Backyard Wars Are Back
The U.S. seizes Maduro as Moscow fumes, Beijing watches, and Trump tightens his grip on the Western Hemisphere
This is World Briefing Plus — our Saturday edition reserved exclusively for paid subscribers.
While much of the world is easing into the holiday lull, geopolitics has other plans. Overnight, the United States launched a stunning operation in Venezuela: precision strikes on strategic targets, U.S. soldiers on the ground in Caracas, and the swift removal of Nicolás Maduro and his wife. By morning, the strongman was gone - en route to face “narco-terrorism” charges in New York.
The implications ripple far beyond Venezuela. Moscow rushed to condemn Washington’s “destructive, especially military, interference from outside” even as Russian-supplied air defenses in Venezuela failed to mount any meaningful response. China and Iran are watching closely. And once again, a central promise of the Trump era - that of a “peace president” - looks increasingly detached from reality.
In today’s World Briefing Plus video, I connect the dots: what this operation says about U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, why America’s rivals were unable - or unwilling - to intervene (at least so far), and how this moment may mark the emergence of a far more muscular, unapologetic “Donroe doctrine” of power. (Around noon-time ET, Trump said the U.S. will “run the country” for the foreseeable future with “designated people”).
If you value independent analysis that goes beyond the headlines - grounded in decades of field experience, not talking points - I invite you to upgrade to World Briefing Plus. Your subscription directly supports on-the-ground reporting, deeper video analysis, and the time it takes to connect global dots others miss or choose to ignore. In a moment when power is being reasserted and rules are being rewritten in real time, serious context isn’t a luxury - it’s essential.
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