The Venezuela Precedent: Implications for Asia

by | Jan 6, 2026 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

Introduction: The Return of Great Power Imperialism

When US forces seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, the operation represented more than a dramatic departure from recent American foreign policy. As David French argues in his incisive analysis, it marked a fundamental return to 19th-century power politics—a world where might makes right, where the strong dominate the weak without restraint, and where the carefully constructed legal and diplomatic architecture built after two world wars crumbles in favor of what President Trump calls the “Donroe Doctrine.”

For Asia, and particularly for small, strategically positioned states like Singapore, the implications are profound and alarming. The Venezuela operation doesn’t merely set a precedent—it demolishes the very principles that have allowed small nations to thrive in a world of giants.

The Clausewitz-Aquinas Framework Applied to Asia

French frames international relations as an eternal tension between two models: the Clausewitzian view of war as mere policy continuation, and the Aquinian doctrine of just war requiring lawful authority, just cause, and just purpose. For the past 80 years, the United States has—imperfectly but meaningfully—championed the latter, creating a rules-based order that constrained great power ambitions.

Asia’s modern prosperity was built on this foundation. The post-1945 settlement, reinforced after the Cold War, established principles that allowed small nations to exist as truly sovereign entities rather than as satrapies of regional hegemons. Singapore’s very existence as an independent city-state—rather than as a subordinate territory of a larger neighbor—depends on this order.

But Trump’s unilateral military action in Venezuela, conducted without congressional authorization, without UN Security Council approval, and without even consultation with the democratically elected Venezuelan opposition, represents a complete abandonment of Aquinian restraint in favor of naked Clausewitzian power politics.

The Asian Parallel: China’s Watching and Learning

The most immediate implication for Asia is that China is watching this precedent with intense interest. For years, Beijing has chafed against the constraints of the UN Charter and international law, particularly regarding Taiwan, the South China Sea, and its borderlands. Western criticism of Chinese assertiveness has rested on the argument that great powers cannot simply impose their will on smaller neighbors—that international law, sovereignty, and the UN Charter matter.

The Venezuela operation obliterates this argument.

If the United States can unilaterally invade a sovereign nation, arrest its leader (however odious), and then threaten to “run” the country while negotiating favorable economic deals, on what moral or legal grounds can it object when China does the same in its sphere of influence?

Consider the specific Asian scenarios that become more plausible under this new dispensation:

Taiwan: The Most Obvious Parallel

Beijing has long maintained that Taiwan is a renegade province. Under the old rules-based order, any forcible reunification would face coordinated international opposition, sanctions, and potential military intervention. But if the US precedent holds that:

  • Indicting a leader transforms military action into “law enforcement”
  • Unilateral action without international authorization is acceptable
  • Great powers can impose their will on smaller neighbors in their sphere of influence
  • Post-operation, the aggressor can dictate terms to remaining authorities

Then China has a roadmap. Beijing could indict Taiwan’s leadership for “separatism,” conduct a “law enforcement operation” to arrest them, install a compliant government, and negotiate reunification terms—all while citing the Venezuela precedent.

The psychological impact cannot be overstated. For decades, Taiwan’s security rested on the assumption that Chinese aggression would be unambiguous, that international law was on Taiwan’s side, and that the US commitment to Taiwan was grounded in principle, not merely in shifting geopolitical calculations. The Venezuela operation undermines all three assumptions.

The South China Sea: From Legal Disputes to Naked Power

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and other Southeast Asian nations have contested China’s nine-dash line claims through international legal mechanisms. In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled decisively against China’s claims. Beijing rejected the ruling but faced international pressure to respect it.

Under the emerging Trump doctrine, legal rulings become irrelevant. If disputes are resolved through power rather than law, China’s massive military advantage in the region becomes the only factor that matters. Why should Beijing respect a tribunal ruling when Washington doesn’t respect the UN Charter?

Myanmar and Troublesome Neighbors

China has long been frustrated by instability on its borders—from Myanmar’s chaos to North Korea’s unpredictability. Under the old order, Beijing had to manage these problems through influence, economic leverage, and diplomacy. But the Venezuela precedent suggests a different approach: simply indict troublesome leaders for drug trafficking or crimes against humanity, conduct a “law enforcement operation,” and install more compliant successors.

This isn’t hypothetical. French notes that Trump is already threatening to strike Iran, mentioned Colombia and Cuba as targets, and suggested “running” Venezuela. If the US president can openly discuss military operations against multiple sovereign nations based on his personal assessment of their behavior, why can’t Xi Jinping do the same?

The Alliance Spiral in Asia

French’s most chilling historical insight is that when great powers abandon restraint, smaller nations form defensive alliances, which then create the conditions for regional conflicts to escalate into global wars. This is precisely how World War I began: Austria-Hungary’s aggression against Serbia triggered Russian mobilization, which activated a cascade of alliance commitments.

Asia is already primed for this spiral:

Existing Alliance Structures

The region features overlapping and competing alliance systems:

  • The US alliance network (Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand)
  • China’s growing partnerships (Russia, Pakistan, increasingly Myanmar and Cambodia)
  • Cross-cutting relationships (India’s strategic autonomy, ASEAN’s balancing act)

The Acceleration Effect

If the US is no longer seen as a guarantor of the rules-based order but rather as an unpredictable great power pursuing its own interests through force, several dynamics accelerate:

First, arms races intensify. If international law doesn’t protect sovereignty, military strength becomes the only guarantee. Japanese rearmament accelerates. South Korea may reconsider its nuclear options. Vietnam and Indonesia boost defense spending. The Philippines faces a crisis: align completely with a now-aggressive America, or accommodate China?

Second, nuclear proliferation becomes logical. If might makes right, and if the US can arbitrarily strike nations it dislikes, why wouldn’t South Korea, Japan, or even Taiwan pursue nuclear weapons? The logic that restrained proliferation—that international institutions and alliances provide security—collapses when those institutions are revealed as hollow.

Third, China and Russia deepen their partnership. The Venezuela operation confirms their worldview: the US is an aggressive hegemon that must be balanced. This accelerates military cooperation, joint exercises near US allies, and coordination on everything from energy to technology to military equipment sales.

Fourth, fence-sitters are forced to choose. ASEAN’s principle of centrality, its careful balancing between powers, becomes untenable when the choice is between an aggressive America and an aggressive China. Every nation must choose a patron.

Singapore’s Acute Vulnerability

For Singapore, these dynamics are existential. The city-state’s prosperity and security rest entirely on the functioning of a rules-based international order. Consider Singapore’s specific vulnerabilities:

Geographic Reality

Singapore is a 728-square-kilometer island at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, flanked by much larger neighbors (Malaysia and Indonesia). Its water supply depends on Malaysia. Its trade depends on international sea lanes. Its very existence as an independent nation—rather than as part of Malaysia or Indonesia—rests on the principle that small states have as much right to sovereignty as large ones.

The Venezuela precedent directly threatens this principle. If the US can invade Venezuela simply because it finds Maduro objectionable and wants to negotiate oil deals, what prevents Indonesia from deciding that Singapore’s independence is an inconvenient historical accident that should be corrected? Or Malaysia from asserting control over water resources through “law enforcement operations” against Singaporean officials indicted for whatever pretext?

The Hub Economy Model

Singapore’s economy is built on its role as a neutral, stable hub—for finance, trade, technology, and services. This model depends absolutely on:

  • Rule of law: Businesses invest because contracts are enforceable and property rights are secure
  • Neutrality: Singapore prospers by serving all sides, not by taking sides
  • Stability: The hub model requires predictability and security

All three pillars are threatened by a return to spheres-of-influence politics. If Singapore must choose between American and Chinese spheres, it loses its neutral hub status. If international law becomes meaningless, the legal predictability businesses rely on erodes. If the region descends into arms races and alliance confrontations, stability disappears.

The Military Impossibility

Singapore maintains capable armed forces, but it cannot defend itself against a determined attack by any regional power, let alone by China or the US. Its security has always depended on making war against Singapore more costly than it’s worth—through military readiness, certainly, but more fundamentally through making Singapore’s destruction contrary to everyone’s interests.

This worked when great powers had overlapping interests in maintaining a stable, open international system. But in a world of spheres of influence, where might makes right, Singapore becomes a prize to be contested rather than a neutral party to be preserved.

The Malacca Dilemma

The Strait of Malacca, which Singapore controls alongside Malaysia and Indonesia, is one of the world’s most critical waterways. Eighty percent of China’s oil imports pass through it. Under the old order, Singapore’s control of this chokepoint was balanced by international law and its own neutrality.

But in a conflict scenario under the new power-politics paradigm, why wouldn’t China simply seize control of the strait through a “law enforcement operation,” perhaps indicting Singaporean leaders for “threatening freedom of navigation” or some other pretext? The Venezuela precedent establishes that great powers can invent legal justifications for military action and face no meaningful consequences.

The Memory Problem: Asia’s Unique Position

French emphasizes that restraint is more persuasive when people remember world wars. The architects of the UN had lived through two catastrophic conflicts. But Asia’s memory of great power war is complicated:

Living Memory of Colonialism

Unlike Latin America, where US interventions are historical memory for most, Asia’s experience of Western imperialism is more recent. Many Singaporeans remember British colonial rule. The entire region remembers Japanese occupation. The post-colonial generation built Asian prosperity precisely by escaping from a world where powerful nations dictated terms to weaker ones.

The Venezuela operation revives these memories. It tells Asians that the post-war order—where small nations could be truly sovereign—was a temporary aberration, and that the natural order of great power domination is reasserting itself.

The Pacific War’s Lessons

World War II in Asia began with Japanese imperial expansion justified by the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”—essentially an Asian version of the Monroe Doctrine. Japan argued it was liberating Asia from Western colonialism while establishing its own sphere of influence.

That war killed over 30 million people in Asia alone. The post-war order was explicitly designed to prevent such spheres of influence from reemerging. The Venezuela operation and Trump’s explicit embrace of the “Donroe Doctrine” suggests we’re returning to exactly the kind of thinking that led to the Pacific War.

China’s Historical Grievances

Beijing constantly invokes the “Century of Humiliation”—the period from the 1840s to 1949 when Western and Japanese imperialism carved up China. The Communist Party’s legitimacy rests partly on having restored Chinese sovereignty and dignity.

The Venezuela precedent will be used by Beijing to argue that the US never actually believed in sovereignty or international law—that these were always just tools to constrain China while the US pursued its own imperial interests. This narrative will resonate across Asia and will strengthen support for Chinese assertiveness.

The Strategic Choices Facing Singapore

Singapore’s leadership now faces impossible choices:

Option 1: Align Fully with the United States

This would mean accepting that we live in a sphere-of-influence world and Singapore must be firmly in the American sphere. The logic: better to be protected by the strongest power, even if that power no longer respects international law.

Pros:

  • US military protection
  • Continued access to American markets and technology
  • Alignment with most of Singapore’s traditional partners (Australia, Japan, UK)

Cons:

  • Alienates China, Singapore’s largest trading partner
  • Sacrifices neutrality and hub status
  • Requires acceptance of American military actions Singapore might find objectionable
  • Offers no protection if US priorities shift (as they frequently do)
  • If the US can abandon Venezuela’s democratic opposition for oil deals, what guarantees does Singapore have?

Option 2: Accommodate China

Accept that Asia is China’s sphere of influence and work within Chinese-led frameworks.

Pros:

  • Aligns with geographic and economic realities
  • Potentially secures access to China’s massive market
  • Reduces risk of being caught in great power conflict

Cons:

  • Acceptance of Chinese political interference
  • Gradual erosion of political and economic freedoms
  • Loss of trust from traditional partners
  • No guarantee China will respect Singapore’s autonomy any more than the US respects Venezuela’s
  • Historical memory of authoritarian occupation remains strong in Singapore

Option 3: Desperate Neutrality

Attempt to maintain neutrality despite the collapse of the rules-based order.

Pros:

  • Consistent with Singapore’s historical strategy
  • Preserves hub economy model
  • Maintains good relations with all parties

Cons:

  • Increasingly untenable as great powers demand loyalty
  • Leaves Singapore unprotected in a power-politics world
  • Both sides may view neutrality as betrayal
  • Requires extraordinary diplomatic skill to navigate contradictory demands

Option 4: Regional Alliance

Attempt to build an ASEAN-wide or broader Asian alliance to balance great powers.

Pros:

  • Collective security through numbers
  • Preserves regional autonomy
  • Could attract support from middle powers (Australia, India, Japan, South Korea)

Cons:

  • ASEAN has never achieved meaningful security cooperation
  • Requires overcoming deep historical mistrust between members
  • Individual members have divergent interests regarding China and the US
  • Building such an alliance would take years Singapore may not have
  • Both great powers would work to undermine it

The Economic Implications

Beyond security concerns, the Venezuela operation has profound economic implications for Singapore:

The End of Economic Globalization

The post-war order enabled unprecedented economic integration. Supply chains sprawled across borders because international law and institutions made cross-border investment and trade predictable. Singapore became one of the world’s most globalized economies by facilitating these flows.

But sphere-of-influence politics means economic decoupling. If the US is establishing a Donroe Doctrine sphere in the Western Hemisphere and China establishes its own in Asia, cross-sphere economic integration becomes a liability. Companies will be forced to choose. Financial institutions will face contradictory regulatory demands. Singapore’s role as connector between East and West becomes untenable.

Sanctions Warfare

The US has already imposed a comprehensive blockade on Venezuela, cutting it off from the global economy. This demonstrates that in sphere-of-influence politics, economic weapons become as important as military ones. Singapore’s economy depends on access to both American and Chinese markets and financial systems. In a bifurcated world, this becomes impossible.

The Oil Question

Trump’s explicit focus on negotiating Venezuelan oil deals reveals a transactional approach to international relations. Singapore imports all its energy. In a world where great powers use energy access as leverage—as Russia did in Europe—Singapore’s vulnerabilities multiply. Will the US guarantee energy security? Will China? At what political price?

Technology Bifurcation

The US-China technology decoupling was already underway, but the Venezuela operation accelerates it. If the world divides into competing spheres with incompatible technology standards, Singapore’s position as a technology hub becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.

The Darker Scenarios

French warns that the “most catastrophic conflicts can start from the most modest beginnings.” For Asia, several escalation pathways become more plausible:

The Taiwan Flashpoint

If China interprets the Venezuela precedent as permission to use force in its sphere of influence, a Taiwan operation becomes likelier. But unlike Venezuela, Taiwan has implicit US security commitments, hosts critical semiconductor industries, and sits astride vital sea lanes. A Chinese move on Taiwan could trigger US military response, rapidly escalating to superpower conflict.

Singapore would face immediate crisis: Does it allow US military use of its facilities, thereby becoming a Chinese target? Does it deny access, thereby ending its alliance with America? There is no good answer.

The South China Sea Incident

Increased Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, emboldened by US abandonment of international law, could lead to incidents with the Philippines, Vietnam, or other claimants. Under the old order, these would be contained diplomatically. Under the new order, they could escalate to military confrontation, drawing in the US through its alliance commitments.

Singapore’s shipping lanes run through the South China Sea. Any military conflict there would devastate Singapore’s economy even if Singapore remains neutral.

The Korean Wild Card

North Korea has long been a potential flashpoint. But under the old order, China and the US had overlapping interests in preventing Korean conflict. In a sphere-of-influence world, where each great power is primarily concerned with dominating its own sphere, the shared interest in Korean stability diminishes.

If Trump believes he can simply strike North Korea to eliminate its nuclear program (as he’s threatened to strike Iran), and if China believes it must defend its sphere of influence, the Korean Peninsula becomes a potential great power battlefield.

The Indian Ocean Competition

India, watching both the Venezuela operation and increased Chinese assertiveness, accelerates its own military buildup and sphere-of-influence thinking. The Indian Ocean becomes a zone of intensified competition, with implications for Singapore’s western shipping lanes and its relationships with India, China, and the US.

What History Teaches: The Path to Global War

French’s historical analysis is particularly relevant to Asia. The path from the Venezuela operation to global conflict follows a well-established pattern:

Stage 1: Great power abandons restraint (US in Venezuela)

Stage 2: Other great powers follow the precedent (China becomes more aggressive regarding Taiwan, South China Sea)

Stage 3: Small nations seek protection through alliances (Asian arms races, new alliance formations)

Stage 4: Alliance obligations create trip wires (US-Japan, US-Philippines, US-South Korea treaties become potential triggers)

Stage 5: A regional incident activates alliances (Taiwan crisis, South China Sea clash, Korean conflict)

Stage 6: Great powers confront each other directly (US-China military conflict)

Stage 7: Global war (Russia supports China, US allies join conflict, economic warfare becomes total war)

This isn’t speculation—it’s the pattern that produced World War I and World War II. French’s point is that the institutional restraints built after those wars were designed to break this pattern. The Venezuela operation suggests America is abandoning those restraints.

For Asia, the geographic proximity of great powers, the density of alliance commitments, the volatility of flashpoints like Taiwan and Korea, and the depth of economic integration all suggest that if this pattern begins, it will advance rapidly.

Singapore’s Diplomatic Imperative

In this environment, Singapore’s only viable strategy is to become the world’s most vocal advocate for restoring the rules-based international order. This means:

Public Opposition to the Venezuela Precedent

Singapore must, carefully but clearly, articulate why the Venezuela operation threatens the international system. This should be framed not as anti-American but as pro-sovereignty, pro-international law, and pro-small-state rights. Singapore’s voice carries weight precisely because it has been a reliable US partner—opposition from Singapore sends a stronger signal than opposition from adversaries.

Strengthening International Institutions

Singapore should redouble efforts to strengthen the UN, ASEAN, and other international bodies. Even if these institutions cannot directly constrain great powers, they provide forums for smaller nations to collectively articulate principles and create political costs for violations.

Building Middle Power Coalitions

Singapore should work with other middle and small powers—South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic countries, Canada—to create a coalition defending international law. These nations collectively represent significant economic and diplomatic weight.

Principled Non-Alignment

Rather than choosing between US and Chinese spheres, Singapore should articulate an alternative: a world where small nations retain sovereignty by mutual adherence to international law. This means criticizing both American and Chinese violations of sovereignty and international law.

Preparing for the Worst

While advocating for order, Singapore must simultaneously prepare for disorder: diversifying security partnerships, investing in defensive capabilities, building economic resilience, and developing contingency plans for various escalation scenarios.

The Choice Before the World

French concludes that the world order depends not on every great power but on the greatest power—the United States. For 80 years, American power underwrote a system that, however imperfect, allowed small nations to thrive.

The Venezuela operation suggests America is abandoning this role. For Asia, the consequences could be catastrophic. The region’s prosperity was built on a stable, rules-based order. That order is now crumbling.

Singapore stands at the intersection of these forces—small enough to be vulnerable, strategically positioned enough to be valuable, and dependent enough on order to have everything to lose from chaos.

The memory problem French identifies is acute: those who built the post-war order remembered world war. Those now dismantling it do not. For Singapore, which remembers colonialism, occupation, and the hard-won sovereignty that followed, the stakes couldn’t be clearer.

We are watching the unraveling of the system that made Singapore possible. The forces being unleashed—great power competition, alliance spirals, arms races, nuclear proliferation, and the logic of preventive war—are forces that historically lead to catastrophe.

The question is whether memory of past catastrophes will prove stronger than the temptation of present power. For Singapore and for Asia, our future depends on the answer.

Conclusion: The Abyss Returns

In 1914, European leaders sleepwalked into a war that killed 16 million people and destroyed four empires. In the 1930s, they failed to prevent an even worse conflagration. The post-war order was built by people determined to prevent such catastrophes from recurring.

The Venezuela operation suggests we have forgotten these lessons. Trump is pursuing the “sugar high of national power” while dismantling the structures that prevented great power war for eight decades.

For Asia, and for Singapore, the implications are clear and terrifying. We are returning to a world where might makes right, where small nations exist at the sufferance of great powers, where spheres of influence determine fates, and where the logic of power politics leads inexorably toward conflict.

Singapore has no good options in this world. But it has a voice, diplomatic skill, and moral authority. It must use all three to remind the great powers—America, China, and others—that the path they’re choosing leads to the abyss.

The forces Trump is unleashing are, as French warns, beyond his control. Once great powers abandon restraint, once the rules-based order collapses, once alliance spirals begin, the path to catastrophe becomes very difficult to reverse.

For those who remember history, the warning signs are unmistakable. For Singapore, a city-state that exists only because of the international order now crumbling, the warning is existential.

The question is whether the world will heed the warning before it’s too late.