The emergence of a world where superpowers are no longer interested in global policing, but in regional dominance, is a nightmare for frontline states like Ukraine.
As the dust settles over Caracas, the most significant repercussions of the fall of Nicolas Maduro are being felt 10,000 kilometers away in the snow-covered trenches of Eastern Europe. Geopolitics is rarely a series of isolated incidents; it is an interconnected web where an action in one hemisphere creates an immediate opening in another. For Vladimir Putin, the U.S. capture of the Venezuelan leader on 3 January is not a defeat. It is a rhetorical and strategic gift of immense proportions.
For the past year, as the war in Ukraine drifted into its fourth year, the Kremlin has searched for a way to justify its territorial gains and its refusal to engage in a meaningful ceasefire. Putin’s strategy for 2026 is now coming into focus – the use of the U.S. action in Venezuela to argue for “aggression parity.” During Monday’s UN Security Council emergency session, the Russian delegation made this explicit: If the United States can invade a neighbor to “restore order” and unilaterally “run” its oil fields, then Russia is doing nothing more than asserting the same regional rights in its “near abroad.”
This has created an agonizing dilemma for the European coalition. As Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were led into a Manhattan federal courthouse to face narco-terrorism charges, the moral high ground that has sustained Western support for Ukraine felt increasingly precarious. The European Union has long argued that Russia’s invasion is a unique violation of the post-1945 order. But with the U.S. now effectively administering a transition in a country it just struck with military force – installing interim President Delcy Rodriguez while sidelining recognized opposition figures like Maria Corina Machado – that “uniqueness” is a difficult sell. The “rules-based order” is hard to defend when the architect of those rules follows a different set of instructions in its own neighborhood.
History suggests that when great powers begin to act as regional police, middle powers pay the price. We are returning to the cynical equilibrium of the 19th-century “Concert of Europe,” where giants maintained peace by allowing each other to suppress dissent within their respective spheres. For Ukraine, this is a terrifying prospect. If Washington decides that its primary interest is the stability of the Western Hemisphere – and the extraction of Venezuelan crude to lower domestic prices – it may view the defense of Ukraine as a secondary concern that can be traded away in a “grand swap” with Moscow.
The U.S. administration’s “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine has effectively “cleared the board” in the Western Hemisphere. Trump has already threatened further strikes not only in Venezuela but also against Colombia and Mexico, signaling a hemispheric hard line that reinforces Moscow’s “aggression parity” narrative. Colombian President Gustavo Petro has rejected these threats as “illegitimate,” underscoring the backlash against Washington’s unilateralism. Putin, having lost Venezuela – his most valuable pawn in Latin America – may now decide he has nothing left to lose. He may double down on his January offensive, betting that a Washington preoccupied with the logistical nightmare of “running” a militarized society of 28 million will have no appetite for a two-front diplomatic crisis. Indeed, Trump’s dismissive comments about the “primitive” nature of the Ukraine war suggest a president looking for an off-ramp, not an escalation.
The economic implications are equally vast. Venezuela and Russia are both petroleum-dependent states. By controlling the outcome in Caracas, the U.S. gains significant leverage over global oil prices – Putin’s primary financial weapon. However, this leverage is a double-edged sword. If the U.S. uses its new influence to flood the market and crash prices to hurt Moscow, it risks destabilizing the very transition it is trying to manage in Caracas. Protests in Caracas and abroad, including Seoul, already highlight the backlash against U.S. intervention, complicating Washington’s claim to moral authority. This interconnectedness means a decision made in the White House about Venezuelan infrastructure has an immediate impact on the funding of the Russian war machine.
This shift comes as Ukraine is at its most vulnerable. While President Volodymyr Zelenskiy recently remarked that if “you can deal with dictators this way, the U.S. knows what to do next,” his wry smile masks a deeper anxiety. He has said a peace agreement is “90% ready,” but the final 10% involves the very security guarantees now in question. If the U.S. is pivoting toward a “hemispheric first” policy, the commitment to long-term Ukrainian defense becomes transactional. We have moved from the “Age of Ideology” back into the “Age of Realpolitik,” where alliances are based on immediate utility rather than shared values.
We are seeing the emergence of a world where superpowers are no longer interested in global policing, but in regional dominance. This “new regionalism” is a nightmare for frontline states like Ukraine. It suggests a world where safety is entirely dependent on whether your neighbor is a superpower or a partner. As the U.S. focuses on the trial of Maduro in New York and the delicate negotiations with interim President Rodriguez, the message to Kyiv is sobering: the era of universal security is over, and the era of the Grand Swap has begun. Putin knows this, and he is likely preparing his next move with the confidence of a man who has just seen the rules of the game rewritten in his favor.
Imran Khalid is a geostrategic analyst and columnist on international affairs. His commentaries have appeared across leading European, African, and Asia-Pacific publications.
