Great Power Opportunity or Overreach? Canada’s Strategic Dilemma After the U.S. Strikes in Venezuela

Great Power Opportunity or Overreach? Canada’s Strategic Dilemma After the U.S. Strikes in Venezuela

In early January 2026, the United States executed a bold military intervention in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and precipitated an extraordinary wave of global responses. What makes this moment geopolitical, not just tactical, is how it has exposed the fault lines of modern international order — where great powers are both reacting to and trying to profit from U.S. unilateralism .  At the centre of this debate — and central to Canada’s own diplomatic positioning — is the assessment attributed to Bob Rae , Canada’s retired envoy to the United Nations: that Ottawa has “absolutely no room for complacency” in how it manages its reaction to the U.S. intervention.  He warned that Russia and China may privately be celebrating the U.S.’s strategic distraction, believing it weakens Washington’s leverage to contest Russian and Chinese actions elsewhere . He also derided the notion of U.S. claims of dominant influence in its hemisphere as an outdated…