On Jan. 3, the United States launched a covert operation to detain Venezuela’s longtime dictator Nicolás Maduro, on charges of narcotrafficking and corruption. The episode echoed a similar intervention in 1990, when U.S. forces captured Panama’s Manuel Noriega under comparable allegations.

This repetition is no accident. It reveals how order continues to be enforced in the Americas, and how countries such as Canada, whether we admit it or not, benefit from that enforcement while bearing few of its risks.

Washington framed Maduro’s capture not as an act of war, but as a law-enforcement action, backed by a $50-million reward. That sent a clear message — when multilateral institutions prove ineffective, the United States will act alone.

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