The reported US military action against Venezuela—culminating in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his transfer to New York for trial—marks a defining rupture in contemporary international politics. It is not merely an act of regime coercion; it is a direct assault on the foundational principles of the post-1945 international order. A sovereign state was attacked, its elected head of government detained, and domestic US law was imposed extraterritorially through force. This single act collapses the moral and legal pretence on which the so-called “rules-based international order” has long rested....