On a January morning in 2026, the world awoke to jaw-dropping news that United States forces had swooped into Venezuela, seized President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and flown them out of the country in a sudden regime change operation.
US President Donald Trump announced that Washington would “temporarily run” the oil-rich South American nation after this unilateral intervention, a move carried out without approval from the US Congress or United Nations.
It was an extraordinary moment in international affairs, one that stunned leaders across the globe and immediately drew sharp condemnations, especially from smaller countries. In South-East Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore reacted with “grave concern” at what they saw as a blatant breach of national sovereignty.
For Malaysians, this is not a distant Latin American drama but instead, it is a stress test for the international environment we operate in. Malaysia is a trading nation whose prosperity depends on predictable rules, such as respect for national boundaries and sovereignty, stable markets and credible commitments. When a major power is seen to act unilaterally against another state’s leadership, the immediate victim is the country’s people. The longer-term casualty is the belief that smaller and middle states can rely on established norms when interests collide.
The UN Charter has set a clear baseline principle, prohibiting the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, except in narrow circumstances such as self-defence or with Security Council authorisation. If a cross- border seizure of a sitting president is not clearly anchored to those exceptions, it is coercion by another name.
International relations theory helps explain why this keeps happening even when it is legally and morally contested. From a realist lens, powerful states pursue strategic interests and accept reputational costs if the material payoff is worth it. In that world, legality is often treated as an instrument, not a constraint. From a more institutional or liberal perspective, stability comes from rules and reciprocity, which means unilateral actions corrode the very system that protects everyone, including the initiator over time.
A norm-focused view would add that what matters is precedent. If one major power can do this, others will cite the example later, accelerating a race towards a more permissive and dangerous global environment.
The common public justification for interventions has often borrowed language of justice, democracy or human rights. That vocabulary resonates with many audiences but it does not solve the core legitimacy problem. In most accepted frameworks of “just cause”, authority matters, process matters and last resort matters. Without recognised collective authority and without clear proportionality, the act becomes difficult to defend as a principled humanitarian move rather than a discretionary application of power.
There is also a hard geopolitical layer that Malaysians should recognise, which is Venezuela’s resource endowment. Venezuela has long been cited as holding some of the world’s largest proved oil reserves. It also sits atop significant mineral wealth including gold, with long-running controversy over illicit mining and governance in resource regions. In a world where energy security and critical minerals are increasingly securitised, resources amplify the strategic stakes. That does not prove motive but it does explain why Venezuela’s politics rarely stay “domestic”.
So where does Malaysia come in?
First, it is a reminder that “rules-based order” is not a blanket guarantee. It is a contested space where rules and power interact. When our leaders project international relevance through high-profile diplomacy, the domestic audience may enjoy the symbolism but symbolism does not equal leverage. A small state’s strength comes from discipline, clarity of interests and diversified options, not from visibility alone.
Second, it sharpens the reliability question that Malaysians are already asking in a more immediate context, such as trade pressure. The US-Malaysia Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) episode showed how asymmetry works in practice. Our public discourse since the signing has revolved around whether Malaysia’s concessions were proportionate and whether safeguards were adequately explained. The government has since had to set up an official microsite and issued FAQs to defend the agreement in public.
The Venezuela incident and the ART controversy should be viewed through the same structural lens. When a stronger counterpart is willing to act unilaterally, smaller counterparts must assume that commitments can be reinterpreted quickly when domestic politics or strategic priorities shift. That is not scaremongering. It is basic risk management.
This is where semiconductors matter. Malaysia is not a marginal player in global supply chains. Our economy is deeply plugged into electronics and the semiconductor ecosystem that is central to US strategic competition. That creates opportunity but it also creates exposure. When trade policy and national security are increasingly blended, market access can become conditional and supply chains can become instruments of alignment. The ART debate has already surfaced Malaysian anxieties about being pulled closer to another country’s regulatory orbit.
Third, the political signal from Putrajaya has shifted since the Cabinet reshuffle. The new Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani, has stated that the government will examine the ART and review or renegotiate terms deemed unfair.
That is a constructive development, not because renegotiation is easy, but because it aligns Malaysia’s posture with a more sober reading of leverage: agreements should be continuously tested against national interest, economic resilience and policy autonomy.
What should Malaysians take away from a Venezuela headline?
We should care because the world is moving towards a harder, more transactional era where coercion can appear in military, financial and trade forms. If a major power demonstrates that it is prepared to bend rules in one theatre, it strengthens the argument that partners should not rely on goodwill alone in another theatre. Malaysia’s safest posture is to keep options open, diversify markets, strengthen domestic competitiveness and negotiate with clear red lines that are defensible at home.
Above all, we should resist the temptation to confuse international pageantry with strategic security. In today’s environment, credibility is built less by declaring neutrality and more by proving we can withstand pressure when neutrality becomes inconvenient.
> Insap, set up in 1986, is a think tank focusing on political-economic research. A not-for-profit organisation, Insap develops long-term strategies and policies relevant to the interests and aspirations of Malaysians.
Datuk Dr Pamela Yong
Chairman of Insap
