The illusion of a civilized, law-based management of conflict, the compliance of nations with the rules of a body of international law established by the League of Nations and the United Nations, is finished. The question remains: has this ever been more than an illusion?

Stefan H. Heuer, M.A.
January 22, 2026

“International law is the body of legal rules, norms, and standards that apply between sovereign states and other entities that are legally recognized as international actors. The term was coined by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832).”

The attack launched by the US against Venezuela on January 3rd should have revealed the true nature of current international relations to even the most ardent illusionist.

Instead of activating the “international community” to enforce international law and, if necessary, restore the legal status quo ante by military means, the aggression is being met with a few dull diplomatic notes. The silence from Moscow, where, according to certain Western analysts, the heroic champion of a just, multipolar world order resides, is nothing short of deafening in light of the attack on a supposed ally.

This supposed “international community”, represented by the UN, has effectively thrown Venezuela under a bus and practically allowed the US to take over this once supposedly sovereign nation.

In 2026, we are just as far removed from the credible goal of realizing a genuine community of peoples cooperating peacefully based on universally valid and enforceable agreements as we had been at the time of the UN’s founding after World War II. A scandal, certainly. But how many in an endless series of scandals, for which the USA bears the primary responsibility, is this?

This is the same USA that, for more than two hundred years, has done nothing but unleash genocide, war, and plunder upon the earth, expressing its concern for the fate of other peoples through bombs and missiles. Politically, culturally, and economically, based on the prerogative of the USA as “God’s Own Country”, instilled by the founding spirit of the Puritans and sealed with the blood of millions of exterminated Indigenous Americans, the USA has done nothing in its entire existence but profit from the productivity of others through murder and robbery.

This is written by a German whose country was bombed by the USA — a country against which Germany had never taken any military action — in a campaign of terror unprecedented in its history. This campaign not only systematically destroyed irreplaceable cultural treasures such as medieval cities, but also murdered millions of women and children. Please forgive my perspective on this killer. It should be mentioned, merely for the sake of (supposedly typically English) fairness, that the British, who bombed the author’s family home on a cold October night in 1943, leaving his grandmother and her three children homeless, are no better, if at all more cunning.

With Venezuela as the current lesson in “Realpolitik”, we, the rest of the world, could now bid farewell to the cozy dream of a supposedly civilized world governed by law and justice. The so-called “global community” is nothing but a soap bubble. The UN itself effectively prevents this global community through its structure as a dominant body for the powers united in the Security Council (UNSC): the USA, Russia (as successor to the Soviet Union), the People’s Republic of China, Great Britain, and France.

The rest of the world, the 188 practically powerless nations, are allowed to present poetically titled visions or impassioned appeals once a year in the General Assembly (UNGA). The temporary addition of nations not belonging to the UNSC from the General Assembly pool may be well-intended, but it does nothing to change the real power and decision-making mechanisms and is therefore a sham. Or, as Carl Schmitt wrote in 1932: “Whoever speaks of humanity wants to deceive” (“The Concept of the Political,” 1932, p. 55; cf.).

That the United Nations is worth fighting for is now only claimed by the usual duo of the deluded and the paid.

Libya chaired the 64th session of the UNGA (2009). Libyan revolutionary leader Muammar al-Gaddafi summarized the reality of the UN, in contrast to its 1945 founding charter:

“The introduction is attractive, and no one objects to it. However, the subsequent articles fundamentally contradict the introduction. […] The introduction states that all countries, large or small, are equal. Does this equality exist when it comes to the permanent seats on the Security Council? No, we are not equal. The introduction literally states that all countries, large or small, are equal. Do we have the right of veto? Are we equal? The introduction states that we have the same rights, regardless of size. That is what the introduction says and what was agreed upon. Thus, the right of veto and the permanent seats contradict the spirit of the founding charter. We do not recognize the right of veto.” (Source – PDF file)

Gaddafi called the Security Council a “terrorist council” and “organized in a feudal manner”, and described the General Assembly as “pure decoration without substance.” He recalled that since its founding, the UN had tolerated dozens of wars—he listed the most significant ones—instead of enforcing the prohibition of the use of force enshrined in the Charter. He advocated for transferring the mandates of the Security Council to the General Assembly.

He concluded:
“Libya would welcome it if you all would facilitate the transition from a world full of difficulties and tensions to a world of humanity, peace, and tolerance.”

The Libyan proposals for UN reform were thwarted. Two years after this speech, Libya was engulfed in a “civil war” orchestrated and financed from abroad. Gaddafi was brutally tortured and murdered. Prosperous and safe Libya was transformed into a hellhole of a failed state. The main perpetrators, French President Sarkozy and US President Obama, with his psychopathic Secretary of State, were never held accountable for the crimes they committed against Libya. They were allowed to embark on the next war of terror.

The UN – the world’s body of International law – also was unable or unwilling to prevent or end the West’s war of terror against Syria.

The realization that major powers always pursue their actual or perceived interests, if necessary by any means available, is not new; the modern era, with the rise of European imperialism, teaches us this simple truth. In the twentieth century, the superpowers, after defining and mutually accepting their spheres of influence (without consulting the people living there, of course), liked to use guiding principles like human rights, freedom, and democracy as cheap but effective facades for their imperialism. This served to deceive the naive and deprive their adversaries of the means to mount a propagandistic counterattack. After all, anyone who opposes the enforcement of human rights must be considered an enemy of humanity.

A little taste?
• Germans in British war propaganda as “Huns” who slaughtered children (“Rape of Belgium”),
• a nationalist-minded Iranian president as “The Madman of Tehran,”,
• Syrian President Assad, who poisoned his own capital during the Western war on terror, when it was actually CIA-backed terrorists.

The worst criminals are the ones throwing around the noblest words for war propaganda. This is something we should finally accept as fact.

The plunderers and murderers of the Potomac have always known this. It is therefore to be welcomed that they have abandoned their disgusting attitude of trying to cloak their genocidal imperialism in sweet but meaningless phrases. President Trump now seems to want to drop the mask. He wants to save time and effort instead of continuing to obscure the true intentions of the USA with kitsch and lies.

In the case of Venezuela, there was also a great deal of rhetoric first, only to then briefly pull the simple truth out of a hat. After an initial obfuscation campaign, in which some boats and their crews were sunk in the Caribbean in the “fight against drug trafficking,” President Maduro was slandered as the head of a drug cartel. This allowed the government to keep the evidently brain-dead followers of the MAGA cult in line with the pending measures, while Trump deployed his warships off the country’s coast and hijacked oil tankers. If Trump had truly been concerned with eradicating the drug trade, he could have targeted its headquarters in Langley, which, moreover, is not as far from the White House as Caracas. The liberation of the US from the flood of drugs was never the goal. And so, the accusations against Maduro reveal themselves as propagandistic preparation for what was planned. Finally, Trump openly admitted that he was no longer willing to tolerate the sovereignty of the world’s most oil-rich country, with the truly ludicrous explanation that Venezuela had stolen the oil from the US.

Venezuela means the re-implementing of the Monroe Doctrine. At the time, the US considered the South, which adhered to it, to be its natural sphere of influence, in which they felt entitled to rule as they wanted. And while the most prominent result of their endeavors in Latin America was the transformation of once-independent nations into servile, corrupt, and plundered “banana republics,” the world today knows this term as a fashion brand. Later, the US became more generous and simply annexed the entire world (see: “Full Spectrum Dominance“, and “Project for the New American Century“).

However, even the all-powerful, divinely blessed USA cannot permanently dominate—or rather, “bless”—the entire world militarily from Washington. Even the MAGA fanatics seem to have come to realize this by now. Their hero, or his puppet masters, knew this long ago, and so, in November 2025, Trump issued a new US security doctrine that succinctly, and of course with the indispensable, pompous DJT self-advertising, describes the principles of US security policy in the world.

The document is worth reading and can be found here: (PDF file).

It quite bluntly states that the US can no longer continue to care about every sniffle of every fellah or Yakut:

“The United States is in every respect the most generous nation in history—yet we cannot afford to give equal attention to every region and every problem in the world.” (p. 15)

After this revelation, which certainly frustrates those less important regions and their problems, we then read what God’s Own Country has planned for the world, neatly divided into “regions.”

Oh Maduro! If only you had read this little document…

“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. ” (p. 15)

There you have it.

The seriousness with which the Trump administration is sweeping aside the mendacious, pseudo-humanitarian drivel of past decades and clearly returning to the old hegemonic rhetoric is a positive thing. After all, this means that the legions of the highest-paid propagandists are no longer able to justify the most heinous crimes against God’s creation with high-sounding slogans.

Following the chronology, Venezuela was therefore the prelude to a new US foreign policy engagement aimed at “protecting” the US and securing its interests. It’s about “dominance”—as always. That’s what powers have always been about, as long as states have existed. Rome wouldn’t have become an empire if it had drunk tea with the Gauls or Carthaginians. Egypt’s Pharaoh Ramses II engaged the Hittites of Asia Minor at the Battle of Kadesh on the Orontes River in Syria. If you want to understand successful conquests, especially those achieved through stratagems, diplomacy, and tactics, reading “The Gallic Wars” by Gaius I Caesar is highly recommended.

The USA, through skillful politics and brutal warfare, became a world power as a beneficiary of the First and Second World Wars, succeeding the British Empire and remaining to this day the nation against which no one can effectively assert their own interests.

No one can predict with absolute certainty what will become of Venezuela under the thumb of “Daddy” Trump. Maduro’s successor, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who initially promised that Venezuela would never again become a colony, now modestly rejoices over the $300 million that the US paid her from the sale of stolen oil worth 500 million. This lady, who entered politics under Chavez, does not want to experience a Washington-style ‘SMO’ and appears to be seeking cooperation.

Ms. Rodriguez may well know that anyone who allows themselves to be used by the US will be abandoned by the US when the opportunity arises. Should she wish to learn more, she could contact the Kurds in Iraq and Syria.

After Venezuela, the stick is now drawn against Iran, whether Trump first takes over Greenland and expands the military occupation, regime-changes Mexico, or annexes Cuba, ultimately remains irrelevant, despite all sympathy for the affected peoples. There will be no decisive resistance to any of the upcoming American aggression. The BRICS are merely a debating club; Russia, controlled by the same troops as the US, India, and finally China, which always plays its own game, have not transformed the BRICS into an anti-imperialist organization (cf.).

That Daddy’s Boy Rutte, of all people, could have persuaded the egomaniac in Davos to abandon his Greenland ambitions and agree to one of those “deals” that now replace constitutional and international law with commercial law is something that only those who were absent when intelligence was being handed out would believe.

After Venezuela, the clamor of a multipolar world order proves itself to be nothing more than the yapping of toothless poodles in the face of a bulldog—or the brazen lies of winking vassals of the evil empire. Putin’s reaction to the Rutte-Trump deal on Greenland appears to indicate that the puppet masters in Washington and those in Moscow are either identical or at least share the same goals. The planned massive militarization of the Arctic is clearly aimed at Russia, but that doesn’t seem to bother the little man from Petersburg — just as many vital steps taken by the evil empire against Russia in the past hadn’t bothered him.

Clearly, Iran would be well advised to learn from North Korea and quickly acquire nuclear weapons.

Thanks to Trump’s impressive and successful efforts in the Middle East, America will be able to shift its focus there (p. 27). Iran, as the alleged villain of the region (p. 28), will remain in “Daddy’s” sight, since it’s ultimately about securing key oil delivery and shipping routes for the US and ensuring Israel’s existence. Israel, as every child knows, is an illegal, terrorist entity on the stolen land of other people. Without recognizing the legal status and legitimate demands of the Palestinians, true peace is impossible, but peace counts for nothing compared to Trump’s Real Estate Dreams for the Middle East (p. 28), the implementation of which would likely benefit his Zionist son-in-law first.

The People’s Republic of China undoubtedly is the US’s main rival—Obama had already begun shifting foreign policy priorities toward Asia. The strategy paper aptly states:

“The Indo-Pacific is already the source of almost half the world’s GDP based on purchasing power parity (PPP), and one third based on nominal GDP. That share is certain to grow over the 21st century. Which means that the Indo-Pacific is already and will continue to be among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds. To thrive at home, we must successfully compete there—and we are.” (p. 19)

One wonders if the meaning of the word “battlegrounds” could pose any problem for a peace-loving president aspiring to a Nobel Prize?

In Asia, Washington wants to be “Leading from a Position of Strength” (p. 19), with the economic factor being crucial, as Trump wants to realign economic relations with China:

“Reciprocity and fairness take precedence in restoring America’s economic independence.” (p. 20)

We will refrain from asking when exactly America ever practiced “fairness” in bilateral relations.

To motivate the Chinese to cooperate in this realignment, military strength (referred to as “defense” in the document) and close cooperation with Washington’s regional “allies” (presumably Washington’s term for tributary vassals) are also necessary: Japan and South Korea must do more (spend more money) to expand the defense measures that Washington considers indispensable for deterring Chinese influence in China and its surrounding region (see p. 23):

“Importantly, this must be accompanied by a robust and ongoing focus on deterrence to prevent war in the Indo-Pacific. ” (p. 20).

This is written by the president of the very nation that devastated Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, leaving millions of civilian deaths in its wake.

The strategy paper leaves unanswered the question of which nations would wage war in the Indo-Pacific WITHOUT US intervention. But even without war, which Washington of course never wants, the Indo-Pacific region remains interesting:

“[…] the United States must work with our treaty allies and partners […] to counteract predatory economic practices and use our combined economic power to help safeguard our prime position in the world economy and ensure that allied economies do not become subordinate to any competing power. […] Hence deterring a conflict […], ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” (p. 23)

Let’s translate that from White House talk into plain language:
• “to counteract predatory economic practices “—the thief is talking about stealing; he’s the expert. Naturally, it infuriates the thief when someone other than him gets the big haul. For the same reason, no state likes murderers and thieves…
• “ensure that allied economies do not become subordinate to any competing power”—because they are, after all, subordinate to the USA, its military and economic might, and that’s how it’s supposed to stay.
• “preserving military overmatch”—a German doesn’t need any further explanation on this point, and I assume this also applies to the Japanese and Koreans: they, like us, are allowed to fully finance their occupier’s party on their own occupied soil.

For Europe, the strategy paper boasts of nothing less than the promotion of “European Greatness” (p. 25).

Washington sees the nations of the old continent on the wrong path, one that will accelerate economic decline and thus further diminish the military capabilities of European states:

“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.” (ibid.).

However, the US can not afford “to write Europe off” (p. 26), as this would run counter to the goals of the new strategy. After all, it is also about “opening European markets to U.S. goods and services and ensuring fair treatment of U.S. workers and businesses” (p. 27).

To promote this realignment, the Trump administration primarily intends to influence the policies of European nations:

“Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory. We will need a strong Europe to help us successfully compete and to work in concert with us to prevent any adversary from dominating Europe. […] We want to work with aligned countries that want to restore their former greatness.” (p. 26).

To this end, the US plans to specifically promote those parties in Europe that oppose the current dominant ideology of Europe and which are referred to in the document as “patriotic European parties” (ibid).

The Trump administration has already successfully aligned these parties and their leadership with Washington.

The fact that representatives of these parties, such as Orban, Meloni, Wilders, Le Pen, and Weidel, are themselves staunch supporters of the illegal terrorist entity Israel (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-03-17/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israels-lost-taboo-how-netanyahus-party-is-embracing-europes-far-right-extremists/00000195-9e70-d865-ad95-9f7df0170000 ; https://www.timesofisrael.com/saar-officially-opens-dialogue-with-european-far-right-parties/, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/02/24/why-benjamin-netanyahu-loves-the-european-far-right-orban-kaczynski-pis-fidesz-visegrad-likud-antisemitism-hungary-poland-illiberalism/) and even maintains friendly relations with the murderer Netanyahu should give us patriots and nationalists serious cause to doubt the sincerity of these supposed patriots.

With those courted by Washington and Tel Aviv in Europe’s leadership, there may no longer be a Green Deal, but there will be an oppressive “friendship” with individuals and states whose proximity is not without its dangers.

And, finally, the USA itself? Trump is optimistic:

“What differentiates America from the rest of the world—our openness, transparency, trustworthiness, commitment to freedom and innovation, and free market capitalism—will continue to make us the global partner of first choice.” (p. 22)

Washington is certainly confident that the nations courted by the USA, as well as its dear “allies”, will selflessly support this goal with their own efforts, entirely in the USA’s interest. And if they don’t do so out of conviction, the hegemon simply has its means.

I suppose Al Capone also advertised his protection racket offers in a similarly motivating way.

Stefan H. Heuer, M.A.
Historian, born in 1964, has worked as a lecturer in adult education and, among others, in Human resources development for a US-American company in Germany.

This is the English translation of an article written in German by the author, which is why some references refer to German websites.