US attack on Venezuela is warfare dressed as lawfare

This photo taken on the early morning of Jan. 3, 2026 shows a view of the city of Caracas, capital of Venezuela. [Photo/Xinhua]

With his usual Truth Social bravado, U.S. President Donald Trump has announced a "large-scale strike" against Venezuela. According to his statement, President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were "captured and flown out of the country" in an operation carried out "in conjunction with U.S. law enforcement."

Trump's phrasing is doing a remarkable amount of work. The U.S. military kidnapped a sitting head of state, yet the action is being framed as a cooperative law enforcement operation. This is the logic of lawfare: using the language of criminal justice to recast acts of force as a procedural necessity.

This rhetorical move is not accidental. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Maduro and several senior Venezuelan officials on charges including narco-terrorism and corruption. By foregrounding "law enforcement," the administration seeks to collapse a crucial distinction: Maduro is no longer presented as a sovereign leader but as a fugitive. What might otherwise be recognized as an act of war is reframed as the execution of an arrest, albeit on an international scale.

This script feels familiar because we've seen it before. On this exact day, Jan. 3, back in 1990, the U.S. finished its "police action" against Manuel Noriega in Panama. William Barr, who would later become attorney general under both George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump, wrote a now-infamous memo arguing that the president has the "inherent constitutional authority" to order the abduction of foreign nationals, even if it violates international law.

The irony here is thick enough to clog the Panama Canal. The U.S. is essentially claiming that its domestic law enforcement has global jurisdiction. The FBI and DEA are now the world's bouncers, authorized to kick in the doors of foreign presidential palaces if they happen to have an indictment filed in a D.C. district court.

The perils of this "lawfare" are twofold: 

First, it erodes the principle of sovereignty. If a state can simply label another country's leader a criminal to justify intervention, sovereignty ceases to be a meaningful safeguard and becomes little more than a courtesy.

Second, it establishes a precedent that will not remain unilateral. If U.S. courts can be used to legitimize military action abroad, other powers can adopt a similar strategy, issuing their own indictments, warrants and justifications for force against foreign officials.

By framing this strike as a "law enforcement" matter, Trump is attempting to seize the moral and legal high ground before international opposition can fully mobilize. It is an attempt to make the world's most powerful military look like it's just "doing its job" and "following the rules" — rules that the U.S. wrote, interpreted and enforced at the tip of a bayonet.

But no matter how often U.S. officials call it "law enforcement," a large-scale strike on a foreign capital still looks, smells and acts like an act of war.

In the 21st century, the most effective weapon in the U.S. arsenal isn't the Tomahawk missile. It's the legal memo that justifies it.