Primer

On 03 Jan 26 President Donald J. Trump announced an extra-territorial US policing operation in which Nicolás Maduro, and the First Lady, were captured by the US military. Despite being captured by the military, Maduro, is charged with US offences under US law, indicted back in October 2020 initially on such narco-terrorism charges.

A full account of the state of play in Venezuela is not necessary. It is fairly obvious the country, like many Central and South American nations is entirely questionable in its constitution, organisation and operation – Maduro just another character in the never-ending play. Although worth pondering, if narcotics is such a big issue – why was a small-fish like Maduro targeted? And; given that America is plainly happy to routinely act extra-judicially and violate sovereignty of other nations – why bother with the legal aspects at all?

What is interesting is why such a bold operation occurred only in Jan 2026?

On 27 Feb 26, barely two months later, despite all the experts agreeing Iran’s nuclear potential has been obliterated, President Donald J. Trump announced the commencement of Operation Epic Fury. This operation, given a name one might only imagine possible in schoolboy fiction, is still ongoing, prompting global intervention in energy markets. OPEC nations were already looking to accelerate production despite anticipated energy price declines – and now they compelled to continue responding to the supply shock as oil prices stay high. China has been an important lever reducing oil demand to help offset some of this supply constraint – and thanks it is intense domestic policy of energy independence.

Venezuela only produces in the vicinity of ~1m barrels per day of oil, compared to a US production rate of around ~14m barrels per day at this current time. Thanks to the US operations in Iran, one might think Venezuela has some extra cash coming in. Well, where is the money? (Patrick Boyle’s explainer is also great). And of course, Venezuelan oil is being processed in America.

One cannot help but wonder, did the USA delay operations against Maduro, until it was sufficiently positioned to capitalise on resource extraction and exploitation, choosing a moment when they would themselves, artificially drive up the price of oil, by attacking an already beleaguered Iran, and subsequently refuse to achieve any normalisation of maritime traffic in the critical Strait of Hormuz. Is it merely coincidence that America secured unilateral access to Venezuelan oil just prior to a major (American-inflicted) global oil shock to help buffer the imminent impact on US strategic petroleum reserves?

America has always been a self-interested, realpolitik nation. It should come as no surprise that America uses its military to achieve political and economic aims. It has, and always has, attempted to stay ahead through the intimidation, subjugation and destruction of other nations – or in the case of the Middle East, a constant and unending source of rationale for injecting government money into the Military-Industrial Complex to ensure its military remains the largest and most sophisticated on the planet; as well as expanding control over its own population and across the globe. America pioneered the digital surveillance state, and has always been ahead of the pack despite typical assertions on China.

You can see this behaviour directed not only at adversaries, but also friends (who are in fact, actually adversaries too in the view of America). America has actively decried NATO despite the immense access benefits the Europeans have provided for American power, both conventional and nuclear. But NATO has increased spending significantly – and plenty of that on American technology. America’s “closest ally”, Australia, is also not quite cutting the mustard. Apparently Pine Gap, a nuclear submarine base, and unfettered access to the continent are entirely insufficient. Even Oman, who helped the US pioneer earlier deals on nuclear proliferation with Iran (), is on its way out of the friendship circle.

Geopolitics, amongst the general study of international relations and strategy is particularly interesting, and perhaps most salient because we live in the real world – no matter the ideas, the culture, the philosophy of any people or nation, they need real things to survive and thrive, to manifest their desires, wants and whims in reality. Where a country is, and where the things it wants or intends to acquire or effect are, is crucially important, and the physical distance and other barriers and hurdles in the physical world make the means and ends interesting to analyse and evaluate.

What I find most interesting though, is that, what is happening is many ways entirely mundane. The world is quite an uninteresting place in many ways given the largely myopic economic paradigm established and heavily managed and filtered discourse in which we find ourselves entrenched. There are indeed, many interesting things happening, but most people remain entirely unaware, apathetic, or intentionally disinterested. From this follows my real interest – why are so many so ignorant, or willing be be so ignorant or inattentive? Is it really choice? Are people genuinely choosing to accept things the way they are in the world? Do not get me wrong, not every single person is like this, but the lack of authentic thought, rigorous contemplation and genuine action is certainly concerning – it truly is an almost-impossibility that America, from its philosophical birthplace is now lead by a dementia-riddled autocrat, convicted criminal, and nation-state level gangster. It is not just that it occurs, is occurring, but that the entire bureaucracy of America and its population writ large is simply permitting it, enabling it, facilitating it.

And it all happens in plain sight. There is no reason it cannot be stopped. But perhaps this is is evidence of widespread acceptance that corruption is merely the way of the world now; why be good when only cheats prosper? This is the world we’ve built over decades and it is difficult to assess any path forward out of it that is achievable and feasible. Particularly since almost all of this occurs publicly; that responsibility and accountability have been abandoned entirely, even in pretense; and that almost no effort at all is made to conceal the connections, the actions, the activity so it really is possible to know all details. And yet.

Australian Defence Industry is a superb example of modern corruption – that a social network engages in a confluence of activity, that ultimately benefits them, under the guise of public good, pilfering from the taxpayer. It is right there. It always has been.

What to do? I will need to write, at least for a while. And then, maybe do some other things.