January 3, 2026 04:13 PM IST First published on: Jan 3, 2026 at 04:10 PM ISTThe latest American strikes in Venezuela arrive wrapped, as so many interventions do, in the language of moral necessity. The “narcotics terrorism” justification is presented as an urgent imperative — decisive, surgical, ostensibly righteous. While it is important to acknowledge, without obfuscation, that Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro has been a tragedy of repression, institutional decay, and economic freefall, and a regime like this demands scrutiny and ultimately, transformation, military strikes, as modern human history shows, are never the answer.Acknowledging Venezuela’s reality cannot blind us to a deeper, older truth: Imperialism — whether pursued by Washington, Moscow, Beijing, or any aspiring hegemon — almost always overreaches. And when it does, it drags nations into conflicts they cannot control, burdens they cannot sustain, and moral contradictions they cannot explain away.AdvertisementWhat is unfolding in Venezuela today echoes a familiar script. A great power identifies a crisis, interprets it through the prism of its own strategic anxieties, and then proceeds as though its own intervention is both inevitable and redemptive. The rationalisations vary, from counterterrorism, and humanitarian rescue to narcotics interdiction, but the underlying impulse remains constant: control.Also Read | Hegseth’s ‘Kill Everybody’ order amounts to murder and should horrify AmericansWe have seen this for decades in American policy. From Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria, and now through the back door of Venezuela, the US repeatedly discovers that invading, reshaping, or “managing” another society produces outcomes it neither anticipates nor is prepared to own.But to criticise only the US would be intellectually dishonest. Russia’s brutal incursion into Ukraine springs from the same imperial muscle memory — the belief that neighbouring nations are chess pieces rather than sovereign societies. The Kremlin’s narrative of historical entitlement mirrors, almost perfectly, the rhetoric of exceptionalism that has long animated Washington.AdvertisementDifferent flags. Different rhetoric. Same pathology. Empires imagine themselves as engineers of stability. They believe that if they simply remove the “wrong” regime and install the “right” incentives, history will bend toward their vision. Yet history is stubborn.In Iraq, the toppling of a dictator gave way to sectarian fracture. In Afghanistan, twenty years of occupation dissolved in a week. In Ukraine, a reckless invasion has strengthened NATO, devastated cities, and unleashed generational trauma – while failing to deliver Moscow’s promised victory. And now, in Venezuela, US strikes risk binding Washington to the fate of a fractured state it neither understands nor is ready to rebuild.Imperial projects always carry hidden costs: Endless commitments, political backlash, moral erosion, and the haunting realisation that force can topple governments — but cannot, by decree, build legitimacy.Maduro’s governance has undeniably harmed Venezuelans. But replacing one form of domination with another is not liberation. Maria Corrina Machado, Nobel Laureate and Opposition Leader, has ostensibly tarnished the Nobel and laid her power intentions bare, by openly praising Trump and imploring military intervention. Any path forward must privilege a far greater set of Venezuelan voices, regional diplomacy, and international frameworks that constrain unilateral adventurism — American or otherwise. This mistake of choosing easily available alternatives haunts the U.S. in Afghanistan and Syria and elsewhere, and history must not be repeated in Venezuela.most readThe lesson that our times keep teaching — and we keep refusing — is painfully simple: Nations cannot be engineered from outside. Sovereignty is not a favour to be granted. And empires, however enlightened they believe themselves to be, eventually choke on the consequences of their own ambition.The strikes in Venezuela should therefore not only provoke debate about US policy. They should force us to confront the wider era we inhabit, where multiple powers, convinced of their civilisational missions, reach beyond their limits and discover that the world is not clay. If we are serious about peace — in Caracas, Kyiv, Gaza, or anywhere else – then our critique must transcend geography. The real problem is not simply American overreach, or Russian aggression, or any singular villain. The problem is the imperial imagination itself.The writer is the Humanitarian Food Security & Diplomacy Ambassador, India, for President Zelenskyy’s Office