The Capture of Maduro and the Return of American Statecraft

History does not usually announce its turning points with trumpets.  - Jim Reynolds

Not because it was spectacular—though it was. 

Not because it was unprecedented—because it was not. 

• But because it marked the quiet return of an older American habit: enforcing order in its own neighborhood when disorder metastasizes into danger.

For a generation, the United States pretended otherwise...

Under Hugo Chávez and then Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela was not merely a failed socialist experiment. 

• It became something more dangerous: a criminalized state. 
• A narco-regime. 
• A logistics hub for cocaine, a haven for Hezbollah operatives, an Iranian drone workshop, and a pressure valve for mass migration...