I gave myself twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours to sit with this. To calm myself. To see whether time would bring perspective or reassurance. I wanted to believe that stepping back would help me feel less unsettled. It did not!
If anything, I feel more uneasy today than I did yesterday. Not because new information has emerged, but because the ease with which military force is now discussed feels profoundly reckless. As though risk has been abstracted away. As though putting people in harm’s way is no longer treated as the extraordinary act it is.
Clearly this was a successful military operation. The United States military planned it well and it was implemented with precision. That has been true in many operations over the decades, and it is true here. The military did exactly what they were asked to do, professionally and effectively. That is not in question.
What is in question is everything around it. A successful operation is not the same thing as a coherent strategy. Military execution cannot substitute for political planning. The strategic thinking in this entire chain of events cannot fall entirely on the role played by the military and we should be deeply concerned about where this ends.
Based on the president’s own remarks during the press conference, I see a complete absence of a political strategy beyond the initial act. Donald Trump does not operate with policy coherence. He reacts. He lurches from one crisis to the next as he chases attention rather than outcomes.
We know his is not about drugs nor is it about democracy. Donald Trump himself has made that clear. This is about oil, leverage and power. It is about Trump’s view that treats the Western Hemisphere as something to be managed and controlled rather than a collection of sovereign nations.
As a Canadian watching this unfold, I cannot let that framing pass without comment. I will not normalize it and I will not pretend it does not matter. Canada needs to be ‘on guard’ which obviously sounds frightening but behaving otherwise would be very naive.
History matters here. Vietnam became a defining failure. It reshaped not only Southeast Asia, but the United States itself. Iraq saw a regime dismantled swiftly, followed by years of instability and sectarian violence. Afghanistan absorbed twenty years of military presence, only to see the institutions meant to hold the country together collapse almost overnight once that presence ended. In none of these cases did military excellence translate into durable democratic stability. That is a matter of historic record.
Regime change is not a technical exercise. You cannot precision strike legitimacy into existence. You cannot remove a leader and assume a society will reorganize itself neatly around values imposed from the outside. Nation building has repeatedly proven to be something the United States military is not designed to do. And yet that expectation persists. The message now being delivered is that the United States will run the show as they now believe Venezuela cannot run their own country. That power will be centralized, managed, and imposed by the U.S. government. In my opinion, that is exactly how you ensure that whatever follows will not be stable, legitimate, or lasting.
What continues to unsettle me is how casually military force and military cost are discussed. Not just the financial cost but the human cost. The number of troops required in a large jungle country would be extensive should the president follow through on his remarks about boots on the ground.
And then there is the word liberation. It is one of Donald Trump’s favourite words. Liberation through tariffs. Liberation through intervention. Liberation through coercion. Liberation defined by the most powerful actor in the room is not liberation at all. It is control. Something done to people, not with them. Something imposed, not chosen.
I do not waver in my assessment of Nicolás Maduro. He is a dictator presiding over a brutally oppressive and criminal regime. Canada’s position on that is clear. Prime Minister Mark Carney reiterated that one of the first actions taken by Canada’s new government was to impose additional sanctions on Nicolás Maduro’s brutally oppressive and criminal regime. At the same time, he reaffirmed that the Venezuelan people have the sovereign right to decide and build their own future in a peaceful and democratic society, and that international law must be respected. Some have criticized that statement for lacking force. I do not agree. In moments like this, restraint is responsibility.
I am asking something of the citizens of the United States, regardless of political stripe. This is the moment when Congress matters. Because if this continues without restraint, without strategy, and without accountability, then you have lost control of the process entirely. And history tells us what comes after that.
What I hope people will see is what is wrong here. Not the removal of Maduro, but the process. Marco Rubio explicitly told the House Armed Services Committee nothing would happen without their approval. It was not true. The explanation now being offered is fear of leaks. That is a curious justification, given the public leaks in this term have come from the Secretary of Defense himself, not from Congress. Democratic oversight is not a nuisance, it is the check and balance needed in a democracy.
In Donald Trump’s worldview, the Americas are all part of the United States of “America.” He sees oil is prosperity and force as peace. And if he says it loudly enough, he seems to believe it becomes true. But dominance is not strategy. And improvisation is not leadership.
And to my readers in the U.S., if cheaper gas is all it takes to sell you his story, that bargain will feel meaningless when you cannot feed your family or pay for medical care. I remain genuinely gobsmacked that this is being offered as a trade worth making.
There is going to be a lot of mud to wade through.
Nancy's Notes 