Venezuela was not an aberration. It was a declaration. The forcible removal of Nicolás Maduro was presented as a corrective to criminality and democratic collapse, but it has also reset expectations about how power will now be exercised. The operation’s brazenness ~ a sitting head of state seized, a government displaced, an interim authority installed ~ was not merely tactical. It was signalling.

And signals, in international politics, are rarely sent without intended recipients. Those recipients are already visible. Greenland is the most unsettling case, because it collapses the distinction between strategic interest and territorial ambition. The language used ~ necessity, security, inevitability ~ mirrors justifications historically associated with expansionist powers, not treaty-bound democracies. If strategic value alone becomes sufficient rationale, alliance membership offers no immunity. Colombia sits at the intersection of ideology, narcotics and geography. A left-leaning government, persistent drug flows, and rising US frustration form a........

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