frustration, the turbulence of a collapsing power struggling hard to preserve fading dominance.

At the same time, a rising China and revisionist Russia are building their case by investing in and engaging with the Global South, which constitutes nearly 80 per cent of the world’s population, positioning themselves, rightly or wrongly, as alternatives to a Western order that increasingly appears selective, coercive and self-serving.

History shows beyond doubt or debate that all great powers eventually fall after reaching their peak. The US is no exception.

Abdullah Ali
Karachi

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2026