By Paul E. Vallely MG, US Army (Ret) and Thomas McInerney, LTG, USAF (Ret)
Finally, action to cleans the Western Hemisphere. No toleration of Communism and Sharia law and their destructive effect on Nations and free-standing citizens. The U.S. conducted a flawless, very planned special operations mission in Venezuela early on Saturday morning. President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured and moved to a US Navy ship for transportation to New York for formal indictment. He will “face the full wrath of American justice on American soil,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said.[1]
Asked who will lead Venezuela, Trump told Fox News, “Well, we’re going to have to look at it right now.” Trump also said that he expects the U.S. to get “very strongly involved” in the future of Venezuela’s oil industry. Venezuela’s attorney general said innocent civilians were killed in the military strikes on several facilities in Caracas and the surrounding area.
The U.S. has been ramping up the pressure on Venezuela for months, assembling a huge military presence in the Caribbean, intercepting two fully loaded Venezuelan crude tankers, and killing dozens in strikes on boats near it alleges were carrying drugs. Many Venezuelans rejoice after news Maduro was captured, arrested and moved to the United States. “I’m extremely happy, it’s a sensation that finally people understood that Venezuela was no longer a democratic country,” said Raquel De Faria, a Venezuelan-Brazilian doctor who grew up in Venezuela and left the country in 2018 due to the ongoing political and economic situation.
Trump “took the reins,” she added. “The reality is that they are a narco-government and that needed to be controlled.” It is “a great conquest,” she said. “I feel like something huge was accomplished, a victory and what a start of the year for Venezuela.” The next 48 hours in Venezuela could prove decisive, with risks of civil conflict and uncertainty over whether U.S. involvement escalates, according to one analyst. “I think the next 48 hours are probably the most crucial in this entire scenario,” said Brian Fonseca, director of the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy. “There is a pathway that could lead to pronounced civil conflict, and may force the Americans to double down even more.” Fonseca cautioned that removing President Nicolás Maduro does not automatically dismantle the power structures around him, and that “taking Maduro out doesn’t necessarily mean that the regime goes away.” “You have a political, military elite that are as tied to the survival of Maduro as Maduro himself, in many ways,” he told NBC News.
Trump approved Venezuela action before Christmas and then delayed for four days. President Donald Trump approved the U.S. military and law enforcement actions in Venezuela more than a week ago, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the planning. Approval for the plan came before Christmas, and apparently when the mission would actually occur has been discussed almost hour by hour since then. Trump said that he expects the U.S. to get “very strongly involved” in the future of Venezuela’s oil industry now that Maduro is no longer in control of it.
“We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we’re going to be very much involved in it,” he said on Fox News.
Any major U.S. involvement in Venezuela’s oil industry could be seismic for the industry, although establishing the infrastructure to drill, store and exporting that oil would likely take years to materialize. The country currently sits on the largest proven oil reserves in the world, surpassing even the reserves of Saudi Arabia, according to the Energy Institute. United Nations Secretary General António Guterres is “deeply alarmed” by the recent escalation in Venezuela and concerned the U.S. operation will have potentially worrying implications for the region.
“These developments constitute a dangerous precedent,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the secretary-general, said in a statement. “The Secretary-General continues to emphasize the importance of full respect — by all — of international law, including the UN Charter. He’s deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected.” Trump calls Democrats questioning whether he needed congressional authorization ‘weak, stupid people’. In a phone call with Fox News, the president called his critics “weak, stupid people,” when asked directly about criticism he’s facing from Democratic lawmakers for taking action in Venezuela without congressional approval. “Well, look, these are weak, stupid people,” Trump told “Fox & Friends,” this morning, adding, “They’re trying to save themselves from almost destroying our country.”
“As far as last night is concerned, it was really genius. What they did is genius, and the Democrats, maybe they’ll take a shot, you know? They’ll take a shot. All they do is complain,” the president added later. “They should say, ‘You know what, we did a great job.’ … They do say, ‘Oh, gee, maybe it’s not constitutional.’ You know, the same old stuff that we’ve been hearing for years and years and years.” Venezuelan civilians, appearing to flee the country, gather at the border crossing in the town of Cucuta, Colombia, this morning, following a large-scale U.S. military operation to remove President Nicolás Maduro.
President Trump has moved swiftly to restore the integrity of the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine was articulated in President James Monroe’s seventh annual message to Congress on December 2, 1823. The European powers, according to Monroe, were obligated to respect the Western Hemisphere as the United States’ sphere of interest.
At the time Monroe delivered his message to Congress, the United States was still a relatively minor player on the world stage. It clearly did not have the military or naval power to back up its assertion of unilateral control over the Western Hemisphere, and Monroe’s bold policy statement was largely ignored outside U.S. borders. In 1833, the United States did not invoke the Monroe Doctrine to oppose British occupation of the Falkland Islands; it also declined to act when Britain and France imposed a naval blockade against Argentina in 1845. But as the nation’s economic and military strength grew, it began backing up Monroe’s words with actions. When the Civil War drew to a close, the U.S. government supplied military and diplomatic support to Benito Juárez in Mexico, enabling his forces to overthrow the regime of Emperor Maximilian, who had been placed on the throne by the French government, in 1867.
President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress contained the Monroe Doctrine, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. Understandably, the United States has always taken a particular interest in its closest neighbors – the nations of the Western Hemisphere. Equally understandably, expressions of this concern have not always been favorably regarded by other American nations.
The Monroe Doctrine is the best-known U.S. policy toward the Western Hemisphere. Buried in a routine annual message delivered to Congress by President James Monroe in December 1823, the doctrine warns European nations that the United States would not tolerate further colonization or puppet monarchs. The doctrine was conceived to meet major concerns of the moment, but it soon became a watchword of U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine was invoked in 1865 when the U.S. government exerted diplomatic and military pressure in support of the Mexican President Benito Juárez. This support enabled Juárez to lead a successful revolt against the Emperor Maximilian, who had been placed on the throne by the French government.
Almost 40 years later, in 1904, European creditors of a number of Latin American countries threatened armed intervention to collect debts. President Theodore Roosevelt promptly proclaimed the right of the United States to exercise an “international police power” to curb such “chronic wrongdoing,” in his so-called Roosevelt Corollary (or extension) to the Monroe Doctrine.
While the Monroe Doctrine’s message was designed to keep European powers out of the Western Hemisphere, Roosevelt would strengthen its meaning to justify sending the United States into other countries of the Western Hemisphere. As a result, U.S. Marines were sent into Santo Domingo in 1904, Nicaragua in 1911, and Haiti in 1915, ostensibly to keep the Europeans out. Other Latin American nations viewed these interventions with misgiving, and relations between the “great Colossus of the North” and its southern neighbors remained strained for many years.
In 1962, the Monroe Doctrine was invoked symbolically when the Soviet Union began to build missile-launching sites in Cuba. With the support of the Organization of American States, President John F. Kennedy threw a naval and air quarantine around the island. After several tense days, the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw the missiles and dismantle the sites. The new updated 21st Century Monroe Doctrine (Donroe Doctrine by President Donald J. Trump) may well look like the following global picture. The ‘Donroe Doctrine’ is Trump’s plan for the Western Hemisphere. The Donald Trump administration seeks to design the new hegemony and alignments from the Artic to the Antarctic. its obsolete air and missile bases in Turkey.[2]
The Western Hemisphere must be aligned to protect the area and countries from the influence of China (CCP), its borders, essential and rare minerals, trade routes, mutual trade without tariffs, security arrangements and Democratic principles of governing. It is recommended that initiatives be pursued to engage Cuba to be a new territory of the United States as Puerto Rico is. The Panama Canal should be managed by the United States and Panama. Greenland as well to become a US territory. The treasures of materials in the Artic and Antarctica must be protected. Maybe Canada becomes a part of the United States. Many Canadians would support that especially the middle and Western provinces of Canada. There must be changes in Canada or they face a major evolution. The Donroe Doctrine for a 21st Century Realignment of the Western Hemisphere.
There will be changes in the Western Hemisphere in the years to come led by the United States. Changes are coming. What will they look like?
[1]NBC News, 1.3.2026
[2] National Archives, Milestone Documents.
