Oftentimes the thing that keeps the USA in check from becoming the mafia Don of the world is knowledge that violations of international law enforces individual countries fixing their own problems and self determining their own governments. America acting like they can make decisions for other nations has always been internationally unwelcome. Breaching international law means consequences usually. People pull out of alliances, sweetheart deals evaporate, diplomatic power becomes strained and people stop sharing intelligence with you that helps keep your citizens safe. Sovereignty is a big deal. America has gotten away with a lot because they have a gun to the heads of the world due to how they ended WWII with their military complex intact while the rest of the world was spent. They leveraged that into hard (millitary/economic) and soft (diplomatic, collaborative, good faith) power.

Thing is, this regime doesn't value soft power at all. Previous administrations had to use a lot of subterfuge to weave deniabillity into their actions. The rest of the world had to step lightly around America because essentially they had the biggest stick but there was this idea that if you courted favour with the bully that at least meant you and your friends were safe. But look at what's happening right now.

America is pulling out of the international markets and international bodies of government. The message is clear that they are operating on hard power only because they believe themselves powerful enough to operate on their own and grab what they want... Even if that means economic sanctions that raise prices of nessesities, travel restrictions for citizens, intelligence gaps that leave targets open to their enemies or actual war that puts American lives at risk.

They are "solving these problems" right now because they don't care about the safety or economic advantages for their citizens. They want to grab power that they can dissolve amongst their friends even if it means sacrifices and violence. Natural resource power isn't usually extracted by governments. You sell contracts which they can turn into soft power amongst wealthy sycophants.

You forgot the part where they bribed some Venezuelan defense officials to stand down. Everyone saw this regime change coming, they just didn't expect the US to get directly involved.

That entire Chinook formation could have been shredded by a single infantry group equipped with some cheap stingers (or equivalents).

Some of the local reporters even claimed that Maduro's own security convinced him to leave by helicopter, where Delta was already waiting for him.

They key note here is that Maduro was not well enough supported within his own circle. If you want a recent example, they could have done the same thing to Assad since he fled without even notifying the CO of his army.

Countries like Russia and NK have a complicated internal political structure that revolves around the leader ensuring he can never be couped. The US wouldn't be able to just buy them off to create such a situation.

Because both of those countries have nukes and real militaries that could conceivably put up a serious fight against several CVN battle groups, whereas what the orangeboi regime did in Venezuela was basically a showy example of overkill. Putting aside how deeply fucking stupid and illegal the whole thing was, the mission probably could have been fully accomplished with a small surface action group centered around an LHD, plus an SSGN. The Ford being sent there was really just not necessary, especially considering the other airfields the USN and USAF have in the vicinity.

They kidnapped the prez of a country with a tiny military, that's the whole reason

NK and Russia have a huge military

how easy they kidnapped Maduro

they made it look like they woke up one day and just decided to take venezuela, when in reality they've probably been planning the op for months. bombing the "drug" boats was just a test run for international response. of course people wagged their fingers, but nothing beyond that. so US moved forward with invading the country, and guess what--more finger wagging

you can expect an upcoming deluge of rhetoric about how "greenland citizens WANT to be 'liberated'!!! we need to go FREE them from oppressive denmark!!!" the fact that it's guaranteed people will still be surprised when they invade greenland is the reason i have no hope for the future of this country

Nukes.

If you don’t got nukes, you get Gaddafied

Since you asked and I haven't seen anyone else answer, the most recent parallel to the Maduro situation is the 1990 capture of Manuel Noriega, the military leader of Panama. All around, it was a pretty similar situation. Just like Maduro, Noriega was accused of using Panama as a drug shipping hub and of being a dictator by the US. Relations deteriorated until in late 1989, Panama declared they were "at a state of war" with the US, prompting George H W Bush to launch a ground invasion into Panama with one of the goals being the capture of Noriega, which was achieved within a few weeks in early 1990. He was then flown to the US to face a trial over his drug charges and was held in prison until 2010, though he was then extradited to France and later Panama, where he spent his final 6 years in prison.

Like Maduro, while the capture was ostensibly over drug trafficking concerns, it was largely to further US interests in Panama and Central America as a whole. Namely, it was to gain outsized control over the running of the Panama Canal for the US and grant them special perks such as reduced costs to send goods through, something that saved US companies billions every year. Additionally, it allowed as many as 14 military bases to be established in the area.

Here's a really fantastic and very thorough comparison between the two that goes into much more detail. https://brendonbeebe.substack.com/p/comparison-of-us-capture-of-nicolas

Maduro made a crutial mistake, he didn't have nukes.

Putin, Xi, and fat boy Kim, they all have nukes.

DPRK is also supported by PRC, so there's no way the US would touch it (I mean unless trump got crazy and started ordering nuke strikes to end the world)

The past week (months, years...) have taught me to not to believe anyone saying the US government "can't". It certainly can. It just doesn't.

Edit: the next Democratic president should build high-speed rail that cuts through and ruins Republican-heavy residential areas. Don't go through permitting or whatever, just start ripping up the roads. They can go cry about it in the comment section. There will be no other consequences.

Nukes

They have nukes and even without that their countries would fight back against occupation far more effectively than Venezuela can.

It looked easy but It's ludicrously difficult to do. Russia tried something similar in Ukraine and got bogged down in a war they still have not got out of.

The fact that it worked and did not turn into another black hawk down scenario is like you say months of preparing, someone on the inside high enough to have information and dislike Maduro enough and a good batch of luck.

We tried to have navy seals plant listening devices in North Korea ahead of a summit, it did not go well. People say nukes, but I think their security is a whole nother level, like our government rarely knows where those leaders are at a given moment.

russia has tons of oil, but putin is pretty paranoid so its probably harder to capture him. and besides he politically financing all the gop, some of the OLD guard DINOs as well, plus providing propaganda to all MSMs and social media. they arnt going to bite the hands that feed them.

for NK, china is protecting the kim and the govt, and practically propping up thier economy.

Because you cannot just go into a country and kidnap the leader. With no declaration of war, no jurisdiction at all, not even a hint of a justification through the UN. That's why it isn't done. Americans ought to be on the streets protesting in force. Their children at the latest will rue this day. 47 just sealed the end of the rules-based international order. He didn't start that fire but he dropped 50 gazillion barrels of Venezuelan crude onto it. This is not good bad very, very bad.

Because they are actually illegal. Try telling that to the dictator in chief and his cronies. You have to follow laws for them to work.

If your country is corrupt and capitalist to the death, can you start a war with any country that produces oil and minerals?

Why don't you give it a shot buddy?

You're telling me the US had the capability to eliminate any of the worst ones in much more problematic countries and chose not to because there was no oil in it for them? That's a grim thought.

The call was always coming from inside the house.

I think your premise that it was easy is misinformed. We likely used modern classified tech to pull it off. There are reports emerging of anomalies related to common router vulnerabilities in Caracas. We don't know how the operation was conducted and probably won't know any time soon. Kidnapping a head of state is unprecedented. The Trump admin would absolutely use new tech to do this in a show of military prowess.

Because the Rest of the world is civil in comparison to that walking violation of human morality.