The World Is Not a Morality Play

Why, exactly, does this matter, if you do not live in Venezuela? It’s worth pausing on this point. As with a doctor treating an illness, defining the problem is the first and vital task, lest the cure proves worse than the disease.

To hear some liberal opinion tell it, the problem is illegality and rule-breaking. By abducting a head of government, so the argument goes, Trump has green-lit aggression everywhere. The likes of Gideon Rachman, Robert Peston and Will Hutton claim that brazen, unapologetic law-violation will undercut American opposition to the aggression of despots, as they prey on Ukraine or Taiwan. This is liberal morality, but a highly instrumental one: our adherence to the law is vital, because it (allegedly) restrains the bad guys and mobilises the good. How will a nakedly imperial Washington lead coalitions against the illegal misconduct of others?

There is a certain, surreal vanity to this argument. It assumes that “our” (western) deference to liberal principles makes the world go around; that coalitions against aggressors may only be assembled by virtuous, morally consistent powers; and that such constraints have held back Russia, China or Iran from opportunistic power grabs. China, whose material and preparations to take Taiwan steadily advance, is on this reading only an American kidnapping away from pouncing on its coveted target.

Really? Where have these concerned folk been? Well before Trump’s kidnapping move, Russia attacked Ukraine, bit off Crimea, tried to murder its president Volodymyr Zelensky, indiscriminately bombed the Syrian rebel opposition and anything in their vicinity, and carried out wet jobs on dissidents and journalists abroad. China oversaw systematic oppression in Xinjiang province, seized disputed territories in the South and East China Seas, and snuffed out democracy in Hong Kong in the dead of night. They demonstrably did not need Trumpian precedents for their barbarism.

On the other side of the coin, this same argument presupposes that those feeling the despots’ imperial blade will no longer call on America for help in future, because it is hypocritical. Lawless behaviour, we are told, will alienate allies. But note the convoluted, desperately evasive, formula-seeking responses of transatlantic allies. Officials from Britain to the EU have contorted themselves to play for time, avoid overt denunciation, make inoffensive general remarks about the sanctity of international law, and act as though the real problem is that the facts are not in. Such considerations did not inhibit them from instantaneous denunciation of and mobilisation against Russia in February 2022. America’s misbehaviour is emphatically not driving western allies away, certainly not yet, not even allies who normally make a point of regularly preaching about the rules-based international order. They just wish it hadn’t come up.

So it’s not clear where, historically, liberal minds derive their international “clean hands” doctrine. Precedents suggest the world works differently. In late 1989, President George H.W. Bush invaded Panama to capture General Manuel Noriega, and laid musical siege to the Roman Catholic mission where he had fled. Concerned observers warned that it would wreck America’s claims to legitimacy and authority. Less than two years later, the same country under the same president assembled a posse to drive Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait, despite the theme of Yankee hypocrisy and aggression being pronounced in Baghdad’s propaganda. Those who wanted Saddam’s expansion checked made their calculations on the basis of their immediate, concrete interests. If prior imperialist behaviour did make alliances impossible, that would have prevented the coming together of Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States in World War Two, who were able to mobilise millions.

Likewise, eastern Europeans who wanted American backing against Russian expansion don’t hold back their appeals because Washington has violated international statutes in coups, invasions and intrigues before. Remember when the CIA was revealed to have hacked into Angela Merkel’s phone? As Jeremy Shapiro recalls, “German officials messaged in backroom seminars that the alliance could never be the same. A few months later it was the same.”

The defect lies not just in assessments of how Moscow and Beijing think. It lies in an underlying theology, that the world is a moral universe more than it is a power-political one. If Trump’s abduction operation matters, it is not because somehow hypocrisy precludes great powers from achieving cooperation in future where interests align. Rule and norm violations can matter in themselves, and honouring them can be its own reward. Abduction, torture or genocide are wrong regardless of whether they affect one’s diplomacy. But our international system is not one, generally, that pivots around rewards for good works and punishment of evil.

Trump’s promiscuous behaviour matters for other, more bread-and-butter reasons. By launching this adventure into Venezuela, apparently making it up as they go along, Washington adds a perilous, large and potentially consuming crisis to its already-loaded roster of international commitments. Pointing out that Maduro was a vile oppressor doesn’t change that fact, any more than Saddam Hussein’s mass graves made it prudent in the national interest to wade into Iraq.

The Trump administration claimed on taking office that it would discipline, focus and prioritise America’s foreign and defence policies. It can boast that its lightning strikes have had some successes, in cowing Iran for the moment (though possibly not even setting back its nuclear programme by much) and taking Venezuela’s ruler off the board. But despite its claims to practice a more laser-like Realpolitik, these gambits have done nothing to reduce the burden on Americans or to concentrate power — and attention — in time where it may be most needed. If nothing else, the Venezuela adventure will demand much of American time, and time spent on one thing is time not spent on other things, at home and abroad. It may well, in time, multiply adversaries and make them determined to apply counter power of their own. The governments and militaries of South American nation-states will be studying this keenly and quietly preparing options for resistance.

A certain kind of observer, always attracted to power and its swagger, will applaud the boldness and virtuosity of the Venezuela operation. No doubt if and when the initial triumph turns dark, and becomes a messier, costlier embroilment, they will discover that Trump didn’t send in enough troops, or some other purported tactical blunder.

This latest episode also matters because it reveals that the Trump administration’s rhetorical signals and overt preparations for land grabs and asset stripping can be deadly serious. Canada is not exempt. Europe is not exempt. Greenland is not exempt. It would be foolish to suppose otherwise, or that somehow those on our side of the Euro-Atlantic are historically immune from the predation of a superpower that is unembarrassed to take what it can. We are on notice. And so, we should begin our response with the world as it is, not the morality play some would like it to be.