Power first, rules second?

Power first, rules second? | Daily Tribune

The US military action against Venezuela and the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro have reignited the debate over the legality, sovereignty, and the erosion of the rules-based international order. While Washington frames the move as law enforcement — anchored on longstanding drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges — this explanation alone is insufficient. A deeper strategic logic is at work, one rooted in energy geopolitics, great power rivalry, and the indirect containment of China.

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, estimated at more than 300 billion barrels. At conservative long-term price assumptions, these reserves are valued at roughly US$17 trillion. Such a scale makes Venezuelan oil not merely a commercial asset but a strategic prize. Historically, control over — or denial of — energy resources has shaped global power structures, and Venezuela’s alignment under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro squarely placed those resources beyond US influence and increasingly within the orbit of China, Russia and Iran.

One useful framework for understanding US behavior is energy denial theory, an extension of realist and neo-mercantilist thought. Under this theory, a state need not directly control resources to benefit from them. Instead, it seeks to deny adversaries stable, affordable access or to force dependence on more vulnerable supply routes. From this perspective, Washington’s objective is less about owning Venezuelan oil than about restructuring who can access it, under what conditions, and at what geopolitical cost.

The logic becomes clearer when Venezuela is viewed alongside Iran. US sanctions have already constrained Iranian oil exports, yet China remains Iran’s largest buyer, often through discounted, opaque, or barter-based arrangements. Similarly, China has been a major purchaser of Venezuelan oil, especially during periods when Western firms withdrew due to sanctions. Together, Iran and Venezuela form a sanctioned energy corridor that partially insulates China from global energy shocks.

Targeting this corridor — through sanctions on Iran and regime disruption in Venezuela — functions as indirect pressure on China’s energy security. This underpins not just civilian consumption but industrial output, logistics, shipbuilding, aviation fuel, and steel production, all critical to sustaining military power.

Weakening China’s preferential access to discounted oil raises costs across its industrial and defense sectors and increases reliance on sea-borne energy routes vulnerable to US and allied naval dominance, particularly in the South China Sea and around Taiwan.

Officially, Washington insists the Venezuela operation was about justice, not regime change. Yet the manner of execution — military force, rapid extraction, and bypassing multilateral authorization — resembles a hybrid coercion where legal instruments, sanctions, and selective force are combined to achieve geopolitical outcomes without a formal war. This blurring of law enforcement and strategic warfare fuels accusations that the US selectively applies international norms, undermining the very rules-based order it invokes against Russia in Ukraine or China in the Indo-Pacific.

For Russia and China, the Venezuela episode reinforces longstanding claims of US unilateralism. For Beijing in particular, it signals that Washington is willing to weaponize legal and military tools to reshape access to strategic resources. This raises the likelihood of retaliation — not necessarily military, but economic and industrial.

One plausible Chinese counter-move is the restriction of rare earth mineral exports to the United States and to allied countries perceived to be facilitating transshipment into US territory. China controls roughly 60–70 percent of global rare earth processing capacity, giving it powerful leverage. Rare earths are indispensable for advanced weapons systems, semiconductors, precision-guided munitions, electric vehicles, and aerospace manufacturing. Any restriction would ripple immediately through defense supply chains, delay weapons production, and raise costs for US allies. Such a response would mark a shift from energy denial to materials warfare, accelerating bloc-based decoupling in global supply chains.

For smaller states like the Philippines, the implications are sobering. Manila relies heavily on the rules-based order to defend its claims in the West Philippine Sea while hosting nine US facilities under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, many strategically located near Taiwan.

While alignment with the United States enhances deterrence, the Venezuela episode underscores the risks of entanglement in great-power competition — where principles may yield to strategic necessity.

The uncomfortable lesson is that in moments of systemic rivalry, rules often follow power rather than restrain it. The removal of Maduro cannot be explained solely by criminal indictments or democratic rhetoric. Energy denial, strategic resource realignment, and indirect pressure on China’s military-industrial base offer a more coherent explanation.

Whether this strategy ultimately strengthens US influence or accelerates the erosion of global norms remains uncertain. What is clear is that oil, minerals, and supply chains are once again instruments of power. Venezuela is not an isolated case — it is a signal of how the next phase of geopolitical competition may be fought: not just with armies, but with resources, routes, and rules bent to strategic ends.