Towards a principled world order

We can do without both, dictators like Maduro and hegemons like Trump

Alok Tiwari

Last week’s raid by United States in Venezuela was audacious by any standards. US military not only infiltrated into the Venezuelan capital Caracas but, in probably a first action of its type, abducted President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in an operation barely lasting a few hours. Even though US President Donald Turmp had been warning of doing something in Venezuela for months, the scope and nature of the US operation left the world astounded. While lots of different types of actions were being speculated upon including a full-fledged ground invasion, nobody had anticipated a swift decapitation of the government.

The only thing more surprising than the raid itself was the international reaction to it. Very few countries, unsurprisingly led by Russia, outrightly condemned the naked aggression and violation of Venezuelan sovereignty. Most confined themselves to expressing concerns and vague calls for respecting international law. Many, notably the European Union and its individual members, brought up the illegitimate nature of Maduro’s government. He was seen clinging to power through an election that observers believed he had lost but had rigged the results in his favour.

This action once again brought to fore the moral dilemmas facing the modern world. Moral clarity is getting lost in a world governed increasingly by self-interest. The choice is often not between right and wrong but between two rights or two wrongs. Nations, like individuals, then make the choice cynically. That may serve a purpose in the short term but leaves the world groaning under the weight of contradictions and condemns people to avoidable misery.

Maduro no doubt had been dictatorial. He had effectively neutered the political opposition and independent media. On top of that, senior members of his administration were involved in drug trade. Probably that is why, even Venezuelan public did not rise in protest over his abduction. The country remained surprisingly calm after the operation with only token protests by members of his own party. Even Maduro’s successor, his vice-president Delcy Rodriguez is offering to work with US to govern the country.

This should, in theory at least, make it easy to endorse the American action. But then, US President Donald Trump himself is not democracy’s most shining beacon. He has questioned the results of legitimate elections that unseated him in 2020. In his second term he has pushed his party to gerrymander seats to gain electoral advantage, used official agencies to settle personal scores, and amassed wealth through dubious means. US is not Venezuela yet, but in the few short months since his return to power, Trump has eroded the American democracy in ways few thought was even possible.

Trump has mangled the famed US system of checks and balances beyond recognition. He has run the country by decree invoking emergency powers on fake grounds. He has deployed military domestically, set back several decades’ worth of progress in civil rights, turned the Congress and the Supreme Court into mere puppets. Many Americans would celebrate if he were to be suddenly removed from the scene. If that were to happen through an illegal act, should it be celebrated?

National sovereignty is the cornerstone of modern international order. Use of force against another country is expressly forbidden under the United Nations’ charter. Of course, this has never prevented great powers from undertaking adventures in other countries. The most egregious example of this is ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine that US and EU both not only condemned loudly but also provided Ukraine with hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of military aid to resist it. Now it is ironically Putin’s turn to condemn the violation of Venezuelan sovereignty.

It is also a fact that tyrants have used national sovereignty as a shield to inflict misery on their own people. The world could do little as oppressive regimes not just persecuted their own people but also looted entire countries, denied people basic human rights, rigged elections, jailed or killed opposition leaders, and crushed popular protests. The only way to remove them was through an internal uprising or external ground invasion, both bloody and expensive options that few countries either individually or collectively had the stomach for. Should the international community now let another country with right military capability carry out Venezuela like operation to capture or eliminate a nasty ruler or let them continue their dirty business in the name of respecting sovereignty?

Clearly, there is an ideological vacuum. India’s own reaction to the US action reflects this. India stopped short of outrightly condemning the US action in Venezuela. Three years ago, India had similarly not taken a stand against Russian invasion of Ukraine. The motivation at that time was not to rock the long-standing Indo-Russian relationship. Remember this was also the time when India was closely aligning itself with US and Western bloc as a counterweight to China. The immediate reward then was supply of cheap oil from Russia.

The motivation to remain mute now is not to annoy Trump. India is trying desperately to get a trade deal done after Trump imposed punitive tariffs. Still, he has lost no opportunity to ridicule India generally and PM Modi particularly. Clearly, appeasement has limits. Being member of mutually opposed groupings like BRICS and QUAD only makes us look like a country without moorings and we lose respect by all. Indian leadership has often projected the country as a vishwaguru. It is time for it to propose a new world order that does not allow both, violation of national sovereignty by the powerful nations and regimes that do not respect human rights internally.

The world seems to have convinced itself that realpolitik is everything and a principled approach to issues is naive. The new India should be able to call out the wrong by everyone, whether friend or foe, powerful or weak, internally or internationally. It may cost us some friends but should eventually win a big following.

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on Jan 8, 2026