Signs are already emerging that Donald Trump’s kidnap of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro is making the world more dangerous. Days after US forces bombed Caracas and snatched Maduro, North Korea tested its hypersonic missiles. Leader Kim Jong-Un cited the “geopolitical crisis” of the moment as a motive for the tests.
North Korea on the war path
North Korea, which is nuclear-armed, has so far avoided being attacked by the US. France24 reported other states in the region picked up the launch:
Seoul and Tokyo said Sunday they had detected the launch from near Pyongyang of two ballistic missiles – the country’s first test of the year just hours before South Korean leader Lee Jae-myung headed to Beijing for a summit.
Kim told North Korea state media:
Why it is necessary is exemplified by the recent geopolitical crisis and complicated international events.
He said the test showed that North Korea’s nuclear forces were ready.
Important achievements have been recently made in putting our nuclear forces on a practical basis and preparing them for an actual war
A more dangerous world
US special forces raided Caracas on 3 January 2026. Supported by air power and cyber-attacks, they kidnapped Maduro and his wife. Trump’s forces have been them to New York to stand trial. The stated rationale for this act of frontier justice is Venezuela’s massive oil reserves. The US military build-up was framed as a war on drugs. It wasn’t.
America has further hollowed out international law with the attack. And the US has sent a message to it’s official enemies around the world: the rules don’t count anymore.
Gaza, Iraq and Libya show that term like ‘international law’ and the rules based system’ are just jargon. This is just the latest sign of the decay of international order. The US once again finds itself the real ‘rogue state’
But it also says something else. Trump’s open turn towards unliteral posse justice tells smaller states that a deterrent on the scale of North Korea’s is worth having. This is a recipe for more, not less, militarism.
Featured image via the Canary
By Joe Glenton
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