When we talk about isolated and sanctioned states, an enclave usually emerges in the conversation at some point. North Korea has every chance to join that list of nations with dubious qualifications. And yet, after the attack from Washington to Caracasone idea is repeated insistently: this would not have happened to Pyongyang.
That uncomfortable idea. Yes, after the attack, a phrase is repeating in the analyzesgatherings and networks:“This would not have happened to North Korea”. It is not an ideological slogan or a gratuitous provocation, but an almost empirical verification that points to the heart of the real international system, not the one taught in manuals.
The reason: Venezuela lacks nuclear weapons, and North Korea has intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads capable of reaching US territory. That difference, alone, explains much more than decades of resolutions, treaties and solemn declarations on sovereignty, legality and world order.
International legality as a story. It happens that the operation against Venezuela has been described by jurists and international organizations as a flagrant violation of international law. However, that sentence has not had (nor does it seem that it will have) practical consequences. It has not stopped the operation, nor reversed its effects nor imposed real costs on the actor who carried it out.
From that perspective, it is not an anomaly of the system, it is, rather, its normal functioning. International legality has never been an independent coercive mechanism, but a regulatory framework whose effectiveness ultimately depends on the balance of power. When this balance does not exist, the law is reduced to a moral language that accompanies the facts, but does not condition them.
Nuclear deterrence: the frontier. The contrast with North Korea is revealing. We are talking about a nation capable of launching missiles simply because the “neighbor” visits China. Pyongyang is an isolated, sanctioned State, with a violation history of human rights and UN resolutions against them much more extensive than the Venezuelan one. And yet, no one is seriously considering a direct military operation to capture their leader or impose regime change by force.
The reason is starkly simple: North Korea may respond with what we call nuclear escalation. In that sense, deterrence does not guarantee peace or justice, of course, but it does guarantee survival. In the real international system, the nuclear weapon functions as the only fully recognized life insurance.
Iran and Venezuela. The Iran situation fits the same logic. Tehran has been getting closer for years to the nuclear thresholdaware that Libya, Iraq or Venezuela show the fate of States that renounce (or do not arrive in time) to this type of deterrence.
Until Iran definitively crosses that line, it remains exposed to limited attacks, sabotage, targeted assassinations and indirect military pressure. Venezuela, without a nuclear program or credible deterrence umbrella, has proven to be even more vulnerable: not only to sanctions or pressure, but to a direct intervention designed to “extirpate” the political leadership, just as it has happened.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty. He Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty It was born with an implicit promise: States that renounced nuclear weapons would obtain collective security and respect for their sovereignty. What’s happening? that the reality has denied that promise over and over again. At least until now, no non-nuclear state has been defended militarily by the international system against a great power determined to act.
On the contrary, states that have managed to equip themselves with nuclear deterrents (from North Korea to Pakistan) have ensured their practical inviolability, regardless of their internal or external behavior. The message that other countries draw seems obvious and deeply destabilizing: following the rules does not protect you, but having the damn bomb does.
USA and the royal hierarchy. If you also want, the Venezuelan operation It does not inaugurate this logic, but it makes it visible in an almost pedagogical way. The United States has not acted outside the international system, but from its top. It has shown that the global hierarchy remains asymmetrical and that sovereignty is conditional for those who cannot impose an intolerable cost on an aggressor.
Seen this way, the comparison with North Korea is not an anti-Western provocation, but rather an a priori, realistic reading of the facts: the law is applied where there is balance, and where there is none, force rules.
What we don’t want to say. This being the case, the lesson left by the attack on Venezuela is uncomfortable because it dismantles decades of rhetoric, or almost so. International legality has not disappeared now, perhaps because it has never existed as an autonomous shield. It has always been a reflection of power.
and North Korea is not untouchable because he is right, but because he can just destroy. Venezuela was not attacked because it is more illegitimate, of course, but because in that sense it is weaker. That is why Iran is moving towards the nuclear thresholdbecause he has learned that lesson by observing others.
That the international system does not reward compliance, but rather the ability to deter. Everything else is story.
In Xataka | The North Koreans are hungry, so they have started hunting tigers. It’s just the tip of the iceberg
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings