As a geopolitically chaotic 2025 drew to a close, China mounted an aggressive military exercise named “Justice Mission 2025” encircling Taiwan.
With ever sharper rhetoric emerging out of Beijing on the Taiwan question, it was only natural to expect that the major military operation in 2026 was likely to be centred around Taipei.
The US proved these expectations wrong.
In the intervening night of 2-3 January 2025, the US launched an audacious military operation to capture the president and first lady of Venezuela in contravention of the UN charter and in disregard of Venezuelan sovereignty. Given the surgical nature of “Operation Absolute Resolve” it can be presumed at this stage that Washington was aided by factions within Venezuela. Maduro and his wife will now face the US justice system in New York on charges of narcoterrorism.
No one came to Venezuela’s rescue. China, whose emissary for Latin America and the Caribbean region was meeting Maduro just hours before the latter’s capture, did not intervene to save a fellow partner. Caracas’ strategic importance nor billions of dollars in investment compelled Beijing enough to do something more than a strongly worded statement.
It is debatable whether China needed the US to intervene in Venezuela for Beijing to justify its own invasion of Taiwan. But it is undeniable that a long tradition of unilateral military intervention by the US has been reignited, and that this will only smoothen the path for Beijing.
Here is my contention: developments in Venezuela and Taiwan will drive nuclear proliferation.
If there is a Taiwan invasion and the US does not intervene, it will create an interesting scenario for the latent nuclear powers and other have-nots. Capture of Venezuela’s head of state (without significant domestic or international resistance) coupled with takeover of Taiwan in a similar least-resistance-manner would send a chilling signal to all states: either major power will undertake military operations in their “hemisphere” while the extra-regional aggrieved major power will not intervene. In addition to the polarisation in the US polity, this would be the undoing of the nuclear security umbrella. Latent nuclear powers like Japan and South Korea are likely to go nuclear first, followed by other states in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The above analysis is based on the assumption that the US would not intervene when Taiwan is under invasion. While the latest US National Security Strategy continues to maintain ambiguity regarding intervening in Taiwan, I am of the view that it is highly unlikely that the US would directly militarily engage with a near-peer (something that Washington has not done for the last eight decades since World War II) over the future of Taipei. Unlike the Cold War, when the US was able to engage in proxy wars with the Soviet Union, Washington’s ability this time around to indirectly aid Taipei would be quite difficult owing to Beijing’s complete blockade of the island. At best, Washington would sell as many weapon systems to Taipei before the window of doing so closes.