MARIANNE MERTEN: How those with money and might thrive in an anything-goes world

The world has changed. Military force has trumped the UN’s rules-based international order, constructed for members’ protection from the threat or use of force and sovereign equality.

Or, as political theorist Antonio Gramsci wrote in his Prison Notebooks amid the rise of fascism and authoritarianism in 1930s’ Europe: “The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”

The repercussions of Saturday’s US military seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, go beyond the Americas. From the word go, US President Donald Trump made no bones about also facilitating access for US oil companies to Venezuela’s state-run oilfields, the world’s largest. US oil company shares have gained in consequence.

This situation illustrates the confluence of elite interests in politics and business — not the public good. It also underscores how today’s democracy seems to favour elites, while citizens caught in crises of cost of living, education and employment are increasingly disillusioned with democracy. Opinion polls and research show how such disillusionment fuels the turn to right-wing populism.

The US described bringing Maduro to a New York court on drugs and related charges as a law enforcement operation. But to execute a warrant of arrest in another country, that country’s permission is required. This didn’t happen.

The UN charter allows military action in self-defence against the use of force. Drug running does not fit this definition. Comparisons have been made to the capture of Panama strongman Manuel Noriega, who was convicted on drug counts in the US in 1991.

From across Latin America and the Caribbean condemnation of the US military action came fast as US commentary escalated against Colombia, Mexico and Cuba. An exception was Argentina, which in late 2025 received a $20bn currency swap bailout as its free-marketeer president, Javier Milei, and Trump remain on good terms.

Monday’s emergency UN Security Council meeting was called by Colombia and supported by South Africa’s Brics colleagues China and Russia, which condemned US bullying and armed aggression. South Africa highlighted that military action yielded instability, citing Libya, Iraq and “countless cases in Africa where foreign interventions and interference create security crises and undermine national governance institutions”.

South Africa highlighted that military action yielded instability, citing Libya, Iraq and ‘countless cases in Africa where foreign interventions and interference create security crises and undermine national governance institutions’.

In Europe, responses remained lukewarm even as Trump ratcheted up talk of US national security requiring the annexation of Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark where moves towards independence are gaining traction. As European countries did not recognise Maduro’s controversial 2024 election, reactions focused on a future peaceful transition to a democratic Venezuela to end decades of human rights abuses and repression.

Yet the Venezuelan regime and patronage networks, and the military, remain in place alongside structures of repression. These are now headed by Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, who is under pressure to do as the US says or “pay a very big price”, as Trump told The Atlantic. Read: oil field access for US companies.

Whether that will happen remains uncertain. But a democratic government with the legitimacy to unravel the mismanagement, human rights violations and repression of Maduro’s regime is unlikely to arise from the use of force by an outside country. The rules-based international order sets out sanctions, diplomacy and other peaceful means, including international court litigation.

In a nod to populists and authoritarians everywhere, the US’s military seizure of Maduro and his wife broke with this approach. Whether it has broken the rules-based international order completely remains to be seen. But the start of 2026 has highlighted how disrupted global geopolitics needs a new global diplomacy.

Right now it seems it’s an anything-goes world for those with money, might and manufactured legitimacy.

• Merten is a veteran political journalist specialising in parliament and governance.