Now that the United States has openly struck Venezuela—capturing its president and acting as though no one can meaningfully stop it—the question that should trouble the world is not what Washington has done, but what it has normalised.
If a superpower can violate the sovereignty of a nation with impunity, on what moral or legal grounds can it object when another superpower does the same?
What, then, is to stop China?
China sees itself not as a regional power, but as the equal of the United States. And equals do not accept a world in which only one side gets to act without consequence. When Washington has so clearly demonstrates its capacity to act with impunity, China has to follow suit - it has to, because if it doesn't, neither the world nor itself will be able to see it as an equal to the United States .
This is how great wars begin. Not with ideology. Not even with strategy. But with ego and impunity feeding off one another.
Each great power acts more daringly than before, in order to outdo the other and appear superior. Each escalation is justified as “necessary”, “exceptional”, or “temporary”, but everyone understands that behind the words and excuses, what is actually happening is one side is thumping its chest, daring all those who see themselves as its equal, to match its prowess, or submit to its superiority. To assert their own status, its opponent will act to match its deed, and with each deed that each commit, the space for retreat narrows, until a series of escalation crosses a point of no return—and then all hell breaks loose.
Recent analysis suggests that the US strike on Venezuela may not immediately trigger a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Analysts note that Beijing’s timeline on Taiwan is shaped more by its own military readiness and domestic considerations than by events in Latin America. China is not the US, they argue. Taiwan is not Venezuela.
But this misses the deeper danger.
China does not need to invade Taiwan tomorrow for the damage to be done today. What Washington has handed Beijing is something far more valuable: precedent.
As one analyst bluntly put it, America has supplied China with “cheap ammunition”. For decades, the US has lectured the world on a “rules-based international order”, condemning Chinese actions in the South China Sea, Taiwan, Tibet, and elsewhere as violations of international law. That argument now rings hollow.
Beijing wasted no time calling the Venezuela strike “naked hegemonic behaviour”, declaring that the so-called rules-based order is nothing more than a “predatory order based on US interests”. This framing will not be used to justify peace—it will be used to erode opposition to China’s own territorial ambitions.
Last week, even before the Venezuelan operation, China conducted its largest-ever military exercises encircling Taiwan, demonstrating its ability to cut the island off from external support. The message was already clear. Washington’s actions have now made it easier for Beijing to argue that power, not principle, governs global affairs.
Importantly, China does not even need to cite Venezuela as a precedent for Taiwan. Beijing has long framed Taiwan as an “internal affair”. Instead, it will use Venezuela to discredit American objections altogether—to argue that the US has no moral standing to oppose Chinese actions anywhere.
This is how escalation works in the modern era. Not mirror-image invasions, but a steady corrosion of norms. Each side insists it is different. Each side insists it is justified. Each side insists the other started it.
Three years ago, I predicted that a great war between the United States and China would erupt within five years. There are now two years left on that timeline. And rather than moving away from the abyss, the world appears to be marching towards it—step by reckless step.
The tragedy is that none of the main actors believe they are courting disaster. Each believes it is merely righting a wrong, or asserting its god given right. Each believes that it is on the right side of history.
As the ancients said: “ Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they will first make mad.”
And how is it that one becomes mad?
When we believe we are merely acting in tune of justice, when we are actually just puffing up their chest. That we are doing what is right, when all that we are doing is bolstering our ego and pride.
So what is to be done?
To tell you the truth, I truly think that there is actually nothing left to be done. The writing is on the wall. It perhaps is time for the world reap what it has sown. The chickens must, eventually, come home to roost. And when they do, there is no use pretending that their arrival is a surprise. We have to own up to what we have done, and to what we have allowed to be done in our name.
Our collective experience of the world is already telling us that something is deeply wrong with the way things are. The signs are everywhere—in the breakdown of norms, in the casual acceptance of impunity, in the growing sense that power no longer answers to principle. Yet the longer we suppress this unease, because we fear confronting where it might lead, the more it churns beneath the surface. And that suppressed unrest does not disappear. It hardens, festers, and is eventually exploited by the most reckless and careless among us, until it finally explodes into the open.
History suggests that moral reckoning is often delayed, but never denied.
As it said, “The sun, the moon and the truth, cannot be hidden forever. ”
In our lives, there are moments when our task is to prevent something bad from happening. There are moments when we must actively promote what is good. There are moments when we must ensure that what is good does not come to an end.
And then there are moments like this, when the the damage is done, the precedents already set, and the consequences already in motion. In such moments, wisdom lies not in pretending we can still steer events toward a happy outcome, but in recognising our limits, and accept that we cannot escape our fate,
At times like these, all we can do is bear with the bad that must unfold—and do our utmost not to make it worse.
Right now, I believe we are in that fourth stage. There is nothing good waiting just beyond the horizon. There is train wreck lying in our future and it is too late to swerve. The only thing that we can do now is to accept the grim outcome, and resist the urge to escalate, justify, or glorify the chaos. If we don't worsen it , it will eventually pass—and when it does, we might emerge from it not completely broken, and perhaps even come out stronger.
Perhaps.
TheRealNehruism (nehru.sathiamoorthy@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.
