Pre-dawn Strikes Rock Caracas as Maduro Declares Emergency, Blaming U.S.

U.S. naval buildups quietly tightening into kinetic blows against a Latin American government accused of narcotics trafficking recalls Operation Just Cause in Panama (20 Dec 1989), when sanctions and anti-drug rhetoric segued overnight into airstrikes that felled Noriega. Today, the justifications have been updated—‘narco-terrorism’ instead of ‘communism’—but the pattern fits a century-long arc of U.S. intervention from the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary through the 1965 Dominican landing. The Caracas blasts mark an inflection in two converging trends: Washington’s growing willingness to treat transnational crime as a military target, and the steady erosion of the post-1945 norm against attacking sovereign states without UN mandate. Whether the night’s explosions spiral into regime change or stall as a coercive signal, they matter because they test the durability of Westphalian sovereignty in an age where drone strikes and sanctions often substitute for diplomacy. A hundred years from now, historians may view 3 Jan 2026 either as a minor skirmish in the long “drug wars,” or as the moment the Western Hemisphere slipped back into an openly interventionist order reminiscent of the early 20th century—proof that technology evolves faster than the rules meant to restrain its use.