By: Ricardo Abud
Examining contemporary geopolitics requires shedding simplifications that reduce international conflicts to mere struggles between democracy and authoritarianism, or between saviors and tyrants.
An honest analysis must begin with a documented historical premise: control of energy resources, specifically oil, has been the central focus of major powers' foreign policy, with the United States at the forefront, for over a century. Ignoring this reality is not a sign of objectivity, but rather a form of analytical dishonesty that obscures the true power structures within the international system. From the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the pattern of intervention has been consistent. The objective has not been the implementation of abstract values, but rather the securing of resources and the preservation of a global financial architecture where oil is traded almost exclusively in dollars.
This architecture, known as the petrodollar system, is not a natural market phenomenon, but a strategic construct designed after the Bretton Woods agreements and consolidated through pacts with the Gulf monarchies in the 1970s. By forcing the world to accumulate dollars to buy the energy that powers its industries, the United States has achieved a seigniorage privilege unique in history, allowing it to finance massive deficits and project global military power. Therefore, any nation that possesses massive reserves and decides to seek political or commercial autonomy outside this sphere automatically challenges the very foundation of US financial hegemony. It is from this perspective that the case of Venezuela acquires its true geopolitical dimension, beyond conventional media rhetoric.
Venezuela, possessing the largest proven oil reserves on the planet, finds itself in a position of extreme strategic vulnerability vis-à-vis a power that considers the Western Hemisphere its exclusive sphere of influence. The Venezuelan crisis is often presented in Western media as the sole result of internal mismanagement, a narrative that deliberately omits the impact of one of the most severe sanctions regimes in modern history. While it is imperative to acknowledge that state management under Chavismo has incurred serious planning errors, documented corruption, and an authoritarian drift, analyzing these factors in isolation from the economic blockade is intellectually untenable. The sanctions imposed, especially since 2017 and 2019, have functioned as a tool of strangulation designed to produce the collapse of the oil industry and, by extension, the country's social stability.
Independent experts and United Nations rapporteurs have noted that these unilateral coercive measures have had devastating effects, restricting access to food, medicine, and basic production inputs. The blockade is not only commercial but profoundly financial; Venezuela's exclusion from the international banking system prevents routine transactions and the technical maintenance of refineries, creating a vicious cycle of disinvestment and deterioration. Attributing all of the civilian suffering to internal incompetence, while ignoring that the country operates under an externally imposed war economy, is a form of diplomatic euphemism that obscures the nature of economic pressure as a form of modern aggression. The pattern is empirically observable: those countries with strategic resources that attempt sovereign policies often experience stability crises that, while rooted in internal factors, are catalyzed and amplified by coordinated external pressures.
Currently, the hegemonic system faces its most serious challenge in five decades with the strengthening of blocs like the BRICS and the emergence of a multipolar world. The decision by powers such as China, Russia, and India to trade energy in local currencies, or Saudi Arabia's exploration of joining new economic alliances, represents a direct erosion of the petrodollar monopoly. Venezuela enters this arena not as an actor capable of single-handedly destroying the prevailing order, but as a symbol of resistance to energy unipolarity. Washington's aggressive reaction to these movements is not paranoia, but a rational calculation to maintain its ability to project power without economic constraints. The selectivity of American moral outrage, which sanctions Venezuela for human rights violations while supporting and arming absolute monarchies in the Middle East, confirms that the driving force behind its foreign policy is strategic interest, not the defense of democratic principles.
A genuinely impartial analysis of the Venezuelan case and its oil must be able to encompass multiple simultaneous realities without falling into reductionism. First, it is imperative to acknowledge the systematic aggression of US foreign policy toward those countries that challenge its energy hegemony, a reality documented by decades of history, diplomatic cables, and testimonies from key actors, whose denial amounts to ignoring overwhelming evidence. At the same time, this examination must integrate the Venezuelan government's internal responsibility for questionable management decisions and corruption, understanding that these are real problems for which the population has the legitimate right to demand accountability, without this serving as justification for external intervention.
The uncomfortable truth behind this scenario is that the international system operates under stark power relations that official narratives about a "rules-based order" or the "free market" often mask. The United States has used its dominant position to structure the global energy system according to its own interests through military force, economic coercion, and the hegemony of the dollar—facts that constitute a description of reality, not mere opinion.
Looking to the future, the imminent transition to renewable energy does not promise an end to geopolitical conflict, but rather its transformation. As the world moves away from hydrocarbons, competition will shift towards critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt. The same patterns of intervention and control that marked the oil era are likely to be repeated, now in the name of climate security. Therefore, a truthful analysis of the present requires recognizing the power asymmetry that defines relations between states. Only through an honest acknowledgment that real power—financial, military, and energy—is what structures the international order can we move towards a debate on fairer structures that do not depend on the economic strangulation of peripheral nations to sustain the prosperity of hegemonic centers.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE EXCLUSIONARY THAN BEING POOR
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