The recent United States military operation to seize control of Venezuela’s energy sector and remove Nicolás Maduro has fundamentally restructured the global chessboard, and not in Washington’s favor. By reasserting a 21st-century Monroe Doctrine fueled by explicit resource extraction, the U.S. has inadvertently stripped itself of its remaining diplomatic leverage in the Ukraine peace process. This swift, decisive action in the Western Hemisphere—driven by the stated goal of “rebuilding” and “reimbursing” through Venezuelan crude—has provided Vladimir Putin with the ultimate propaganda victory and a powerful mirror for his own territorial and resource ambitions.
The most immediate consequence of the Caracas intervention is the total validation of the “spheres of influence” argument. For years, the core of the Western coalition against Russia has rested on the principle of national sovereignty and the inviolability of borders. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was condemned as a brutal violation of the rules-based international order. However, by executing a military operation to secure the world’s largest oil reserves in its own “backyard,” Washington has performed a mirrored exercise of regional primacy. Putin can now frame his invasion of Ukraine not as an outlier, but as a reciprocal response to a newly established global norm. The argument from the Kremlin is now simple: if the U.S. can use force to manage its hemisphere and its energy security, Russia is equally entitled to manage its own in Eastern Europe.
Furthermore, the operation has prematurely cashed in what was once a potent diplomatic bargaining chip. Before the intervention, the U.S. held a crucial lever: it could have offered the de-escalation of pressure in Caracas as a carrot to influence Russian behavior in Kyiv. With the dissolution of USAID and the pivot away from “soft power” diplomacy in favor of direct energy partnerships, there is no longer a middle ground to negotiate. By taking Venezuela by force to “make money for the country,” as the administration has phrased it, Washington has removed this chip from the table. There is no longer any incentive for Moscow to make concessions in Ukraine based on the status of a now-occupied Caracas. Instead, Putin can rally the Global South against what is being viewed as a return to blatant neo-imperialism.
Finally, the sheer strategic focus required to “run” Venezuela—managing its transition and protecting the massive investments required to fix its broken oil infrastructure—signals a waning appetite for a prolonged standoff in Eastern Europe. The U.S. is now committed to a resource-intensive, high-stakes occupation aimed at securing “reimbursement” from Venezuelan oil fields. This new commitment will inevitably divert intelligence resources, military focus, and diplomatic capital away from the European theater. The message to the Kremlin is clear: the U.S. commitment to European security is transactional and secondary to immediate energy priorities in the Americas.
The ultimate casualty of this geopolitical realignment is Ukraine. The U.S. intervention in Venezuela has not only provided Russia with a powerful rhetorical justification but has also eliminated the strategic focus necessary to force a favorable peace in Kyiv. Any eventual settlement will likely reflect a world where great powers manage their own backyards for profit and security without interference. The keys to the Ukraine peace process, once held in Washington, have been inadvertently passed to Moscow.