Venezuela and the Dawn of the Don-roe Doctrine

Nicolás Maduro is in American custody. With that simple fact, the Western Hemisphere’s geopolitical landscape has irrevocably shifted. The United States has crossed a threshold, trading years of sanctions and diplomatic pressure for swift, decisive military action. This is a historic pivot, a moment that will be studied for decades, not only for its impact on Venezuela but for what it signals about the future of American power in its hemisphere.

In a recent conversation, my friend, Leopoldo López, the Venezuelan opposition leader in exile, cut straight to the core of this complex reality. He reinforced the U.S. administration’s framing of the operation: this was not a war against a nation, but a judicial action against a “criminal” who had held 30 million people hostage. It is a critical distinction, one that seeks to legitimize an otherwise fraught intervention.

But Leopoldo was equally clear-eyed about the immense challenge ahead. “The transitional moment,” he stressed, “is a challenging one.” He is right. History is a graveyard of promising revolutions undone by chaos. A dictator’s fall creates a power vacuum, a volatile space where hope and opportunism collide. Successfully navigating this period—this “Day Zero”—demands more than just a plan; it requires a near impossible fusion of popular legitimacy, security stabilization, and the rapid restoration of basic services. The opposition, for years, has meticulously crafted plans for a post-Maduro Venezuela, but as any strategist knows, plans don’t always survive first contact with the facts on the ground.

Based on my understanding of the opposition’s strategy, the immediate priorities are brutally pragmatic. First, co-opt as much of the Venezuelan military as possible, turning an instrument of oppression into a pillar of the new state by separating the rank-and-file from the corrupt Chavista leadership. This requires a simultaneous purge of the Cuban security forces—the intelligence agents who formed the concentric rings of Maduro’s personal security and enforced his will.

In the interim, that security vacuum cannot be left unfilled. We should expect U.S. forces to undertake two critical, politically sensitive missions: providing temporary street-level law enforcement in Caracas to prevent widespread looting and revenge killings, and, just as crucially, securing the country’s oil facilities. Those assets are Venezuela’s economic lifeline, the only mechanism capable of funding its reconstruction. Leaving them vulnerable to sabotage or capture by rogue elements would be a catastrophic, unrecoverable error.

In previous writings for Washington Monthly, I urged extreme caution against direct military ground intervention in Venezuela, wary of the unpredictable consequences, the potential for a bloody quagmire, and the damage to U.S. standing in a region scarred by a history of heavy-handedness. It risked becoming another tragic misadventure, alienating allies and bogging America down in a conflict with no clear exit.

Yet, the action is now a fait accompli. Initial reports suggest the operation was a tactical success, achieving its primary objective of apprehending Maduro with limited engagement. The long-term costs, both in human lives and political capital, remain unclear. But in the gilded halls of Mar-a-Lago, the fog of war is already being eclipsed by the glow of victory.

The administration is reveling in a success that feels absolute. This is the kind of momentum that emboldens presidents and might normally silence critics, but in this case, there’s going to be a chorus of criticism, both because of the arguably unconstitutional way this came about and the fear of what is now to come. Indeed, that criticism has already started. The only thing that will silence the critics is if the occupation goes like clockwork. Americans—and MAGA supporters in particular—are okay with a victory lap but not at all for dead American soldiers or long-term overseas military commitments. They are keen to avoid the historical trap of a successful military action followed by political failure. This specter haunted Jimmy Carter after the failed Operation Eagle Claw in Iran. Where Carter’s presidency was crippled by perceived weakness, the current White House sees this as a potent demonstration of strength, a restoration of American hegemony.

This newfound confidence is already reshaping U.S. foreign policy doctrine in real time. The Monroe Doctrine, long a dusty relic of 19th-century statecraft, is being resurrected with a brazen, personalized twist. In the corridors of power and whispered into the wizened ears of a receptive president, it’s already being called the “Don-roe Doctrine”—a policy that asserts America’s right to remove any Latin American regime unilaterally it deems a criminal enterprise—or, perhaps, a business opportunity.

This is a profound departure. It replaces the dogma of multilateralism and strategic patience with the blunt instrument of executive will. The successful apprehension of Maduro will be brandished as Exhibit A for this audacious new framework, an argument that direct action works where diplomacy fails.

We are now in a new phase of hemispheric relations. The long-term stability of Venezuela is far from guaranteed. The transition will be perilous, and the opposition, led by figures like López, must now convert the promise of liberation into the painstaking work of nation-building. The U.S. will try to lead this effort seven years after having shuttered its embassy in Venezuela, dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, and run roughshod over every multilateral forum. The rest of Latin America, meanwhile, watches with a mixture of apprehension and quiet approval, recalibrating its relationship with a northern neighbor that has just demonstrated both its capacity and its willingness to act.

The removal of Maduro was not the end of the story; it was the explosive beginning of a new chapter, authored at the White House and in Mar-a-Lago and set to reshape a continent. The old rules no longer apply.

Hold on to your hats.