Venezuela-focused panel discusses shift in American foreign policy

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Venezuela-focused panel discusses shift in American foreign policy

Ohio State scholars share expertise on developing situation

National security scholars at The Ohio State University are noticing a change in tone and rhetoric in the way the United States is conducting foreign policy following the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

"It's a paradigm shift about even how the U.S. described this act," said Christopher McKnight Nichols, Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies and professor of history, about the U.S. mission to arrest Maduro through "Operation Absolute Resolve."

Nichols was one of seven faculty members who spoke about the ongoing situation in South America during a recent panel hosted by the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. He was joined by Dakota Rudesill, associate professor in the Moritz College of Law; Mathew Coleman, chair of the Department of Geography in the College of Arts and Sciences; Kendra McSweeney, professor of geography; Ryan Fontanilla, assistant professor of history; Sarah Brooks, professor of political science; and Max Woodworth, associate professor of geography.

Over 90 minutes, the group discussed legal questions related to the operation, as well as the geopolitical repercussions, particularly regarding oil in the region.

Using this specific event as an example, Nichols argued that the language used to describe American foreign policy is changing.

Previously, Nichols said, the U.S. frequently cited human rights when taking global action.

"We see no, or only the faintest, lip service of a human rights justification," he said of Venezuela. "The people who are actually giving [that] justification there are some of the current government in the Maduro regime."

It is figures like Delcy Rodriguez, acting president of Venezuela, who have released political prisoners, Nichols said, out of respect for America's commitment to human rights.

"The United States didn't call for that," he said. "You didn't hear Secretary Rubio calling for that, right? You heard a lot about oil and a few other things about narcoterrorism."

This focus on narcoterrorism and immigration is a move away from how administrations, as recently as the George W. Bush administration, justified actions like the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq in 2003.

"There's a bundling together of immigration policy and narcoterrorism, which have been longstanding police power actions in the U.S.," Nichols said. "No longer are they putting forward those rhetorics of democracy."

Coleman, whose research interests include political geography and statecraft, also noticed this shift. He compared this period to the one immediately after 9/11. A graduate student at the time, Coleman was one of many who scrambled to learn about the relevant laws and policies to "piece together something that was shrouded in uncertainty."

This is not the case today, he said.

"Any casual reader of The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, anybody who turns on PBS in the evening, can make sense of what is going on, why it's going on and how it's going on."

While news coverage plays a significant role in this accessibility, there is another factor, Coleman said.

"There's really no attempt here to hide the machinations of statecraft," he said. "Concealed operations and quietly engineered geo-strategy have gone by the wayside. Statecraft is stated bluntly; it's stated plainly."

American foreign relations also appear more ad hoc, Coleman said. Actions appear to be taken simply because they can be.

In closing his remarks, Coleman again reached back to the early 2000s, citing a quote later attributed to Karl Rove, George W. Bush's deputy chief of staff.

"'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study, too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'

"This is sort of how I'm feeling right now about things being stated plainly and bluntly without any sort of veil over them," Coleman said.

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