By Mohamad Hammoud
The Crisis That Revealed a Fully Formed Multipolar World and Validated John Mearsheimer’s Realist Analysis
John Mearsheimer has long warned that great powers eventually face the limits of their dominance. His realist framework argues that states push outward until other forces—rivals, geography and overreach—push back. According to Mearsheimer, US power hit that boundary the moment Washington tried to engineer political change in Venezuela and found the old tools useless. His refusal to obey Washington’s orthodoxies, particularly after co-authoring the “Israel” Lobby and US Foreign Policy, made him a target for pro-“Israel” advocacy networks. Yet his analysis predicted the very moment now unfolding: American primacy running into a multipolar wall.
Venezuela turned that theory into fact. What US officials framed as a struggle for “democracy” became a global demonstration that the unipolar era can be resisted—and defeated—by coordinated balancing.
The Coup That Redefined the Battlefield
The turning point arrived in April 2002, when Hugo Chávez returned to power after a short-lived coup backed by sectors of the Venezuelan opposition. Reuters later reported that US officials had maintained contacts with those plotters. From that moment, Caracas assumed Washington would never stop trying to overthrow its government. It responded by building exactly the kind of defensive alignment Mearsheimer describes.
Russian technicians began operating inside Venezuela’s air-defense network. As CNN reported, Moscow deployed S-300VM batteries outside Caracas, systems built to make any US strike a catastrophic gamble. China expanded financing channels insulated from Western pressure, while Iran supplied fuel during the harshest sanction periods. What once was “America’s backyard” quietly became a showcase for multipolar cooperation.
The Regime-Change Industry Loses Its Script
Washington continued using a playbook that no longer fit the world. In 2019, US officials recognized Juan Guaidó as “interim president,” expecting the Venezuelan military to collapse. According to Associated Press reporting, the armed forces ignored the proclamation entirely. The symbolism was profound: the United States could still declare a leader, but it could no longer enforce one.
A year later came the Bay of Piglets fiasco, when former Green Beret Jordan Goudreau attempted a miniature invasion with a handful of mercenaries. Venezuelan state television broadcast the captured Americans in handcuffs, turning the operation into a global humiliation. What once terrified governments now inspired mockery. Mearsheimer’s core point held: when a hegemon cannot impose outcomes, its reputation—and deterrent power—erodes.
Oil, Sanctions and the System That Stopped Obeying
Venezuela’s position as the world’s largest holder of proven oil reserves made the sanctions campaign a test of global financial power. Bloomberg reported that US restrictions aimed to cripple PDVSA and force political capitulation. Instead, the strategy accelerated the very multipolar realignment Washington hoped to prevent.
China purchased Venezuelan crude in yuan. Russia provided banking routes outside Western control. Iran sailed fuel tankers into Venezuelan ports despite US naval patrols. These acts showed that American coercion, once universally feared, could now be circumvented by a coalition willing to share the risk. Mearsheimer’s framework predicted this: when a hegemon overextends, other powers exploit the opening.
The Social Terrain Washington Misread
US officials repeatedly misjudged Venezuela’s internal landscape. Sanctions deepened hardship but also deepened loyalty among the poor, who remembered pre-Chávez Venezuela as a country of exclusion and police brutality. Reporters from the Los Angeles Times noted that many barrios viewed the government not as an authoritarian aberration, but as their first taste of social inclusion. Washington bet on an elite minority that vacationed abroad while ignoring millions who had no interest in returning to the old order.
This was another realist lesson: political pressure from an external power does not easily override domestic memory or identity.
The Moment the World Shifted
Venezuela did not defeat the United States militarily. It did something more revealing. It showed that Washington could no longer impose outcomes even in the region it once treated as its exclusive sphere. Mearsheimer’s central claim—that the international system punishes illusions of permanent dominance—played out in full view.
Caracas survived because it balanced strategically, coordinated with rising powers and made intervention too costly. In doing so, it signaled a larger truth: the world is no longer unipolar and US control is no longer automatic. Venezuela became the moment the façade cracked, the example that smaller states study, and the proof that multipolarity is not arriving—it has arrived.
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