“Which makes it all the more striking that one plausible reason has been so absent from the discussion: democracy“
You’ve put your finger on something that has been bugging me too. While I don’t think “democracy” is a good enough reason to justify this aggressive of US military action, I also think it’s by far the *best* reason. Maduro has absolutely no legitimate claim to leadership of a nominally (and only nominally these days) democratic country, Venezuelans themselves clearly wanted him gone, and many (though it’s hard to tell how many) are very happy with the actions the US took. It’s why I’m happy Maduro is gone, even as I’m very concerned about how we got there.
So it’s confusing why this is not how the Trump Administration is framing the issue, even if just rhetorically…until you remember that Trump himself unsuccessfully tried to do in 2020 what Maduro successfully did in 2024: stay in power after losing an election. I just don’t believe Trump thinks that’s a bad thing, and so he’s certainly not going to use it as justification for his actions against Maduro, even if he could maybe use it to win over some people who care deeply about democracy and human rights.
I think the lack of pro-democracy spin is simply because Trump couldn't care less about fostering democracy in foreign countries and it's completely implausible that he would. One of the most consistent themes of his administration has been the constant sucking up to dictators and absurd hostility towards democratic allies.
If they were going to at least pretend this was about supporting democracy then step #1 would be to support the opposition that actually won the last election. Trump has no interest in doing that, so here we are.
Maduro and Venezuela are easy targets for the US to bully, high profile but extremely weak targets in our hemisphere. I doubt Trump's thinking has gone much beyond that, given the total lack of a convincing rationale or any sort of day after plan.
"I disagree with the notion that there’s no Trump doctrine. It seems more or less obvious to me that Trump: (1) views the world as led by great powers led by great leaders; (2) great powers need to be respected; (3) lesser powers can and should be exploited, and if you instead ally with them you are a sucker missing an opportunity and not a great leader; (4) everything is zero sum. This leads to a basic foreign policy of (1) unwinding American international commitment with weak powers; (2) expanding our influence locally in the western Hemisphere; and (3) staying out of the way of other great powers in their spheres of influence."
Well put. More succinct and accurate, imho, than any description of the "Trump doctrine" I've seen in a mainstream outlet.
Great post. I'm no expert on this stuff but I do think this is a good example of Trump as sort of "man out of time." See Matt Zeitlin on how Trump seems totally "80's brained" on energy by not realizing that the geopolitics of oil have changed a lot since then, the US is now a net exporter not importer of oil, so the calculus of "getting the Venezuelan oil" is quite different (see also how Trump's proposal to support US oil companies in Venezuela with US tax dollars would probably undercut the domestic industry in Trumpy areas on the Gulf Coast (whoops!) and probably be a political disaster to boot) https://x.com/MattZeitlin/status/2008582247851716701
Likewise the whole operation seems a bit like a throwback to 19th Century imperialism where you get rid of an obstante king to install a more pliable prince to ensure access to markets and raw materials. Which is quite different than the neocon idea of spreading democracy through force or even Cold War era regime change where you want to build up a strong (if oppressive) state as a bulwark against communism etc.
Personally I just don’t see much evidence this is about oil at all. I think a lot of liberals (myself included, for a while) bought into the myth that the Iraq War was about oil, and that’s shaped how people have thought about all future foolhardy presidential military excursions ever since. I could certainly be wrong, but I think the folks who are framing this as all about oil are likely not really on the right track. Though I suppose we’ll see,
Agree Iraq wasn't really about oil, it was much more complex than that, but the fact Trump keeps saying this is about oil strikes me as strong evidence it is about oil. But then again it might end up being one of those historic mysteries like why the Argentine military junta decided to invade the Falklands, even now it's still kind of mysterious...
I always was told that the most plausible explanation for the Falklands was the desire of the Junta to distract attention from Argentina's bad economic conditions (and other domestic problems). I've read that explains Mussolini's adventurism in Africa. These "wag the dog" explanations have some empirical support in an economics article by Hess and Orphanides: US lame-duck presidents are less likely to engage in military adventures than first-term presidents who preside over a recession. This also fits this current episode--given that Trump doen't worry about standing for re-election, but might want to remain in power.
I agree with your point 25--this seems to be the Trump "doctrine." And the dangers in this are I think well discussed by David French in today's NYT. I'm not a political scientist, but as I remember from, say, "Triangulating Peace," the idea that all nations are better off if each leaves other countries alone and don't try to exploit other countries' territory for gain goes back to the Treaty of Westphalia, and has been slowly strengthened as a norm for these intervening hundreds of years (with some obvious backsliding along the way!).
One other point: a system with three (3) big powers is in theory quite unstable: two always have an incentive to gang up on the other. There is a literature on this, but I most recently heard the economist Marcus Brunnermeier talk about this wrt economic spheres, where he concludes that five is the next stable number of spheres after one (1) and two (2). An unstable system of nuclear powers is a bit scary to me.
Trump has been a Russophile all his adult life, so much so that it's hard to change his thinking on it. But every time he's seemed to waver on this, it's been because a) Putin tripped over his own shoelaces again, and b) Ukraine tricked Putin yet again.
Emphasize how much of Putin's tough-guy bluster is a facade. Prigozhin almost took him out in 2023! Ukraine, which has no navy, basically controls the Black Sea!
“Which makes it all the more striking that one plausible reason has been so absent from the discussion: democracy“
You’ve put your finger on something that has been bugging me too. While I don’t think “democracy” is a good enough reason to justify this aggressive of US military action, I also think it’s by far the *best* reason. Maduro has absolutely no legitimate claim to leadership of a nominally (and only nominally these days) democratic country, Venezuelans themselves clearly wanted him gone, and many (though it’s hard to tell how many) are very happy with the actions the US took. It’s why I’m happy Maduro is gone, even as I’m very concerned about how we got there.
So it’s confusing why this is not how the Trump Administration is framing the issue, even if just rhetorically…until you remember that Trump himself unsuccessfully tried to do in 2020 what Maduro successfully did in 2024: stay in power after losing an election. I just don’t believe Trump thinks that’s a bad thing, and so he’s certainly not going to use it as justification for his actions against Maduro, even if he could maybe use it to win over some people who care deeply about democracy and human rights.
I think the lack of pro-democracy spin is simply because Trump couldn't care less about fostering democracy in foreign countries and it's completely implausible that he would. One of the most consistent themes of his administration has been the constant sucking up to dictators and absurd hostility towards democratic allies.
If they were going to at least pretend this was about supporting democracy then step #1 would be to support the opposition that actually won the last election. Trump has no interest in doing that, so here we are.
Maduro and Venezuela are easy targets for the US to bully, high profile but extremely weak targets in our hemisphere. I doubt Trump's thinking has gone much beyond that, given the total lack of a convincing rationale or any sort of day after plan.
"I disagree with the notion that there’s no Trump doctrine. It seems more or less obvious to me that Trump: (1) views the world as led by great powers led by great leaders; (2) great powers need to be respected; (3) lesser powers can and should be exploited, and if you instead ally with them you are a sucker missing an opportunity and not a great leader; (4) everything is zero sum. This leads to a basic foreign policy of (1) unwinding American international commitment with weak powers; (2) expanding our influence locally in the western Hemisphere; and (3) staying out of the way of other great powers in their spheres of influence."
Well put. More succinct and accurate, imho, than any description of the "Trump doctrine" I've seen in a mainstream outlet.
Great post. I'm no expert on this stuff but I do think this is a good example of Trump as sort of "man out of time." See Matt Zeitlin on how Trump seems totally "80's brained" on energy by not realizing that the geopolitics of oil have changed a lot since then, the US is now a net exporter not importer of oil, so the calculus of "getting the Venezuelan oil" is quite different (see also how Trump's proposal to support US oil companies in Venezuela with US tax dollars would probably undercut the domestic industry in Trumpy areas on the Gulf Coast (whoops!) and probably be a political disaster to boot) https://x.com/MattZeitlin/status/2008582247851716701
Likewise the whole operation seems a bit like a throwback to 19th Century imperialism where you get rid of an obstante king to install a more pliable prince to ensure access to markets and raw materials. Which is quite different than the neocon idea of spreading democracy through force or even Cold War era regime change where you want to build up a strong (if oppressive) state as a bulwark against communism etc.
Personally I just don’t see much evidence this is about oil at all. I think a lot of liberals (myself included, for a while) bought into the myth that the Iraq War was about oil, and that’s shaped how people have thought about all future foolhardy presidential military excursions ever since. I could certainly be wrong, but I think the folks who are framing this as all about oil are likely not really on the right track. Though I suppose we’ll see,
Agree Iraq wasn't really about oil, it was much more complex than that, but the fact Trump keeps saying this is about oil strikes me as strong evidence it is about oil. But then again it might end up being one of those historic mysteries like why the Argentine military junta decided to invade the Falklands, even now it's still kind of mysterious...
I always was told that the most plausible explanation for the Falklands was the desire of the Junta to distract attention from Argentina's bad economic conditions (and other domestic problems). I've read that explains Mussolini's adventurism in Africa. These "wag the dog" explanations have some empirical support in an economics article by Hess and Orphanides: US lame-duck presidents are less likely to engage in military adventures than first-term presidents who preside over a recession. This also fits this current episode--given that Trump doen't worry about standing for re-election, but might want to remain in power.
I agree with your point 25--this seems to be the Trump "doctrine." And the dangers in this are I think well discussed by David French in today's NYT. I'm not a political scientist, but as I remember from, say, "Triangulating Peace," the idea that all nations are better off if each leaves other countries alone and don't try to exploit other countries' territory for gain goes back to the Treaty of Westphalia, and has been slowly strengthened as a norm for these intervening hundreds of years (with some obvious backsliding along the way!).
One other point: a system with three (3) big powers is in theory quite unstable: two always have an incentive to gang up on the other. There is a literature on this, but I most recently heard the economist Marcus Brunnermeier talk about this wrt economic spheres, where he concludes that five is the next stable number of spheres after one (1) and two (2). An unstable system of nuclear powers is a bit scary to me.
Matt, WRT your #25:
Trump has been a Russophile all his adult life, so much so that it's hard to change his thinking on it. But every time he's seemed to waver on this, it's been because a) Putin tripped over his own shoelaces again, and b) Ukraine tricked Putin yet again.
Emphasize how much of Putin's tough-guy bluster is a facade. Prigozhin almost took him out in 2023! Ukraine, which has no navy, basically controls the Black Sea!
Do this, and suddenly Ukraine will get all the US weapons it needs.