Category: The Conversation – Global Perspectives

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By James Trapani, Associate Lecturer of History and International Relations, Western Sydney University

After US special forces swooped into Caracas to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and topple his government, US President Donald Trump said the United States will now “run” Venezuela, including its abundant oil resources.

US companies were poised to invest billions to upgrade Venezuela’s crumbling oil infrastructure, he said, and “start making money for the country”. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves – outpacing Saudi Arabia with 303 billion barrels, or about 20% of global reserves.

If this does eventuate – and that’s a very big “if” – it would mark the end of an adversarial relationship that began nearly 30 years ago.

Yes, the Trump administration’s military action in Venezuela was in many ways unprecedented. But it was not surprising given Venezuela’s vast oil wealth and the historic relations between the US and Venezuela under former President Hugo Chávez and Maduro.

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A long history of US investment

Venezuela is a republic of around 30 million people on the northern coast of South America, about twice the size of California. During much of the early 20th century, it was considered the wealthiest country in South America due to its oil reserves.

Foreign companies, including those from the US, invested heavily in the growth of Venezuelan oil and played a heavy hand in its politics. In the face of US opposition, however, Venezuelan leaders began asserting more control over their main export resource. Venezuela was a key figure in the formation of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1960, and it nationalised much of its oil industry in 1976.

This negatively impacted US companies like ExxonMobil and has fuelled the recent claims by the Trump administration that Venezuela “stole” US oil.

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Economic prosperity, however, did not follow for most Venezuelans. The mismanagement of the oil industry led to a debt crisis and International Monetary Fund (IMF) intervention in 1988. Caracas erupted in protests in February 1989 and the government sent the military to crush the uprising. An estimated 300 people were killed, according to official totals, but the real figure could be 10 times higher.

In the aftermath, Venezuelan society became further split between the wealthy, who wanted to work with the US, and the working class, who sought autonomy from the US. This division has defined Venezuelan politics ever since.

Chávez’s rise to power

Hugo Chávez began his career as a military officer. In the early 1980s, he formed the socialist “Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200” within the army and began giving rousing lectures against the government.

Then, after the 1989 riots, Chávez’s recruitment efforts increased dramatically and he began planning the overthrow of Venezuela’s government. In February 1992, he staged a failed coup against the pro-US president, Carlos Andrés Pérez. While he was imprisoned, his group staged another coup attempt later in the year that also failed. Chavez was jailed for two years, but emerged as the leading presidential candidate in 1998 on a socialist revolutionary platform.

Chávez became a giant of both Venezuelan and Latin American politics. His revolution evoked the memory of Simón Bolívar, the great liberator of South America from Spanish colonialism. Not only was Chávez broadly popular in Venezuela for his use of oil revenue to subsidise government programs for food, health and education, he was well-regarded in like-minded regimes in the region due to his generosity.

Most notably, Chávez provided Cuba with billions of dollars worth of oil in exchange for tens of thousands of Cuban doctors working in Venezuelan health clinics.

He also set a precedent of standing up to the US and to the IMF at global forums, famously calling then-US President George W Bush “the devil” at the UN General Assembly in 2006.

US accused of fomenting a coup

Unsurprisingly, the US was no fan of Chávez.

After hundreds of thousands of opposition protesters took to the streets in April 2002, Chavez was briefly ousted in a coup by dissident military officers and opposition figures, who installed a new president, businessman Pedro Carmona. Chávez was arrested, the Bush administration promptly recognised Carmona as president, and the The New York Times editorial page celebrated the fall of a “would-be dictator”.

Chavez swept back into power just two days later, however, on the backs of legions of supporters filling the streets. And the Bush administration immediately faced intense scrutiny for its possible role in the aborted coup.

While the US denied involvement, questions lingered for years about whether the government had advance knowledge of the coup and tacitly backed his ouster. In 2004, newly classified documents showed the CIA was aware of the plot, but it was unclear how much advance warning US officials gave Chavez himself.

US pressure continues on Maduro

Maduro, a trade unionist, was elected to the National Assembly in 2000 and quickly joined Chávez’s inner circle. He rose to the office of vice president in 2012 and, following Chávez’s death the following year, won his first election by a razor-thin margin.

But Maduro is not Chávez. He did not have the same level of support among the working class, the military or across the region. Venezuela’s economic conditions worsened and inflation skyrocketed.

And successive US administrations continued to put pressure on Maduro. Venezuela was hit with sanctions in both the Obama and first Trump presidency, and the US and its allies refused to recognise Maduro’s win in the 2018 election and again in 2024.

Isolated from much of the world, Maduro’s government became dependent on selling oil to China as its sole economic outlet. Maduro also claims to have thwarted several coup and assassination attempts allegedly involving the US and domestic opposition, most notably in April 2019 and May 2020 during Trump’s first term.

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US officials have denied involvement in any coup plots; reporting also found no evidence of US involvement in the 2020 failed coup.

Now, Trump has successfully removed Maduro in a much more brazen operation, with no attempts at deniability. It remains to be seen how Venezuelans and other Latin American nations will respond to the US actions, but one thing is certain: US involvement in Venezuelan politics will continue, as long as it has financial stakes in the country.

James Trapani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Before toppling Maduro, the US spent decades pressuring Venezuelan leaders over its oil wealth – https://theconversation.com/before-toppling-maduro-the-us-spent-decades-pressuring-venezuelan-leaders-over-its-oil-wealth-272679

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Sarah Heathcote, Honorary Associate Professor in International Law, Australian National University

United States President Donald Trump has said the US will “run” Venezuela until a new government is installed, following the US military intervention in the country’s capital, Caracas.

American forces have seized Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, and brought the pair to the US to face what Trump has described as a “narco-terrorism” trial.

This follows months of build-up of US military forces in the region.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has said the US attacks are:

an act of armed aggression against Venezuela. This is deeply concerning and condemnable. The pretexts used to justify such actions are unfounded.

So, what does international law say?

Was this an act of ‘force’ under the UN charter?

Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter says:

All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.

Russia’s framing of the US’ Venezuela intervention as a condemnable “act of armed agression” is at least an affirmation of its own belief in the existence of international law.

Similarly, Russia appeals to international law when it claims, spuriously, that its own actions in Ukraine are justified under exceptions to the prohibition on armed aggression – or that they are mere “operations” within its own territory, and so for different legal reasons, lawful under international law.

Commentators have been quick to describe the US strikes in Venezuela as a breach of article 2(4) of the UN charter.

The US’ actions are only lawful if supported by a resolution from the UN Security Council; if the US was acting in self-defence; or – and this is often overlooked – if there was consent by the lawful government of Venezuela to the intervention.

There was no UN Security Council authorisation for the US to intervene in Venezuela, nor has the US been the victim of an ongoing or imminent act of aggression by Venezuela.

A claim of consent by the lawful Venezuelan government might have more ostensible credit because evidence suggests the 2024 presidential election was stolen from Maduro’s opponent, Edmundo González.

However, because the identity of the lawful government is contested (some countries have recognised Maduro’s win in the 2024 election) and the opposition controls no Venezuelan territory, the US can only intervene on the legal ground of consent with a Security Council resolution.

So, if you define the US’ actions in Venezuela as an act of “force” within the meaning of article 2(4) UN Charter, then yes, the US has engaged in a prohibited act, since none of the justifications apply.

What if it was just a ‘law enforcement operation’?

For its part, the Trump administration appears to be arguing the strikes on Venezuela were not a “use of force” in the first place, but rather a law enforcement operation.

In a press conference following the strikes, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the Venezuelan president as “a fugitive of American justice”. (Given the US Congress was not notified before the Venezuela strikes, this framing comes across as an attempt to obfuscate the need for Congressional authority to use force under US domestic law).

What, then, if the intervention was not a “use of force” as defined by the UN charter, but merely a law enforcement operation?

In making this assessment, one has to take into account the operation’s scale, target, location and the broader context.

Media reports have described 15,000 US troops amassing in the region by December, and the recent deployment of a US aircraft carrier near Venezuela.

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Read more:
Tracking the US build-up in the Caribbean

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The intervention in Venezuela came from the highest US authority (the president), targeted Venezuela’s acting head of state, and was executed against a background of unfriendly relations between the two states.

In this context, it is hard to see how this can be anything other than a “use of force” within the meaning of article 2(4) of the UN Charter.

It does not, in my view, constitute a law enforcement operation.

International law isn’t dead

Few will mourn the removal of Maduro, widely considered an autocrat. Democracy might even be restored to Venezuela.

Nonetheless, the US intervention in Venezuela was as brazen and unlawful as its military strike on Iran in June last year. As such, it challenges international law.

But international law is not “dead” just because the most powerful no longer respect it.

Breaches of the law are normal in any legal system. Indeed, they are expected or there would not be a need for the rule.

International law is created by all states, not just the powerful few. This makes international community reactions to breaches particularly important.

So, to preserve the rules-based international order, all states need to call out breaches of the law when they occur, including in the current instance.

Sarah Heathcote does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Were the US actions in Venezuela legal under international law? An expert explains – https://theconversation.com/were-the-us-actions-in-venezuela-legal-under-international-law-an-expert-explains-272684

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Juan Zahir Naranjo Cáceres, PhD Candidate, Political Science, International Relations and Constitutional Law, University of the Sunshine Coast

In the early hours of Saturday morning, US special forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from his home in Caracas and flew him out of the country. US President Donald Trump announced that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, would face federal narco-terrorism charges in New York.

For anyone familiar with the history of US interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean, the basic pattern is grimly familiar: a small state in Washington’s “backyard”, a leader deemed unacceptable, military force applied with overwhelming effect, and a government removed overnight.

Yet what makes Venezuela’s case different – and profoundly alarming – is the brazen nature of the months-long US military operations against the country based on shifting and shaky justifications, with little evidence.

This moment is also significant, with many scholars already warning that international law is in deep crisis.

A long tradition of removing ‘unacceptable’ leaders

Venezuela is not the first country in the region to see its leader overthrown or seized with direct US involvement or acquiescence.

In 1953, the British government suspended the constitution of its colony British Guiana (now Guyana) and removed the democratically elected government of Cheddi Jagan after just 133 days. The British believed Jagan’s social and economic reforms would threaten its business interests.

A decade later, the CIA conducted a sustained covert operation to destabilise Jagan’s later administration, culminating in rigged 1964 elections that ensured his rival, Forbes Burnham, would win.

In 1965, US President Lyndon Johnson sent more than 22,000 US troops to the Dominican Republic to prevent the return of former President Juan Bosch, overthrown in a 1963 coup, and another communist regime forming in the region.

Following the violent overthrow and execution of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop of Grenada in 1983, President Ronald Reagan ordered an invasion. His administration justified the action by citing the need to protect US medical students and prevent the island from becoming a “Soviet-Cuban colony”.

In December 1989, President George H.W. Bush launched a full-scale invasion of Panama involving about 24,000 US troops to remove General Manuel Noriega, who had been indicted on drug-trafficking charges (like Maduro). He was subsequently flown to the United States, tried and imprisoned.

And in 2004, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was removed from power and flown to Africa in what he described as a US-orchestrated coup and “kidnapping”. In 2022, French and Haitian officials told The New York Times that France and the US had collaborated to remove him.

Why Maduro’s case is different

In all of these cases, Washington asserted control over what it has long considered its sphere of influence, intervening when governments threatened its interests through ideology, alliances or defiance.

But Venezuela in 2026 is not Grenada in 1983 or Panama in 1989. It is a much larger country with some 30 million people and significant armed forces, which has spent years preparing for a possible US invasion. More importantly, the operation unfolded in an entirely different global context.

During the Cold War, US interventions were often condemned but rarely threatened the legitimacy of the international order itself.

Today, by contrast, the Maduro operation has been met with swift and sharp condemnation from across the political spectrum.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the strikes an “assault on the sovereignty” of Latin America, while Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the attack “crossed an unacceptable line” and set an “extremely dangerous precedent”. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the strikes were in “clear violation” of the UN Charter.

Even traditional US allies expressed discomfort. France’s foreign minister said the operation contravened the “principle of non-use of force that underpins international law” and that lasting political solutions cannot be “imposed by the outside”.

And a statement from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply alarmed” about the “dangerous precedent” the United States was setting and the rules of international law not being respected.

The UN Charter prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state under Article 2(4).

For years, scholars have warned that repeated violations of the UN Charter by the United States were steadily eroding the basic rules governing the use of force.

Venezuela may represent the moment that erosion becomes collapse. When a permanent Security Council member not only bombs another state but abducts its head of state, the precedent is indeed profound.

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Read more:
A predawn op in Latin America? The US has been here before, but the seizure of Venezuela’s Maduro is still unprecedented

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Regional consequences

The immediate consequences for Latin America are already being felt. Colombia has moved troops to its border with Venezuela, while neighbouring Guyana has activated its own security plans.

It’s unclear at this point if further US military operations are planned. Trump has said the US will “run” Venezuela until a “safe transition” is complete, but analysts question whether Washington has the appetite for such an open-ended commitment. Venezuela’s defence minister has also pledged to continue to fight against what he called “criminal aggression”.

The operation has also deepened divisions that already existed in Latin America over Venezuela. After Maduro’s 2024 election, the results were immediately contested: Maduro’s government claimed victory, while the opposition said it won based on voting tallies it published online.

Regional governments split over which narrative to accept, with some recognising Maduro’s government and others backing the opposition. These fault lines have made a coordinated regional response to the Trump administration’s actions impossible.

The broader risk is that Venezuela becomes a precedent not only for great powers, but for regional actors. If Washington can seize a head of state without legal sanction, what stops others from doing the same?

A dangerous new normal

Maduro’s removal may or may not bring the political change Trump desires. But the manner of his removal – brazen, unilateral, defended in the language of US exceptionalism – has already done serious damage to the fragile architecture of international law.

If sovereignty can be set aside when inconvenient, heads of state can be abducted without UN approval, and the most powerful decide which governments may exist, then we have returned to a world governed by force – not the law. And in that world, no state can consider itself truly secure.

Juan Zahir Naranjo Cáceres does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The US has invaded countries and deposed leaders before. Its military action against Venezuela feels different – https://theconversation.com/the-us-has-invaded-countries-and-deposed-leaders-before-its-military-action-against-venezuela-feels-different-272682

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By R. Evan Ellis, Senior Associate, Americas Program, The Center for Strategic and International Studies

The predawn seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, 2026 was a complicated affair. It was also, operationally, a resounding success for the U.S. military.

Operation Absolute Resolve achieved its objective of seizing Maduro through a mix of extensive planning, intelligence and timing. R. Evan Ellis, a military strategist and former Latin America policy adviser to the U.S. State Department, walked The Conversation through what is publicly known about the planning and execution of the raid.

How long would this op have been in the works?

Operation Absolute Resolve was some months in the planning, as the Pentagon acknowledged in its briefing on Jan. 3. My presumption is that from the beginning of the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean and the establishment of Joint Task Force Southern Spear in the fall, military planners were developing options for the president to capture or eliminate Maduro and other key Chavista leadership, should coercive efforts at persuading a change in the Venezuelan situation fail.

Prior to Southern Spear, U.S. military activities in the region were directly overseen by Southern Command – the part of the Department of Defense responsible for Central America, South America and most of the Caribbean. But establishing a dedicated joint task force in October 2025 helped facilitate the coordination of a large operation, like the one conducted to seize Maduro.

Planning for the Jan. 3 operation likely became more detailed and realistic as the administration settled on a concrete set of options. U.S. forces practiced the raid on a replica of the presidential compound. “They actually built a house which was identical to the one they went into with all the same, all that steel all over the place,” President Donald Trump told “Fox & Friends Weekend.”

Why did the US choose to act now?

The buildup had been going on for months, and the arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford in November was a key milestone. That gave the U.S. the capability to launch a high volume of attacks against land targets and added to the already huge array of American military hardware stationed in the Caribbean.

It joined an Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, which included a helicopter dock ship and two landing platform vessels. An additional six destroyers and two cruisers were stationed in the region with the capability of launching hundreds of missiles for both land attack and air defense, as well as a special operations mother ship.

Trump’s authorization of CIA operations in Venezuela was probably also a key factor. It is likely that individuals inside Venezuela played invaluable roles not only in obtaining intelligence, but also in cooperating with key people in Maduro’s military and government to make sure they did – or did not do – certain things at key moments during the Jan. 3 operation.

With the complex array of plans and preparations in place by December, the U.S. military was likely ready to execute, but it had to wait for opportune conditions to maximize the probability of success.

What constitutes the opportune moment?

There are arguably three things needed for the opportune moment: good intelligence, the establishment of reliable cooperation arrangements on the ground, and favorable tactical conditions.

Intel would have been crucial. Trump acknowledged his authorization of covert CIA operations in Venezuela in October, and evidently, by the end of the year, analysts had gathered the information needed to make this operation go smoothly. The intelligence would have had to include knowing exactly where Maduro would be at the time of the operation, and the situation around him.

Over the past few months, according to media reporting, the intelligence community had agents on the ground in Venezuela, likely having conversations with people in the military, the Chavista leadership and beyond, who had crucial information or whose behavior was relevant to different parts of the operation – such as perhaps shutting down a system, standing down a military unit or being absent from a post at a key moment. A report from The New York Times indicates that the U.S. had a human source close to Maduro who was able to provide details of his day-to-day life, down to what he ate.

The more tactical conditions that were needed for the opportune moment involved things like the weather – you didn’t want storms or high winds or cloud cover that would put U.S. aircraft in danger as they flew in some very treacherous low-level routes through the mountains that separate Fort Tiun – the military compound in Caracas where Maduro was captured – from the coast.

How did the operation unfold?

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has given some details about how the plan was executed.

We know the U.S. launched aircraft from multiple sites – the operation involved at least 20 different launch sites for 150 planes and helicopters. These would have involved aircraft for jamming operations, some surveillance, fighter jets to strike targets, and some to provide an escort for the helicopters bringing in a special forces unit and members of the FBI.

As an integral part of the operation, the U.S. carried out a series of cyber activities that may have played a role in undermining not only Venezuela’s defense systems, but also its understanding of what was going on. Although the nature of U.S. cyber activities is only speculation here, a coherent, alerted Venezuelan command and control system could have cost the lives of U.S. force members and given Maduro time to seal himself in his safe room, creating a problem – albeit not an insurmountable one – for U.S. forces.

There was also, according to Trump, a U.S.-generated interruption to some part of the power grid. In addition, it appears that there may have been diversionary strikes in other parts of the country to give a false impression to the Venezuelan military that U.S. military activity was directed toward some other, lesser land target, as had recently been the case.

U.S. aircraft then basically disabled Venezuelan air defenses.

As U.S. rotary wing and other assets converged on the target in Caracas – with cover from some of the most capable fighters in the U.S. inventory, including F-35s and F-22s, as well as F-18s – other U.S. assets decimated the air defense and other threats in the area.

It would be logical if elite members of the U.S. 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment were used in the approach to the compound in Caracas. Their skills would have been required if, as I presume, they came in via the canyon route that separates Caracas from the coast. I have driven the road through those mountains, and it is treacherous – especially for an aircraft at low altitude.

Once the team landed, it would have have taken a matter of minutes to infiltrate the compound where Maduro was.

Any luck involved?

According to Trump, the U.S. team grabbed Maduro just as he was trying to get into his steel vault safe room.

“He didn’t get that space closed. He was trying to get into it, but he got bum-rushed right so fast that he didn’t get into that,” the U.S. president told Fox & Friends Weekend.

Although the U.S. was reportedly fully prepared for that eventuality, with high-power torches to cut him out, that delay could have cost time and possibly lives.

It was thus critical to the U.S. mission that forces were able to enter the facility, reach and secure Maduro and his wife in a minimal amount of time.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the Department of Defense or the US government.

– ref. How Maduro’s capture went down – a military strategist explains what goes into a successful special op – https://theconversation.com/how-maduros-capture-went-down-a-military-strategist-explains-what-goes-into-a-successful-special-op-272671

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Juan Luis Manfredi, Prince of Asturias Distinguished Professor @Georgetown, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha

On the back of every dollar bill, the phrase Novus Ordo Seclorum (“New order of the ages”) hints at the principle guiding the US’ new security strategy.

The attack on Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro herald the decoupling of Trump’s United States from the rules-based international order, and the end of liberal order as a whole. A new international order is now emerging, based on the use of force, revisionism and security on the American continent.

Here are five keys to understanding the outcomes of the military intervention, and the new order it ushers in.

1. Expanded presidential power

The attack cements the new doctrine of an imperious president, one who executes orders without waiting for congressional approval, legal validation or media opinion.

With checks and balances weakened, the second Trump administration is free to present the new order as a question of urgent security: with the US at war against drug trafficking (or migration) and threatened by “new powers” (a euphemism for China), it has no need to respect proper procedures or timelines.

Trump identifies himself with historic, founding American presidents like Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt. All three were charismatic leaders, and with the 250th anniversary of the US republic approaching such comparisons feed into Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric.

Erosion of the US political and legal system is undeniable. The president has approved an extensive package of regulations that promote emergency powers, a permanent state of crisis, and suppression of political opposition and the judicial system. The attack on Venezuela is yet another milestone in the reconfiguration of the presidency’s relations to the legislative and judicial branches of power, in line with the Hamiltonian tradition of a strong and unifying executive branch.

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Trump sees himself as more like a king than president. Here’s why

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2. (Latin) America for the (US) Americans

On the international stage, the attack on Venezuela advances a diplomatic agenda that is rooted in the defence of national interests. The concept of “America for the Americans” has made a strong comeback: Panama, Mexico and Canada have all been made to bow to Trump’s will, while the administration continues to push for control of Greenland.

In Latin America, Brazil and Colombia’s left-wing governments lead regional opposition to the US, while Chile’s newly elected José Antonio Kast and Argentina’s Javier Milei are Trump’s ideological allies. The continent as a whole is witnessing a broad shift towards nationalist, right-wing parties that oppose migration.

If Venezuela’s post-Maduro transition aligns with these values, any hope for national unity and a peaceful transition to full democracy will disappear.

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American dominance is not dead, but it is changing — and not for the better

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3. Control of resources

Once again, it’s all about oil, but for different reasons than in Iraq. In a world where globalisation has shifted to geoeconomics, the United States wants to project its power in international energy markets and regulation. Venezuela’s infrastructure, ports and minerals are key to making this happen.

The US therefore doesn’t just want Venezuelan oil to supply its domestic market – it also wants to impose international prices and dominate supply. Its new vision aims to align energy sovereignty and technological development with trade and security.

Pax Silica – the international US-led alliance signed at the end of 2025 to secure supply chains for critical technologies such as semiconductors and AI – ushers in an era of transactional diplomacy: computer chips in exchange for minerals. For the “new” Venezuela, its oil reserves will allow it to participate in this new power dynamic.

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Leer más:
Why is Trump so obsessed with Venezuela? His new security strategy provides some clues

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4. Geopolitical realignment

The American view of territory fuels a revisionist foreign policy based on sovereignty – similar to those of China, Israel, or Russia – which is rooted in the concept of “nomos”, as defined by mid-20th century German philosopher Carl Schmitt. This is a worldview where the division of nations into “friend or foe” prevails over a liberal worldview governed by cooperation, international law, democracy and the free market.

Under this logic, spheres of influence emerge, resources are distributed, and power blocs are balanced, as the above examples demonstrate: without opposition, China would dominate Southeast Asia, Russia would scale back its war in exchange for 20% of Ukraine and control over its material resources and energy, and Israel would redraw the map of the Middle East and strike trade agreements with neighbouring countries.

5. Europe, democracy and Hobbes

Ideals like democracy, the rule of law and free trade are fading fast, and without effective capacity, things don’t end well for the European Union. As we have seen with Gaza, the EU often has strong ideological disagreement with other major powers but doesn’t command enough respect to do anything. The US’ military intervention revives Hobbesian political realism, where freedom is ceded to an absolute sovereign in exchange for peace and security.

In Trump’s new order, it is presidential authority – not truth, laws or democratic values – that has the final say.

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Europe must reject Trump’s nonsense accusations of ‘civilizational erasure’ – but it urgently needs a strategy of its own

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US domestic politics

2026 is an election year in the US, with 39 gubernatorial elections and a raft of state and local elections to be contested between March and November.

Through its actions in Venezuela, the Trump administration is effectively debating its model for succession. One faction, led by JD Vance, wants to avoid problems abroad and to renew the industrial economic model. The other, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is committed to rebuilding the international order with a strong and dominant US. The outcome of the Venezuelan operation may tip the balance, and could determine Trump’s successor in the 2028 presidential elections.

The attack on Venezuela is not just an intervention in the region: it also reflects the changing times in which we live. While international Trumpism was previously confined to disjointed slogans, it has now taken its first step into military strategy. Gone are the days of soft power, transatlantic relations and peace in Ibero-America. A new order is being born.

Juan Luis Manfredi no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. Trump’s new world order is taking shape in Venezuela. Five keys to understanding the US military attacks – https://theconversation.com/trumps-new-world-order-is-taking-shape-in-venezuela-five-keys-to-understanding-the-us-military-attacks-272673

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Alan McPherson, Professor of History, Temple University

In the dead of night during the holidays, the United States launched an operation inside a Latin American country, intent on seizing its leader on the pretext that he is wanted in U.S. courts on drug charges.

The date was Dec. 20, 1989, the country was Panama, and the wanted man was General Manuel Noriega.

Many people in the Americas waking up on Jan. 3, 2026, may have been feeling a sense of déjà vu.

Images of dark U.S. helicopters flying over a Latin American capital seemed, until recently, like a bygone relic of American imperialism – incongruous since the end of the Cold War.

But the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, along with his wife, Cilia Flores, recalls an earlier era of U.S. foreign policy.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced that, in an overnight operation, U.S. troops captured and spirited the couple out of Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. It followed what Trump described as an “extraordinary military operation” involving air, land and sea forces.

Maduro and his wife were flown to New York to face drug charges. While Maduro was indicted in 2020 on charges that he led a narco-terrorism operation, his wife was only added in a fresh indictment that also included four other named Venezuelans.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he “anticipates no further action” in Venezuela; Trump later said the he wasn’t afraid of American “boots on the ground.”

Whatever happens, as an expert on U.S.-Latin American relations, I see the U.S. operation in Venezuela as a clear break from the recent past. The seizure of a foreign leader – albeit one who clung to power through dubious electoral means – amounts to a form of ad hoc imperialism, a blatant sign of the Trump administration’s aggressive but unfocused might-makes-right approach to Latin America.

It eschews the diplomatic approach that has been the hallmark of inter-American relations for decades, really since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s took away the ideological grab over potential spheres of influence in the region.

Instead, it reverts to an earlier period when gunboats — yesteryear’s choppers — sought to achieve U.S. political aims in a neighboring region that American officials treated as the “American lake” – as one World War II Navy officer referred to the Caribbean.

Breaking with precedent

The renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” – one of the earliest acts of the second Trump administration – fits this new policy pivot.

But in key ways, there is no precedent to the Trump administration’s operation to remove Maduro.

Never before has the U.S. military directly intervened in South America to effect regime change. All of Washington’s previous direct actions were in smaller, closer countries in Central America or the Caribbean.

The U.S. intervened often in Mexico but never decapitated its leadership directly or took over the entire country. In South America, interventions tended to be indirect: Lyndon Johnson had a backup plan in case the 1964 coup in Brazil did not succeed (it did); Richard Nixon undermined the socialist government in Chile from 1970 on but did not orchestrate the coup against President Salvador Allende in 1973.

And while Secretary of State Henry Kissinger – the architect of U.S. foreign policy under Nixon and his successor, Gerald Ford – and others encouraged repression against leftists throughout the 1970s, they held back from taking a direct part in it.

A post-Maduro plan?

U.S. officials long viewed South American countries as too far away, too big and too independent to call for direct intervention.

Apparently, Trump’s officials paid that historical demarcation little heed.

What is to happen to Venezuela after Maduro? Taking him into U.S. custody lays bare that the primary goal of a monthslong campaign of American military attacking alleged drug ships and oil tankers was always likely regime change, rather than making any real dent in the amount of illegal drugs reaching U.S. shores. As it is, next to no fentanyl leaves Venezuela, and most Venezuelan cocaine heads to Europe, anyway.

What will preoccupy many regional governments in Latin America, and policy experts in Washington, is whether the White House has considered the consequences to this latest escalation.

Trump no doubt wants to avoid another Iraq War disaster, and as such he will want to limit any ongoing U.S. military and law enforcement presence. But typically, a U.S. force changing a Latin American regime has had to stay on the ground to install a friendly leader and maybe oversee a stable transition or elections.

Simply plucking Maduro out of Caracas does not do that. The Venezuela constitution says that his vice president is to take over. And Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who is demanding proof of life of her president, is no anti-Maduro figure.

Regime change would require installing those who legitimately won the 2024 election, and they are assuredly who Rubio wants installed next in Miraflores Palace.

Conflicting demands

With Trump weighing the demands of two groups – anti-leftist hawks in Washington and an anti-interventionist base of MAGA supporters – a power struggle in Washington could emerge. It will be decided by men who may have overlapping but different reasons for action in Venezuela: Rubio, who wants to burnish his image as an anti-communist bringer of democracy abroad; Trump, a transactional leader who seemingly has eyes on Venezuela’s oil; and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has shown a desire to flex America’s military muscle.

What exactly is the hierarchy of these goals? We might soon find out. But either way, a Rubicon has been crossed by the Trump administration. Decades of U.S. policy toward neighbors in the south have been ripped up.

The capture of Maduro could displace millions more Venezuelans and destabilize neighboring countries – certainly it will affect their relationship with Washington. And while the operation to remove Maduro was clearly thought out with military precision, the concern is that less attention has been paid to an equally important aspect: what happens next.

“We’re going to run the country” until a “safe, proper and judicious transition” occurs, the Trump promised. But that is easier said than done.

Alan McPherson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. A predawn op in Latin America? The US has been here before, but the seizure of Venezuela’s Maduro is still unprecedented – https://theconversation.com/a-predawn-op-in-latin-america-the-us-has-been-here-before-but-the-seizure-of-venezuelas-maduro-is-still-unprecedented-272664

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Andrew Gawthorpe, Lecturer in History and International Studies, Leiden University

Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, has been apprehended and flown to the US where the US attorney-general has announced he will face charges of drug trafficking and narco-terrorism. The US military’s operation to snatch Maduro was carried out in the early hours of January 3 and follows months of steadily mounting pressure on the Venezuelan government.

Now it appears that the US operation to remove a leader it has designated as a “narco-terrorist” has come to fruition. But whether the capture and removal of Maduro will lead to regime change in the oil-rich Latin American country remains unclear at present.

The US campaign against Venezuela is the product of two distinct policy impulses within the Trump administration. The first is the long held desire of many Republican hawks, including the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to force regime change in Caracas. They detest Venezuela’s socialist government and see overturning it as an opportunity to appeal to conservative Hispanic voters in the US.

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Read more:
How Venezuela has been preparing for a US invasion for more than two decades

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The second impulse is more complex. Trump campaigned for election in 2024 on the idea that his administration would not become involved in foreign conflicts. But his administration claims that Venezuela’s government and military are involved in drug trafficking, which in Washington’s thinking makes them terrorist organisations that are harming the American people. As head of the country’s government, Maduro, according to the Trump administration’s logic is responsible for that.

During Trump’s first administration, his Department of Justice indicted Maduro on charges of “narco-terrorism”. Now Bondi says there might be a new indictment which also covers Maduro’s wife, who was taken into detention with him. The fact that US law enforcement was involved in their capture reinforces the idea that they will now face those charges in a New York court, despite an early claim by opposition sources in Venezuela that Maduro’s departure may have been negotiated with the US government.

What comes next?

The big question is what comes next in Venezuela, and whether either the Republican hawks or the “America first” crowd will get the outcome that they want: ongoing US military presence to “finish the job” or simply a show of US strength to punish its adversary which doesn’t involve a lengthy American involvement.

The US has discovered time and again in recent decades that it is extremely difficult to dictate the political futures of foreign countries with military force. The White House might want to see the emergence of a non-socialist government in Caracas, as well as one which cracks down on the drug trade. But simply removing Maduro and dropping some bombs is unlikely to achieve that goal after nearly three decades of bulding up the regime under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez.

The Trump administration could have learned this lesson from Libya, whose dictatorial government the US and its allies overthrew in 2011. The country collapsed into chaos soon after, inflicting widespread suffering on its own citizens and creating problems for its neighbours.

In the case of Venezuela, it is unlikely that American military’s strikes alone will be enough to fatally undermine its government. Maduro may be gone, but the vast majority of the country’s governmental and military apparatus remains intact. Power will likely pass to a new figure in the regime.

The White House may dream that popular protests will break out against the government following Maduro’s ousting. But history shows that people usually react to being bombed by a foreign power by rallying around the flag, not turning against their leaders.

Nor would Venezuela’s descent into chaos be likely to help the Trump administration achieve its goals. Conflict in Venezuela could generate new refugee flows which would eventually reach America’s southern border. The collapse of central government authority would be likely to create a more conducive environment for drug trafficking. Widespread internal violence and human rights violations could hardly be portrayed as a victory to the crucial conservative Hispanic voting bloc.

If the Trump administration dreams of establishing a stable, pro-American government in Caracas, it is going to have to do more than just arrest Maduro. Bringing about durable regime change typically involves occupying a country with ground troops and engaging in “nation building”. The US tried this with decidedly mixed results in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump has pledged to avoid such entanglements and Rubio has said that, for now at least, the US has no plans for further military action against Venezuela. Trump has a penchant for flashy, quick wins, particularly in foreign policy. He may hope to tout Maduro’s capture as a victory and move on to other matters.

Nation-building failures

In almost no recent US military intervention did the American government set out to engage in nation-building right from the beginning. The perceived need to shepherd a new government into existence has typically only come to be felt when the limits of what can be accomplished by military force alone become apparent.

The war in Afghanistan, for instance, started as a war of revenge for the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11 2001 before transforming into a 20-year nation-building commitment. In Iraq, the Bush administration thought that it could depose Saddam Hussein and leave within a few months. The US ended up staying for nearly a decade.

It’s hard to imagine Trump walking down the same path, if only because he has always portrayed nation-building as a waste of American lives and treasure. But that still leaves him with no plausible way to achieve the divergent political outcomes he, his supporters and America’s foreign policy establishment want with the tools that he has at his disposal.

Meanwhile the US president will face pressure from a range of constituencies from Republican hawks to conservative Hispanic voters to force wholesale regime change in Venezuela. How Trump responds to that pressure will determine the future course of US policy towards the country.

Andrew Gawthorpe is affiliated with the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

– ref. US snatches Maduro in raid on Caracas: what we know so far – https://theconversation.com/us-snatches-maduro-in-raid-on-caracas-what-we-know-so-far-272660

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Justin Bergman, International Affairs Editor, The Conversation

We used to have a pretty clear idea of what an autocrat was. History is full of examples: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, along with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping today. The list goes on.

So, where does Donald Trump fit in?

In this six-part podcast series, The Making of an Autocrat, we are asking six experts on authoritarianism and US politics to explain how exactly an autocrat is made – and whether Trump is on his way to becoming one.

Like strongmen around the world, Trump’s first step was to take control of a party, explains Erica Frantz, associate professor of political science at Michigan State University.

Trump began this process long before his victory in the 2024 US presidential election. When he first entered the political stage in 2015, he started to transform the Republican Party into his party, alienating his critics, elevating his loyalists to positions of power and maintaining total control through threats and intimidation.

And once a would-be autocrat dominates a party like this, they have a legitimate vehicle to begin dismantling a democracy. As Frantz explains:

Now, many Republican elites see it as political suicide to stand up to Trump. So, fast forward to 2024, and we have a very personalist Trump party – the party is synonymous with Trump.

Not only does the party have a majority in the legislature, but it is Trump’s vehicle. And our research has shown this is a major red flag for democracy. It’s going to enable Trump to get rid of executive constraints in a variety of domains, which he has, and pursue his strongman agenda.

Listen to the interview with Erica Frantz at The Making of an Autocrat podcast.

This episode was written by Justin Bergman and produced and edited by Isabella Podwinski and Ashlynne McGhee. Sound design by Michelle Macklem.

Newsclips in this episode from CNN, The Telegraph, CNN and Nayib Bukele’s YouTube channel.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feedor find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Erica Frantz is a research fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.

– ref. Donald Trump’s first step to becoming a would-be autocrat – hijacking a party – https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-first-step-to-becoming-a-would-be-autocrat-hijacking-a-party-271849

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ben McCann, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of Adelaide

Brigitte Bardot’s death, at the age of 91, brings to a close one of the most extraordinary careers in post-war French cultural life.

Best known as an actress, she was also a singer, a fashion icon, an animal rights activist and a symbol of France’s sexual liberation.

Famous enough to be known by her initials, B.B. symbolised a certain vision of French femininity – rebellious and sensual, yet vulnerable.

Her impact on beauty standards and French national identity was profound. At her peak, she rivalled Marilyn Monroe in global fame and recognition. Simone de Beauvoir, France’s leading feminist writer, famously wrote in 1959 that Bardot “appears as a force of nature, dangerous so long as she remains untamed”.

A star is born

Bardot was born in 1934 to a well-off Parisian family. Raised in a strict Catholic household, she studied ballet at the Conservatoire de Paris with hopes of becoming a professional dancer.

Her striking looks led her to modelling. By 14, she was appearing in Elle magazine, catching the eye of director Roger Vadim, whom she married in 1952.

She began acting in the early 1950s and her appearance as Juliette in Vadim’s And God Created Woman (Et Dieu… créa la femme, 1956) put her on the map.

Bardot was instantly catapulted to international stardom. Vadim presented his wife as the ultimate expression of youthful, erotic freedom that both shocked and captivated French audiences.

Watching this relatively tame film today, it’s difficult to imagine just how taboo-breaking Bardot’s performance was. But in sleepy Catholic, conservative 1950s France, it set new norms for on-screen sexuality.

The film became a global phenomenon. Critics loved it, but censors and religious groups grew nervous.

An 60s icon

Bardot’s lack of formal training as an actress paradoxically became part of her appeal: she adopted a spontaneous acting approach, as much physical as verbal.

She was stunning in Contempt (Le Mépris, 1963), Jean-Luc Godard’s masterpiece about a crumbling marriage. Godard used her beauty and fame both as spectacle and critique. The film’s most famous sequence was a 31-minute conversation between Bardot and her co-star Michel Piccoli. Bardot was never better.

In Henri-Georges Clouzot’s intense courtroom drama The Truth (La Vérité, 1960), she showcased her dramatic range playing a young woman on trial for the murder of her lover.

In 1965, she co-starred with Jeanne Moreau in Louis Malle’s Long Live Maria (Viva Maria), a rare female buddy film that blended comedy and political satire. Bardot’s anarchic energy remains a dazzling feat.

A Very Private Affair (Vie privée, 1962) saw her portray a woman consumed by fame and chased by the media. The plotline was eerily predictive of Bardot’s own future.

She popularised fashion trends like the choucroute hairstyle and ballet flats. The Bardot neckline – off-the-shoulder tops and dresses – was named after her. She even wore pink gingham at her 1959 wedding.

Allure and provocation

Bardot’s star appeal lay in her contradictions. She appeared simultaneously natural and provocative, spontaneous and calculated. Her dishevelled glamour and effortless sexuality helped construct the archetype of the modern “sex kitten”.

She famously said “it is better to be unfaithful than to be faithful without wanting to be”.

Throwing off the shackles of bourgeois morality, Bardot epitomised a commitment to emotional and sexual freedom. Her turbulent love life was a case in point. She was married four times, with dozens of stormy relationships and extra-marital affairs along the way.

Forever immortalised as a free-spirited ingénue, Bardot was a muse for filmmakers, artists and musicians, from Andy Warhol to Serge Gainsbourg. Later on, Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse and Elle Fanning mentioned Bardot as an inspiration.

Famously, Bardot never succumbed to cosmetic surgery. As she once noted:

Women should embrace ageing because, at the end of the day, it’s much more beautiful to have a grandmother with white hair who looks like an elderly lady than to have a grandmother who’s bleached, dyed, and […] who looks much older but also really unhappy.

Life after the movies

Bardot retired from acting in 1973, aged only 39, citing disillusionment with fame. “It suffocated and destroyed me”, she said, about the film industry.

She shifted her attention to animal rights, founding the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in 1986. She became an uncompromising, vocal activist, campaigning against animal cruelty, fur farming, whaling and bullfighting.

But Bardot courted controversy from the mid-1990s for her far-right political views, remarks about Islam and immigration and repeated convictions for inciting racial hatred. She publicly defended disgraced actor Gérard Depardieu and pushed back on the #MeToo movement in France.

Such statements damaged her reputation, especially outside France, and created a troubling image: the once-liberating sex symbol now associated with nationalist conservatism.

While she never identified as a feminist, her unapologetic autonomy, early retirement and outspoken views led some to re-evaluate her as a figure of proto-feminist rebellion.

France gradually began to turn against Bardot, bothered by her outspoken views. But some applauded her couldn’t-care-less attitude and unwillingness to play by the rules.

Ultimately, by rejecting fame on her own terms, she parlayed her 50s free-spiritedness into a bold stand against conformity and societal norms.

Late in life, she told Danièle Thompson, the writer-director of the 2023 mini-series about her career, “I don’t understand why the whole world is still talking about me”.

The answer is simple – Bardot continues to fascinate us, flaws and all.

Ben McCann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Brigitte Bardot defined the modern woman and defied social norms – https://theconversation.com/brigitte-bardot-defined-the-modern-woman-and-defied-social-norms-261659

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Joan Taylor, Professor Emerita of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism, King’s College London

Every year, millions of people sing the beautiful carol Silent Night, with its line “all is calm, all is bright”.

We all know the Christmas story is one in which peace and joy are proclaimed, and this permeates our festivities, family gatherings and present-giving. Countless Christmas cards depict the Holy Family – starlit, in a quaint stable, nestled comfortably in a sleepy little village.

However, when I began to research my book on the childhood of Jesus, Boy Jesus: Growing up Judaean in Turbulent Times, that carol started to sound jarringly wrong in terms of his family’s actual circumstances at the time he was born.

The Gospel stories themselves tell of dislocation and danger. For example, a “manger” was, in fact, a foul-smelling feeding trough for donkeys. A newborn baby laid in one is a profound sign given to the shepherds, who were guarding their flocks at night from dangerous wild animals (Luke 2:12).

When these stories are unpacked for their core elements and placed in a wider historical context, the dangers become even more glaring.

Take King Herod, for example. He enters the scene in the nativity stories without any introduction at all, and readers are supposed to know he was bad news. But Herod was appointed by the Romans as their trusted client ruler of the province of Judaea. He stayed long in his post because he was – in Roman terms – doing a reasonable job.

Jesus’ family claimed to be of the lineage of Judaean kings, descended from David and expected to bring forth a future ruler. The Gospel of Matthew begins with Jesus’ entire genealogy, it was that important to his identity.

But a few years before Jesus’ birth, Herod had violated the tomb of David and looted it. How did that affect the family and the stories they would tell Jesus? How did they feel about the Romans?

A time of fear and revolt

As for Herod’s attitude to Bethlehem, remembered as David’s home, things get yet more dangerous and complex.

When Herod was first appointed, he was evicted by a rival ruler supported by the Parthians (Rome’s enemy) who was loved by many local people. Herod was attacked by those people just near Bethlehem.

He and his forces fought back and massacred the attackers. When Rome vanquished the rival and brought Herod back, he built a memorial to his victorious massacre on a nearby site he called Herodium, overlooking Bethlehem. How did that make the local people feel?

And far from being a sleepy village, Bethlehem was so significant as a town that a major aqueduct construction brought water to its centre. Fearing Herod, Jesus’ family fled from their home there, but they were on the wrong side of Rome from the start.

They were not alone in their fears or their attitude to the colonisers. The events that unfolded, as told by the first-century historian Josephus, show a nation in open revolt against Rome shortly after Jesus was born.

When Herod died, thousands of people took over the Jerusalem temple and demanded liberation. Herod’s son Archelaus massacred them. A number of Judaean revolutionary would-be kings and rulers seized control of parts of the country, including Galilee.

It was at this time, in the Gospel of Matthew, that Joseph brought his family back from refuge in Egypt – to this independent Galilee and a village there, Nazareth.

But independence in Galilee didn’t last long. Roman forces, under the general Varus, marched down from Syria with allied forces, destroyed the nearby city of Sepphoris, torched countless villages and crucified huge numbers of Judaean rebels, eventually putting down the revolts.

Archelaus – once he was installed officially as ruler – followed this up with a continuing reign of terror.

A nativity story for today

As a historian, I’d like to see a film that shows Jesus and his family embedded in this chaotic, unstable and traumatic social world, in a nation under Roman rule.

Instead, viewers have now been offered The Carpenter’s Son, a film starring Nicholas Cage. It’s partly inspired by an apocryphal (not biblical) text named the Paidika Iesou – the Childhood of Jesus – later called The Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

You might think the Paidika would be something like an ancient version of the hit TV show Smallville from the 2000s, which followed the boy Clark Kent before he became Superman.

But no, rather than being about Jesus grappling with his amazing powers and destiny, it is a short and quite disturbing piece of literature made up of bits and pieces, assembled more than 100 years after the life of Jesus.

The Paidika presents the young Jesus as a kind of demigod no one should mess with, including his playmates and teachers. It was very popular with non-Jewish, pagan-turned-Christian audiences who sat in an uneasy place within wider society.

The miracle-working Jesus zaps all his enemies – and even innocents. At one point, a child runs into Jesus and hurts his shoulder, so Jesus strikes him dead. Joseph says to Mary, “Do not let him out of the house so that those who make him angry may not die.”

Such stories rest on a problematic idea that one must never kindle a god’s wrath. And this young Jesus shows instant, deadly wrath. He also lacks much of a moral compass.

But this text also rests on the idea that Jesus’ boyhood actions against his playmates and teachers were justified because they were “the Jews”. “A Jew” turns up as an accuser just a few lines in. There should be a content warning.

The nativity scene from The Carpenter’s Son is certainly not peaceful. There is a lot of screaming and horrific images of Roman soldiers throwing babies into a fire. But, like so many films, the violence is somehow just evil and arbitrary, not really about Judaea and Rome.

It is surely the contextual, bigger story of the nativity and Jesus’ childhood that is so relevant today, in our times of fracturing and “othering”, where so many feel under the thumb of the unyielding powers of this world.

In fact, some churches in the United States are now reflecting this contemporary relevance as they adapt nativity scenes to depict ICE detentions and deportations of immigrants and refugees.

In many ways, the real nativity is indeed not a simple one of peace and joy, but rather one of struggle – and yet mystifying hope.

Joan Taylor has previously received funding from the Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust, Fulbright Commission, Palestine Exploration Fund and other scholarly societies.

– ref. What world was Jesus born into? A historian describes the turbulent times of the real nativity – https://theconversation.com/what-world-was-jesus-born-into-a-historian-describes-the-turbulent-times-of-the-real-nativity-268080