After US move on Venezuela, analysts see rules-based order at risk

PARIS — Following the United States capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a strike over the weekend, and renewed comments by U.S. President Donald Trump claiming Greenland, Defense News asked analysts in Europe and elsewhere to comment on the impact on the global rules-based order, the NATO alliance and Europe. Below is a selection of comments gathered via email and by phone, and some posted on social media:

How the U.S. action impacts the rules-based international order:

“This is a flagrant violation of international law, which was developed to ensure peace and security in the world,” said Jean-Pierre Maulnay, deputy director at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, or IRIS. “Beyond the legal aspects, the political consequences could be very damaging, specifically for us Europeans. It is now impossible to promote the message that Western democracies are meant to be held up as a model.”

“In kidnapping Maduro, the Trump administration purposely puts itself outside the international order,” said Sven Biscop, acting director-general of the Egmont Institute. “Instead of a multilateral order in which all states have a say (even though, of course, some are more equal than others), Trump seeks to divide the world between the U.S., Russia, and China.”

“If Europe wants to maintain a rule-based order, it will have to act itself to save it. Stop being afraid of the U.S. reaction, therefore: Trump’s NSS (National Security Strategy) is already a declaration of hostilities against the EU. The all too prudent reactions following Maduro’s kidnapping are a grave error of judgement: this is not about Venezuela, but about Trump’s strategy for the world.”

“It suffices to say that other states could be more emboldened to carry out actions to remove hostile foreign leaders — although few have the capabilities to pull it off as cleanly as the U.S. did,” said Giuseppe Spatafora, a research analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies.

“It is highly likely that recent U.S. action in Venezuela will embolden authoritarian states,” wroteTong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a post on X. “U.S. actions like the Venezuela operation allow authoritarian states to lower their threshold of acceptable behavior. (…) When international public opinion shifts toward tolerating more problematic behavior in general, authoritarian states are likely to act more boldly.”

“I’m not one to cite Thucydides all the time, but the saying, ”The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” bears repeating these days. Europe’s decision makers should take note,” said Fabian Hoffmann, doctoral research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project, University of Oslo, in a post on Bluesky.

“You cannot cheer America’s illegal attack on Venezuela while condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s threats against Taiwan,” wrote Jessica Berlin, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, on Bluesky. “Selective application of international law means no rule of law.”

The consequences for NATO:

“The trans-Atlantic partnership is only relevant as long as it serves U.S. interests,” said Hans Peter Michaelsen, an independent defense analyst and former member of the Royal Danish Air Force. “This means that European NATO allies must find a much closer cooperation and try to act together as the Euro pillar of NATO.”

“The United States’ security guarantee within NATO is becoming increasingly illusory,” said Maulnay at IRIS.

“NATO may continue to exist, but since Trump sees Russia as a partner rather than a threat, the alliance is not actually important to him,” said Biscop at the Egmont Institute.

“Minimizing public infighting among NATO allies is crucial, any visible discord plays right into Kremlin’s hands,” said Roger Hilton, a research fellow at GLOBSEC.

On the implications for Europe:

“Europeans should be reacting just like the group of Latin American countries are,” said Nathalie Tocci, Director at the Istituto Affari Internationali. “Through our ambiguity and silence we’re behaving as colonies, which can only tickle Trump’s imperial ambitions.”

“Europe’s stakes in the region go beyond Greenland: the Caribbean region includes EU territories such as Aruba, Curacao and French Guyana,” said Spatafora at the EUISS. “Also, the majority of cocaine flowing out of Colombia and Venezuela goes to Europe via the South Atlantic. Hence, Europe should be concerned about future developments, especially the risk of regional instability if Venezuela collapses or if other countries are targeted.”

“After this episode, it is becoming illusory to bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table to negotiate a balanced peace in Ukraine,” said Maulnay at IRIS. “It is a huge threat for European Union security.”

On Greenland:

“Greenland remains a concern, even though the U.S. has not recently made any military moves towards the region,” said Spatafora. “It would be best for Europeans to show to the U.S. that attempting to foment a change in Greenland would be costly to Washington, it would be a disaster for allied cooperation and would be a gift to the Chinese and Russian presence in the region which the U.S. claims is a national security risk. All the U.S. goals can be attained through cooperation with Denmark and Europe. This may need to be shown not just in words but in actions.”

“Denmark has already begun revitalizing Greenland’s strategic capability through recent infrastructure and defense, benefitting both U.S. Arctic cooperation and economic opportunities,” said Hilton at GLOBSEC. “These and the prospect for deeper U.S.-Danish collaboration should be communicated to Trump’s special envoy Jeff Landry, who could help demonstrate that Denmark is taking concrete steps to address strategic gaps.”

On the impact for Taiwan:

“China was very surprised despite such a deployment of U.S. forces, because they saw it as a scare tactic similar to what they are doing with Taiwan,” said Francesco Sisco, director of the Appia Institute. Still, the country won’t see the U.S. action as a green light to invade Taiwan, he said. “The Chinese know that Taiwan is not a semi-failed state like Venezuela, they know that the U.S. and Japan are close to Taiwan – much closer than China was to Venezuela – and they know this was a surgical strike, which is beyond China’s capabilities. A full scale invasion of Taiwan would be a different ball game.”

“China already does not view a military takeover as violating international law, since it defines Taiwan as an internal matter,” said Zhao at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. |”Still, watching the international community accept recent U.S. actions will almost certainly convince Beijing that a military move against Taiwan would be far easier for the world to swallow.”

On Ukraine:

“For Trump, peace in Ukraine is not an objective in its own right, but an instrument to normalize relations with Russia,” said Biscop at the Egmont Institute. “For Putin, therefore, this American strategy is very good news. Has Trump indicated red lines to Putin? He certainly seems willing to sacrifice large parts of Ukraine.

“Thus far, Europe has been able to avoid a deal that would force too many concessions upon Ukraine. But what if for Trump even the sovereignty of certain current EU and NATO members is not a red line? Even if a peace agreement for Ukraine could be concluded, none of this serves to durably contain Russian ambitions.”