Donald Trump ordered the US military and CIA to abduct Venezuela’s president Maduro and his wife  – and in a stunning raid against the Venezuelan capital, the US military did just that.  It was a confronting use of military force by America that will make others fear American aggression, but it will also embolden major powers like China and Russia in their own neighbourhoods.

General Dan Caine, head of the US military, described “Operation Absolute Resolve’ as a hugely complex orchestration of 150 warplanes along with helicopters, special forces and cyber effects.  That all looks true.

Venezuela’s military uses mainly Russian equipment, like S-300 anti-air missile systems, along with Sukhoi 30 fighters.  US planes like E/A-18 Growlers would have targeted the air defences and others seem to have attacked a major airbase and port, to prevent a Venezuelan response.  Delta Force troops inserted by helicopter into the compound housing Mr Maduro and his wife did the actual abduction and seem to have killed the most Venezuelans, including Maduro’s security team.  Early reports have around 40-80 casualties, with around half a dozen US military personnel wounded.

The Delta Force personnel apparently trained for weeks on mock ups of the safe house.  Details of Mr Maduro’s movements and where he was concealed and of nearby military basess nearby will have come from intelligence gathered by US agencies and informers within the Maduro regime.

At its core, the special forces abduction looks similar to the 2011 raid into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden, although, this recent operation attacked defensive systems and facilities that could have engaged the US personnel.

Is this something only the US could pull off?  In South America, yes, because the US operation was enabled by a large offshore naval presence and geographic proximity. But unfortunately, if political abductions by military force are now an accepted way of changing unwelcome foreign governments, then others – like Russia, China and Israel – have the capacity for adventures like this. China’s leaders will be gleefully polishing their own options sets for Taiwan. 

Unlike the US special forces, China’s military has not been training for weeks on a mock-up of their intended target – at a base in Inner Mongolia, they have been training on replicas of the Taiwanese presidential office building and other facilities since at least 2015.  And China has plenty of agents and informants inside Taiwan, even pro-China figures ready to take power if the opportunity arises. China’s military has also built the kind of extended military America just used to wrap around its own special forces operation aimed at capturing or killing Taiwan’s leadership. 

Before the weekend, Xi Jinping would have been very concerned about the international reaction to this kind of illegal use of force.  But now he has a fresh precedent set by America, the key nation at the core of Western political and military alliances.  His calculation now is about the tactical proficiency of his own forces and about Taiwan’s ability to defend itself.

Over in Moscow, Vladimir Putin will be remembering his military’s failed attempt to move into Kyiv and capture or kill President Zelensky in the opening hours of the Ukraine war back in February 2022.  He may be ordering a fresh look at options for a similar raid now by his Spetsnaz teams as a short cut to ending a war that has already resulted in over 1 million killed and wounded Russian soldiers.

The big takeout from the Maduro abduction is that Donald Trump has put meat on the words in his National Security Strategy about the US dominating the Western hemisphere. He has also underlined his philosophy about it being natural for major powers to do this in their own neighbourhoods.  Whether Venezuela changes for the better now that Maduro’s deputy is in power is the bigger question beyond the US military’s tactical success.

Military raids targeting smaller nations who have massively less military power tell us a lot about the power-driven world of 2026 – and about the unpredictable but aggressive America we are now living with.  But they tell us very little about the wider military balance between peer powers like China and America.  So, while other countries inside America’s ‘sphere of influence’ – like Colombia – will be alarmed about what might come next, leaders in Moscow and Beijing will be taking stock and making plans.

Many governments are reluctant to call out Donald Trump’s illegal use of force and are focusing instead on how little time they had for ousted President Maduro.  Meanwhile plenty of chest beating is going on about how amazing the US operation was. 

Unfortunately, licencing big powers to bully their smaller neighbours – and seeing our irreplaceable ally set the pace on this – is all bad news for Australia and the world.

This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review