The year 2026 has arrived not with a whisper, but with a bang that has shaken the foundations of the international order. Only days into the new year, the world is reeling from the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife from their residence in Caracas. As Maduro sits in a New York prison cell facing charges including narco-terrorism, the global community is left to grapple with a blunt reality: international relations is not a courtroom, but a theater of anarchy. This event is a masterclass in Realpolitik. Will it be Cuba, Colombia, Iran or even Greenland next I don’t know, but it is a reminder that in a world without a global sovereign, states, particularly superpowers, will do whatever they deem necessary to secure their interests. While the rhetoric of "justice" and "rule of law" will fill the airwaves, for me the underlying arithmetic is simpler - Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves on the planet. In an era of shifting alliances and energy insecurity, those reserves are a gravity well that no superpower can ignore. I can only imagine the polite,