I believe January 3rd, 2026 will be remembered in much the same way as September 11th, 2001: not simply as a dramatic event, but as a moment that revealed a fundamental shift in the world order.
The emerging order is defined by spheres of influence, in which great powers dominate their respective regions—China in East Asia, Russia in Europe, and the United States in the Western Hemisphere. This represents a decisive break from the global system that emerged after World War II, which sought to promote international security through economic integration, multilateral institutions, and a commitment—however imperfect—to universal human rights.
What is replacing it is something older and more brutal. The new order is grounded in the principle that might makes right: increased militarization, economic de‑integration, and chronic political instability. If we want to understand what this world looks like, we need only look to the nineteenth century—a period of competing empires and shifting alliances that ultimately culminated in two world wars at the dawn of the twentieth.
Transitions between world orders are never smooth. It will take time for dominant powers to establish control within their regions, and that process will be met with resistance. In Europe, clashes between Russian forces and European Union–aligned militaries are likely to intensify. Ukraine, far from being an endpoint, may only be the beginning. In East Asia, it is difficult to imagine China not challenging Taiwan in the near term. The United States, for its part, will seek to reinforce its own sphere of influence through increasingly overt military and strategic moves.
This is the larger narrative that will shape the world our children and grandchildren inherit—a world far more dangerous and unstable than the one we were born into. Other explanations, however emotionally satisfying or politically convenient, are either subplots or deliberate distractions.
People are easily seduced by simple answers. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with an uncle about the U.S. bombing of alleged drug‑smuggling boats. I argued that the strikes constituted a violation of international law. He replied that he supported them because the targets were “very bad people” engaged in drug trafficking.
How do we know who they were? I asked. They were obliterated without trial, without evidence presented, without any possibility of defense. He responded that the Americans possess the most advanced intelligence capabilities in the world and knew exactly who they were. He said he trusted the Americans.
So now we are comfortable killing people without due process? Acting as judge, jury, and executioner for those we deem undesirable? He was unconvinced. Finally, I pointed out that if the United States had the technological capacity to identify and precisely target these individuals, it also had the capacity to intercept the boats, arrest the suspects, and seize the evidence. At that point, the argument would not even be necessary. He seemed to concede the point.
The story matters not because of drugs or boats, but because it illustrates the seduction of expediency—the willingness to abandon the rule of law in exchange for fast, decisive outcomes. My uncle is an educated, reasonable, intelligent person. Yet for him, as for many others, the ends justified the means.
We hear the same logic today in arguments justifying the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro. He is a bad man. His election was illegitimate. Therefore, the reasoning goes, abducting him and subjecting him to American justice was justified.
Whether Maduro is a villain is beside the point. The international system that emerged after World War II was built on processes rooted in law and respect for national sovereignty—mechanisms designed to resolve disputes between states without resorting to unilateral force. What the United States did in Venezuela was not merely a violation of international law; it was another nail—perhaps the final one—in the coffin of the liberal, rules‑based international order.
The rule of law is not simply a tool for maintaining order. Dictatorships maintain order too. Law is an expression of values—liberal values grounded in individual rights, due process, and restraint on power. When the United States, which for eight decades styled itself as the guardian of those values, decides that they no longer apply, we all lose.
This moment is unprecedented in my lifetime. When the United States intervened militarily in the Western Hemisphere during the Cold War, it at least claimed—sometimes cynically, sometimes sincerely—to be defending liberal democracy against communism. There is no such pretence here. Donald Trump said as much openly.
Some have argued that the closest historical precedent is the 1989 abduction and prosecution of Panama’s Manuel Noriega. The comparison does not withstand scrutiny. Panama functioned as a de facto client state of the United States. American intelligence agencies were deeply embedded there, tens of thousands of U.S. troops were stationed on Panamanian soil, and Noriega himself rose to power with American consent. He never even served as Panama’s president. When his criminal activities—drug trafficking, arms dealing, and money laundering—began to outweigh his usefulness, the United States removed him with the cooperation of domestic political forces.
Venezuela is not Panama. And in the days and months ahead, that difference will become evident.
So let us return to the central point and discard the distractions. This is not about drugs. It is not about oil. It is not about a single man. It is about the collapse of a system that sought—however imperfectly—to restrain power through law rather than force.
What is emerging in its place is not a new world order, but an old one: a world organized around spheres of influence, enforced by military power, and legitimized by success rather than principle. History offers little comfort about where such arrangements lead.
We are now entering the most dangerous phase of this transformation—the moment when rules still exist on paper but no longer bind those strong enough to ignore them. This is the phase marked by miscalculation, escalation, and violence justified by moral certainty rather than law.
January 3rd, 2026 may not be remembered for a single act, but for what it revealed: that the liberal international order did not collapse in a dramatic instant, but was finally abandoned by the power that once claimed to defend it.
Disintegration rarely announces itself clearly. It is always unmistakable in retrospect.
