"Occasionally, history generates smooth changes from one era to another. More commonly, such shifts occur only gradually and untidily. And sometimes, as the former Downing Street foreign policy adviser John Bew puts it in the New Statesman, history unfolds in a series of flashes and bangs. In Caracas last weekend, Donald Trump's forces did this in spectacular style. In the process, the US brushed aside more of what remains of the so-called rules-based order with which it tried to shape the west after 1945."
"The capture of Venezuela's former president Nicolas Maduro has precedents in US policy. But discerning a wider new pattern from the kidnapping is not easy, especially at this early stage. As our columnist Aditya Chakrabortty has argued this week, the abduction can be seen as a assertion of American power, but also as little more than a chaotic asset grab. The US's historic allies are still struggling to understand these changes. Even more important, they are struggling to respond to them."
History sometimes changes smoothly, more often gradually and untidily, and occasionally in flashes and bangs. In Caracas, Donald Trump's forces executed a dramatic operation that sidelined elements of the post‑1945 rules‑based order. The capture of Nicolas Maduro echoes previous US policies, but it remains unclear whether it signals a broader pattern or a chaotic asset grab. US allies are struggling both to interpret and to respond. The British government has hesitated, but prolonged indecision is untenable; Britain needs a mature public debate and a clear international strategy. A senior European argument states that Europe lacks the means and will, and that reclaiming influence requires collective deployment of hard power and hard cash.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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