On January 3, reports of explosions over Caracas escalated into a system-wide event. US President Donald Trump claimed the United States carried out a “large-scale” operation, captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and flew them out of the country. Venezuelan authorities declared a national emergency and described the incident as an attack on sovereignty. Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro called for urgent UN Security Council and Organisation of American States (OAS) meetings, signalling that the region viewed this as more than a bilateral dispute.AdvertisementThe legal issue is straightforward. Under the UN Charter, use of force is generally forbidden, with narrow exceptions: Security Council permission or self-defence in response to an armed attack. Moral arguments or political grievances do not make action legal. The Charter’s practical reasoning also matters: Cross-border crime should be tackled through policing and cooperation, not force. Labelling the conduct as “narco-terrorism” might improve political optics, but it does not, on its own, lower the legal thresholds for using force across borders.The Stress Tests: Armed Attack, Necessity, ProportionalityMuch of the justification is already leaning towards a familiar tactic: Venezuela appears to be involved with narcotics networks, so force is presented as “defence”. Even with the “narco-terrorism” label, international law still raises some fundamental questions.First, does narco-terrorism qualify as an “armed attack” that triggers self-defence? Usually, no. It is generally regarded as a transnational crime — serious and destabilising — but not automatically the type of armed violence that activates Article 51 of the UN Charter. The ICJ in Nicaragua vs United States of America (para 191) distinguished between the “most grave” uses of force (which may amount to an armed attack) and lesser interference. To invoke Article 51, the violence must resemble an armed attack in scale and impact, not just in the label attached. Even if violent non-state actors are involved, attribution and the connection between the threat and the use of force on another state’s territory remain challenging questions. If trafficking is automatically considered an “armed attack”, self-defence shifts from merely repelling violence to addressing disorder — moving from policing to war.AdvertisementSecond, necessity: Were non-forcible options realistically available? This serves as a functional test. Self-defence is lawful only if force is necessary to stop an armed attack. Necessity considers whether plausible alternatives existed that did not require strikes: Requests for cooperation, arrest and extradition pathways, interdiction arrangements, or targeted financial measures. A state need not explore every tool, but it must demonstrate that force was not chosen solely because it was quicker than coordination.Third, proportionality: Was the force limited to what was necessary to stop the attack? Proportionality is not tit-for-tat; it is appropriate. The ICJ’s approach in Oil Platforms (para 51) demonstrates how thorough this review can be: Even when a state claims serious hostile acts, the Court examines whether the response satisfies lawful self-defence criteria. Scrutiny becomes more intense when the public narrative involves leadership capture or removal. Removing a head of state may be portrayed as decisive, but legally it risks being seen as political coercion rather than legitimate defence.The second legal axis: Can a state capture another state’s president?Even if one set of arguments seeks to justify the strikes, the seizure and removal of Maduro and his wife present a distinct issue: Cross-border “law enforcement” conducted through military means. If the capture took place on Venezuelan territory without Venezuela’s valid consent, it is hard to distinguish it from a coercive breach of sovereignty under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. And, given the political significance of the target, an intervention at the heart of the state. Labels may support domestic prosecution narratives; they do not grant an international-law permit to carry out an arrest operation within another sovereign state.The capture also clarifies proportionality. In terms of self-defence, the key criterion is to stop or repel an armed attack. A leadership-capture operation — especially if presented as transporting a suspect to face criminal charges — appears less as preventing an imminent attack and more as prosecution by other means. This raises the justificatory burden: Why was this coercion necessary and proportionate to defence?Why India should caremost readIndia is one of the few states with dual strategic interests. India has genuine concerns regarding cross-border threats and the misuse of territory by violent non-state actors. Simultaneously, it is keen to keep the threshold for lawful force high and unambiguous, as flexible standards tend to empower states with global reach disproportionately. For India, the Venezuela incident examines two slippery expansions: Whether “crime” can be re-labelled as “armed attack”, and whether “capture for prosecution” can be regarded as an extension of cross-border force instead of a violation of sovereignty.If these moves become normalised, the precedent will not remain in the Americas. The system shifts from a rule against force with narrow exceptions to one where force is available whenever a powerful state can justify necessity. The stakes are not about liking or disliking Maduro. They are about maintaining a clear distinction between defence and punishment, war and policing, and between sovereignty as a legal constraint and sovereignty as power.The writer is an international law researcher. Views are personal