Shutterstock

The first year of Donald Trump’s second term as President of the United States has closed on the distinct theme of national and global security. More precisely, the release of a shocking National Security Strategy followed one month later by the invasion of Venezuela — per the hemispheric-dominance doctrine laid out in the NSS — and removal of its dictator, Nicolás Maduro. Many thanks to the Policy contributors who’ve been providing invaluable insight and analysis on these developments.

On Trump’s military operation against Venezuela:

Mar-a-Lago, January 3, 2025/WH image

Before his role as chair of Canada’s Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Relations, Sen. Peter Boehm served as a career diplomat in a number of key postings, including as ambassador to the Organization of American States. His piece on the Trump administration’s actions in Venezuela combines the regional experience of the man who gave directions to U.S. soldiers on their way to deploy The Clash to depose Manuel Noriega in 1989 and the big-picture insight of a foreign policy veteran. “That the Trump administration has removed Maduro but so far kept his government in place,” writes Boehm, “may represent the most ironic twist in Trump’s long line of strange-bedfellows alliances.” Here’s Policy Contributing Writer Peter Boehm with There Goes the Hemisphere: History, Diplomacy, and Trumpian Intervention.

Among the varied motives under analysis as drivers of Trump’s Venezuela operation is the country’s status as home to the world’s largest proven oil reserves. From our content partners at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy comes a piece by Director of Energy and Natural Resources Policy R.J. Johnston. “U.S. energy and strategic positions are not obviously enhanced by control of Venezuelan oil in the short term,” writes Johnston. “Critical minerals might be more promising but, as with reviving oil production, that prospect could take many years to materialize.” Here’s Robert J. Johnston with Canada, Venezuela, Oil, and Geopolitics.

Former United Nations ambassador, Policy contributing writer, now Policy Columnist Bob Rae has been unabashed in his criticism of the Trump administration’s assaults on the rules-based international order since he completed his tour at the UN in November. In his take on the Venezuela operation, Rae looks at the behaviour of both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin through the prism of international law. Here’s Bob Rae with In the Age of the Absurd Casus Belli, No Country is Safe.

To Jeremy Kinsman — former Canadian ambassador to Russia, the European Union and Italy and former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom — the sequencing of our hemispheric narrative from December’s Monroe Doctrine warning to January’s Venezuela decapitation operation spoke volumes. “For Beijing, Moscow, and Jerusalem,” writes Kinsman, “the operation will be processed as a license to do what they want in their own backyards.” Here’s Policy Columnist Jeremy Kinsman with One Month Later, Proof of Concept for Trump’s National Security Strategy.

For McGill Institute for the Study of Canada Director and Policy Columnist Daniel Béland, there are echoes in Venezuela of the Iraq invasion of 2003 that Canada declined to endorse. “Although Prime Minister Mark Carney may not need to ‘turn off geolocation’ on his phone ‘just in case,’ as The Beaverton joked, like other allies, Canada must recognize the potential international threat the United States represents under the Trump administration.” Here’s Daniel Béland with Donald Trump and the Evolution of Regime Change.

And, in background from The Scowcroft Group, filed in October as Donald Trump was intensifying operations against Venezuela, Letter from Washington: How Trump’s Escalation in Venezuela Could Undermine America’s Goals in Latin America. “Certainly, drug and anti-crime cooperation would be jeopardized,” TSG predicted, “and American efforts to limit China’s involvement and influence in the region would likely be undermined.”

On the Trump National Security Strategy:

As a former Canadian ambassador to the United States who was present at the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Policy contributor Derek Burney understands the stakes of both Donald Trump’s trade and military belligerence. “Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy,” writes Burney, “is more derogatory to Canada than his tariff war.” From former Canadian Ambassador Derek Burney: What’s Worse than Tariffs? A Rogue Superpower

Bob Rae’s column on the Trump NSS expresses all the righteous indignation he felt sitting in the United Nations General Assembly “just a few short weeks ago when Donald Trump insulted its representatives with the pronouncement, ‘Your countries are going to hell,'” he writes. “This document is an extension of that rant.” Here’s Bob Rae with A National Security Strategy that Isn’t.

As the Canadian ambassador to Russia who witnessed the last major geopolitical disruption from Moscow in the 1990s, former ambassador Jeremy Kinsman deplores the pointedly undiplomatic language and populist logrolling of the NSS. “The Trump-fatigued democracies of Europe,” writes Kinsman, “are by now used to this sort of bombastic braggadocio from the unilateralist, nativist, and utterly mercantilist U.S. administration.” Here’s Jeremy Kinsman with Trump’s National Security Strategy is a Dystopian Propaganda Stunt.

From veteran political observer and Policy Columnist Don Newman, a look at the security implications of the NSS for a Canada sandwiched between Trump’s U.S. and Putin’s Russia. “Trump’s NSS, writes Newman, “reinforces the fear of what being pincered between two expansionist autocracies could mean for this country.” Here’s Don Newman Trump’s NSS: A Warning to the World, a Threat to Canada.

From our friends at The Scowcroft Group, our NSS Scowcroft Group Snapshot, Trump’s ‘National Security Strategy, which describes the unprecedentedly hostile NSS as “A political document, clearly written not by defense and security experts but by America First isolationists in the White House.” You can read all our insight and analysis from TSG at Policy Insights from The Scowcroft Group.

Visit us at Policy, where you’ll find our latest Policy Specials, Columns, Dispatches, Analysis, Book Reviews and Verbatim sections, plus The Week in Policy and all our archived print issues.