Implications of the Venezuela Case for Southeast Asia: Parallels and Limits

The US military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and bring him to face criminal charges in America fundamentally assaults the principle of national sovereignty, signalling a world sliding towards the law of the jungle. For Southeast Asia, this episode prompts reflection on possible parallels, such as whether this might be the catalyst for China to assert its own sphere of influence, the new logic driving such US interventionism, and the US’ conflation of law enforcement with extra‑territorial use of force, while recognising that any comparisons would be conditioned by distinct regional contexts.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 to reassert its influence over its periphery, Washington under then President Biden claimed the moral high ground in condemning Moscow’s blatant violation of another country’s sovereignty. Now, under Trump, the US has wielded coercive force in its backyard against another sovereign nation, suggesting a return to the age of great-power spheres of influence. China has taken notice: Beijing may feel more emboldened and determined to advance its ‘sphere of influence’ in Asia, by stepping up its forceful posture towards Taiwan, whose capture would be pivotal to pushing US power behind the First Island Chain. China may also seek to constrain foreign military presence and resource exploration in the South China Sea. In this emerging landscape, the drive towards regional hegemony would gain further momentum in reshaping our regional order.

Yet there are limits to China’s assertion of its dominance in Asia to the exclusion of the US. The US’ 2025 National Security Strategy prioritises the Western Hemisphere as its core theatre, but makes clear that Washington will maintain a “vigilant posture in the Indo-Pacific” and prevent any single power from dominating regional waters. Any assumption that a US “pivot” to the Americas equates to ceding Asia to China is inconsistent with Washington’s renewed commitments to the defence of its treaty allies, including the Philippines. At the same time, the Venezuela operation underscores the potency of US military capabilities and their deterrent effect, demonstrating that Washington can decisively project power when it chooses – a factor likely to temper its opponents’ ambitions.

For Southeast Asia, where wariness of external intervention runs deep and leaders regard regime change with extreme sensitivity, what stands out about the Venezuela operation is that it tears up the old scripts of democracy promotion or nation-building. Unlike previous US interventions rhetorically framed around advancing democratic transitions – whether in post-Communist Europe or the Middle East during the “Arab Spring” – Washington’s removal of Maduro was not driven by any motive to restore democracy to the Venezuelan people.

Instead, the Trump administration is guided by a narrow calculus of American interests: stemming narcotics flows into the US, consolidating control over Venezuela’s oil sector, blunting Chinese influence and ensuring that the government in Caracas is aligned with Washington’s, not Beijing’s, priorities. The seeming absence of involvement by the Venezuelan opposition, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, in the post-Maduro political arrangement underscores that the US’ true objective was regime leadership replacement without political liberalisation. For Southeast Asian leaders, this distinction is significant: it signals the US’ departure from a liberal and neo-conservative nation-building creed and its heading towards an overtly transactional, interest-driven logic. The US’ focus is less on the nature of an affected regime than how it aligns with US geo-economic interests, particularly what resources the latter holds and the extent to which it warrants US intervention.

It would be a stretch to assume that the US could transpose the law enforcement rationale applied in Venezuela to Southeast Asia, because core American strategic and economic interests are not at stake at a comparable scale.

Another noteworthy aspect is how Washington fused a law enforcement rationale with a military offensive against Maduro, who faces narcotics trafficking charges in the US. This illustrates how US domestic legal grounds have been mobilised to legitimise extra-territorial coercive action – a move that, in Venezuela’s case, dovetailed with Washington’s strategic aims of gaining influence over the oil sector and securing a compliant government in Caracas.

In Southeast Asia, a different law enforcement concern has gained greater salience for US regional policy: large-scale scam centres that defrauded its citizens of an estimated US$12.5 billion in 2024. Washington’s mounting pressure has spurred more forceful crackdowns by regional governments, yet the problem remains deeply entrenched. In Cambodia, for instance, the scam economy is reportedly embedded within the broader political economy and sustained by local patronage networks, as highlighted in the US State Department’s 2025 Trafficking in Persons report.

It would be a stretch to assume that the US could transpose the law enforcement rationale applied in Venezuela to Southeast Asia, because core American strategic and economic interests are not at stake at a comparable scale. Nonetheless, regional governments cannot afford to discount the incident. The second Trump Administration has adopted an increasingly securitised approach to Southeast Asia-based transnational crime. It has prosecuted criminal kingpin Chen Zhi, a former adviser to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet; issued sanctions and conducted asset seizures targeting scam-linked entities and individuals; created an inter-agency Scam Centre Strike Force; and deployed FBI agents to the region to support local authorities in operations against scam compounds. If allowed to fester, these scam centres risk becoming a persistent irritant in some Southeast Asian nation-states’ relations with Washington and could invite more forceful measures by the US.

On a final note, the US action against Venezuela has sounded alarms well beyond the Americas, inviting reflection on possible parallels. Will Washington or other powers seek to assert control over their peripheries under various pretexts? Venezuela is less a universal template than the convergence of highly specific conditions: a regime openly hostile to Washington in its backyard, burdened by criminal allegations yet endowed with vast oil and critical mineral reserves. For Southeast Asia, the imperative lies not in overstating analogies or having alarmist reactions but in soberly assessing which comparisons might prove portable and realistic, and how to address vulnerabilities within the region that might invite a similar interventionist logic.

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