On the is­sue of the pres­ence of US naval forces in Caribbean and Venezue­lan wa­ters, let us ac­knowl­edge a top­sy-turvy mul­ti-po­lar world in which pow­er mat­ters more, prin­ci­ples mean less and ex­pec­ta­tions are be­ing re­cal­i­brat­ed dai­ly as com­plex geopol­i­tics plays out.

Let’s take non-in­ter­fer­ence. Is Ukraine a case of non-in­ter­fer­ence? Is Gaza a case of non-in­ter­fer­ence? Do Hamas and oth­er ter­ror­ists in­ter­fere? What should we call state-spon­sored cy­ber-at­tacks? Near­er to home, was Grena­da a case of non-in­ter­fer­ence dur­ing the Mau­rice Bish­op years and af­ter his ex­e­cu­tion in 1980? Will any­thing in Haiti get bet­ter with­out in­ter­fer­ence?

Pos­i­tive in­ter­ven­tions to help Venezuela for­ward took place in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Maduro regime. In spite of Maduro’s ex­cess­es, a coun­try like Nor­way, known for pro­mot­ing di­a­logue and mak­ing peace, got in­volved. An ac­cord for free and fair elec­tions was signed in Bar­ba­dos. But there was no free and fair elec­tion. All that fol­lowed from Maduro was re­pres­sion and in­creased mil­i­tari­sa­tion at home, and in­creased ag­gres­sion against his neigh­bours—Guyana, Colom­bia, Brazil.

The elec­tion came and went. Maduro was de­clared win­ner by the elec­toral au­thor­i­ties. Up to now, no tal­ly sheet has been pro­vid­ed. Op­po­si­tion mem­bers and sup­port­ers have been jailed. Op­po­si­tion lead­ers who had an elec­tion stolen from them live in ex­ile. At the OAS, Cari­com could not agree to a col­lec­tive call for the elec­tion tal­ly sheet!

Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as Op­po­si­tion leader, con­sis­tent­ly took a stand against Maduro, dis­tanc­ing her­self from the Dr Kei­th Row­ley gov­ern­ment for ten years. This time, our Prime Min­is­ter had to de­cide: Maduro or Trump in the square off? Con­sid­er pend­ing tar­iff ne­go­ti­a­tions with the US and OFAC li­cences to make Venezuela gas pos­si­ble. Guyana is a Cari­com coun­try we can do busi­ness with and Maduro is the ag­gres­sor. Maduro may not last and most Venezue­lans want him out. Five mil­lion have fled his op­pres­sion. T&T needs help with gangs, bor­ders, drugs and guns. So, the Prime Min­is­ter made a cal­cu­lat­ed choice in T&T’s in­ter­est.

Venezue­lan crim­i­nals hop from Venezuela to Colom­bia, to T&T, to Guyana and, across the Amer­i­c­as. Should some­body put a stop to this? Gov­ern­ments from Ja­maica south­wards can­not cope with gangs, drugs, gang­ster­ism, mur­ders, vi­o­lence and crim­i­nal­i­ty. Gang­ster-dom­i­nat­ed Haiti is the ex­treme re­gion­al case.

The mo­ti­vat­ing fac­tors for the Unit­ed States may not be pure. Venezuela owns 19% of the world’s oil re­serves. Chevron is pump­ing oil from Venezuela and every drop goes to the US. So, there is ag­gres­sive self-in­ter­est at work.

There may al­so be a de­fen­sive self-in­ter­est. Guyana is now the oil cap­i­tal of our part of the world. Venezuela’s claims on Guyana’s Es­e­qui­bo re­gion is as much a claim on ter­ri­to­r­i­al land as it is on oil re­sources. Exxon Mo­bil, the largest en­er­gy com­pa­ny in the world, is the dom­i­nant play­er, with col­lab­o­ra­tive ties to US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump. Pres­i­dent Ir­fan Ali’s gov­ern­ment in Guyana faces a threat from Azrudeen Mo­hammed, who is vy­ing for Guyana’s pres­i­den­cy and who has been sanc­tioned by the US Trea­sury De­part­ment for gold smug­gling and tax eva­sion. Both Venezuela and Guyana are gold pro­duc­ers. Gang­ster op­er­a­tions of­ten con­nect drugs and gold to the transna­tion­al un­der­world. The US, giv­en its in­ter­est in Exxon­Mo­bil, Guyanese oil and the elec­tion out­come on Mon­day, is per­haps be­ing pre­emp­tive. Exxon’s pres­ence in the deep wa­ters of T&T make com­mon cause.

Ag­gres­sion by Maduro on Guyana’s bor­der could im­pact on the Guyanese elec­tion, as could destab­li­sa­tion ini­tia­tives by Venezue­lan gangs who may have their elec­toral pref­er­ence in Guyana.

So, the mil­i­tary pres­ence in this re­gion, of US naval forces, may well be prompt­ed by both of­fence and de­fence.

What about the no­tion of the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can re­gion as a Zone of Peace? This can be traced back to a 2014 CELAC meet­ing in Cu­ba in which 23 coun­tries were present. Does Venezuela’s mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion to­ward Guyana con­tribute to cre­at­ing a Zone of Peace?

And what is sov­er­eign­ty these days, and who can guard it, in this age of pow­er, force and mil­i­tary might?

Abuse of pow­er with­in coun­tries and use of pow­er against oth­er coun­tries is be­com­ing the norm. The tone is be­ing set for more ag­gres­sive geopo­lit­i­cal be­hav­iour. Pow­er is the new prin­ci­ple; force fa­cil­i­tates con­for­mi­ty and ac­qui­es­cence. Ar­bi­trari­ness trumps ra­tio­nal­i­ty. The space for moral au­thor­i­ty is be­ing oblit­er­at­ed. The old rules by which the world lived post-WWII are gone.

In the new fron­tier of Amer­i­can hemi­spher­ic as­ser­tion, T&T is in the mid­dle and has to find her way. Cari­com must rea­son to­geth­er to co­here.