Venezuela: The Unmasking of American Resource Imperialism and the Return of Spheres of Influence

The Geopolitical Context: Monroe Doctrine 2.0

The current situation in Venezuela represents far more than regional instability—it signals a fundamental shift in international relations where great powers openly reassert spheres of influence through economic and political coercion. The Trump administration has explicitly revived the Monroe Doctrine, treating the Western Hemisphere as an exclusive American zone where external powers like China are considered strategic threats. This modern implementation involves sophisticated tools: economic sanctions, political subversion, information operations, and energy resource control mechanisms that constitute 21st-century gunboat diplomacy.

Washington’s involvement centers on Venezuela’s massive oil reserves—the world’s largest proven reserves at approximately 300 billion barrels. With American energy demands escalating due to artificial intelligence and data center growth, and the shale revolution facing structural limitations, Venezuela’s resources have become strategically indispensable. The U.S. president’s unusual candor about energy interests reveals the raw material basis of what is being framed as a humanitarian or democratic intervention.

The China Factor and Global South Implications

This crisis must be understood within the broader U.S.-China geoeconomic competition. Venezuela represents China’s significant energy foothold in the Western Hemisphere, and its potential loss would force Beijing into greater dependence on Russia—altering the global power balance. The American strategy appears designed to establish a precedent for rolling back Chinese economic influence throughout Latin America, sending clear messages to BRICS members like Brazil and other regional powers.

For the Global South, Venezuela’s case demonstrates how international law and sovereignty become secondary when Western energy interests are at stake. The selective application of rules-based order principles reveals the hypocrisy of nations that preach multilateralism while practicing resource imperialism. This intervention establishes dangerous precedents that could justify similar actions by other powers in their perceived spheres of influence.

The Dangerous Return to Realpolitik

What makes Venezuela particularly alarming is how it exemplifies the regression from post-war international norms to 19th-century power politics. The concept of spheres of influence—long condemned by Western powers when applied by others—is now being openly embraced as legitimate U.S. foreign policy. This ideological shift undermines the very foundation of the international system that the United States helped create and previously advocated.

The hypocrisy becomes particularly glaring when considering how this same sphere-of-influence logic could be applied by China regarding Taiwan or Russia regarding Eastern Europe. Washington’s actions in Venezuela provide Beijing with perfect justification for its own regional policies, effectively weakening the moral and normative arguments the West has used against Chinese expansionism. The double standard couldn’t be more obvious or more damaging to international stability.

The Human Cost of Regime Change Fantasies

History provides sobering lessons about externally imposed regime change that American policymakers seem determined to ignore. From Iraq to Libya to Syria, forced political transitions have consistently produced catastrophic human consequences rather than functional democracies. Venezuela’s complex social fabric—with its armed groups, militias, and entrenched Chavismo supporters—makes successful intervention highly unlikely without massive military commitment and nation-building efforts.

The American public’s weariness with protracted military engagements from Vietnam to Afghanistan suggests little appetite for another quagmire. Yet the logic of intervention inevitably creates escalation traps where initial involvement demands deeper commitment. The fantasy that Venezuela can be easily managed through proxy governance ignores the reality that failed states require decades of sustained investment and political stabilization—something the U.S. has consistently failed to provide in similar interventions.

The Broader Implications for International Order

Venezuela serves as a diagnostic case for the emerging global disorder where power prevails over principle and might triumphs over right. The rules-based international order—flawed though it was—at least provided smaller nations with certain protections and normative constraints on great power behavior. Its erosion particularly harms Global South nations that lack the military or economic power to resist coercive diplomacy.

The return to spheres of influence politics represents a catastrophic failure of international governance that will primarily victimize states located within great powers’ “backyards.” Middle powers and smaller states must now recalibrate their security strategies recognizing that legal frameworks alone cannot protect against raw geopolitical force. This represents a tragic regression in human civilization’s progress toward more equitable international relations.

Conclusion: Resistance and Strategic Adaptation

The Venezuelan situation demands more than rhetorical condemnation—it requires strategic adaptation from the Global South. Nations must develop new alliances, strengthen regional organizations, and create alternative financial and security architectures that reduce dependence on Western-dominated systems. The BRICS framework, regional trade agreements, and South-South cooperation mechanisms become increasingly vital as protective measures against neo-imperial policies.

We must recognize that what’s happening in Venezuela isn’t an anomaly but rather the explicit manifestation of Western foreign policy principles that have always operated beneath the surface of liberal internationalism. The mask has slipped, revealing the true face of resource imperialism that treats sovereign nations as strategic assets to be controlled rather than partners to be respected. This moment demands unified resistance from all nations that believe in genuine sovereignty and reject the barbaric return to spheres of influence politics.

The struggle for Venezuela is ultimately about what kind of world order will emerge—one based on mutual respect and international law, or one based on brute force and great power domination. The Global South must lead the fight for the former while preparing to resist the latter with every tool at our disposal.