The new year commenced with renewed conflict. Washington executed strikes within Venezuela on Saturday, targeting multiple sites.
Donald Trump announced that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his spouse were “apprehended and transported from the nation.”
Christmas Day Strikes Across Africa and the Caribbean
The strikes, evidently a regime change operation, succeeded others on Christmas Day, when Trump authorized air strikes on Nigeria and Somalia, alongside a CIA drone strike on Venezuela.
On December 29, Trump appeared at Mar-a-Lago, the southern residence of the aspiring American emperor, alongside Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.
“A significant explosion occurred in the dock area where vessels are loaded with narcotics,” Trump informed media while positioned beside the Israeli prime minister, referencing the initial land-based Venezuelan strike, one anticipated by months of lethal attacks on fishing vessels in the Caribbean. Trump characterized the strike victims as drug smugglers. Congressional members contend they resemble war crimes.
The Nigeria strikes—Washington’s first against alleged militants in the country—were publicized to media, while Somalia operations went unannounced and unreported. Somalia has faced escalating American strikes since Trump’s return to office, another protracted military intervention Western media scarcely covers.
The National Security Strategy’s Neocolonial Vision
Trump’s Venezuela attack and his African air strikes reflect the new National Security Strategy released in November. That strategy document outlined a stark nationalistic and neocolonial vision for American empire in the 21st century’s second quarter. It officially stamped the end of the postwar transatlantic era of Western unity under Washington leadership.
Additionally, the National Security Strategy clarifies that Western Europe—not Russia—has been downgraded from historic ally to problematic region where Washington will intervene by “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations” from anti-migrant “patriotic” parties. It cautions the continent could face “civilizational erasure” from migration, explicitly endorsing great replacement theory in America’s key strategic document.
The document envisions a pivot toward the 20th century when Latin America was Washington’s domain and it intervened at will to maintain economic and political control through backing authoritarian, pro-American regimes, from Cuba to Chile.
The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
“We will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine,” it declares, deploying “where necessary the use of lethal force to replace the failed law enforcement-only strategy of the last several decades,” and “Establishing or expanding access in strategically important locations.”
Trump has openly stated his desire to “reclaim our oil” from Venezuela, which nationalized its extensive oil reserves decades ago, consolidating state control under Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez. It has remained in American crosshairs since, facing crippling sanctions against oil exports.
Far-right candidates have secured power, with American backing, throughout Latin America, initially in El Salvador during Trump’s first term, and recently in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and now Chile and Honduras, establishing a series of pro-Trump allies. Nevertheless, the region’s giants—Brazil and Mexico—remain, presently, firmly controlled by democratic left governments.
Israel: The Fatal Flaw in America First Doctrine
Yet there exists one major, perhaps fundamental, deficiency to this new America First doctrine outlined in the NSS: Israel and the Middle East.
As veteran journalist Jeremy Scahill conveyed to Middle East Eye’s Ashfaaq Carim in Doha last month, since the 9/11 attacks and the George W Bush administration, “it is a mistake to see the US and Israel as separate political entities.” Washington is bound to Israel across executive and legislative branches, but as Scahill states, “Israel is a serial killer pretending to be a nation state” with “a PhD in violating ceasefires” that Trump, like Biden previously, cannot and will not acknowledge.
Trump rescued Israel from itself by terminating its annihilation war against Gaza, only to substitute it with a hybrid war of Gaza and West Bank recolonization. While the American administration executes Israel’s bidding, it must enable and conceal Israel’s endless war crimes and colonial expansions in Lebanon and Syria, inevitably becoming drawn into additional conflict.
Netanyahu again urged Washington to attack Iran during interviews on his latest American tour, connecting Tehran to Venezuela’s socialist president.
The Death of Multilateralism
The global response to an American supremacy doctrine and nation-state sovereignty means any power or state coalition can deploy the same force doctrine, as American allies already demonstrate: from European rearmament planning against Russia, to the Emirati new Red Sea empire, to Saudi Arabia attacking UAE assets in Yemen. This is what multilateralism’s death resembles.
And with the latest Venezuela attack, the world in 2026 already appears more dangerous than ever.
Original analysis by Joe Gill from Middle East Eye. Republished with additional research and verification by ThinkTanksMonitor.
