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Dear Friend,

I want to share with you the statement that the Quincy Institute released on President Trump's attack on Venezuela yesterday:

The Quincy Institute was founded in 2019 in response to the waste and enduring harm created by America’s foreign policy of dominance and empire, particularly following the end of the Cold War. The Iraq regime change invasion in 2003-2011, the 20-year war in Afghanistan, and the ongoing chaos wrought by the 2012 overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya all made long-festering human rights and governance problems worse, not better. These policies resulted in untold deaths, swathes of regional instability that persist to this day, and a loss of American soft power, as well as acute crisis for US troops and their communities. At our founding, we laid out clear principles that guide our effort to move Washington away from this failed approach in its relations with the world. ([link removed])

The Trump administration’s attack on Venezuela runs counter to everything that we seek to achieve.

Military force is justified only in response to a clear, credible, and imminent threat to the security of the United States or its treaty allies. Venezuela, whatever its internal dysfunctions or connections to the international drug trade, does not pose such a threat. Using force absent that standard is not defense; it is aggression. It substitutes coercion for diplomacy and power for principle.

Regime change as a policy tool is wrong in principle and disastrous in practice. The notion that Washington can engineer another nation’s political future through force reflects an arrogance that history has thoroughly debunked. Any attempt by the United States to forcibly determine the political leadership of another sovereign nation represents a grave departure from responsible statecraft and a return to the most discredited habits of American foreign policy.

Donald Trump ran on a platform that rejected regime change and interventionism. The idea of the United States “running” or administering Venezuela, even temporarily, should set off every alarm bell in Washington. It bears an unsettling resemblance to the occupation of Iraq, where promises of liberation quickly gave way to years of insurgency, civilian suffering, and regional destabilization. Like President Trump, the Bush administration also promised that Iraqi oil would pay for the occupation. The United States is neither equipped nor entitled to run another country, particularly in a region with a long and painful history of US intervention. While the US invasion of Iraq looked like an initial success, it is now understood, including by President Trump, to be a colossal failure.

Such actions also constitute a clear violation of international law. The UN Charter prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state except in cases of self-defense or with explicit Security Council authorization. A unilateral regime change operation fails both tests. Disregarding these rules does not make America and the world safer; it erodes the very legal framework that constrains violence among states.

Precedents matter. Great powers may ultimately not adhere to international law and norms, but they do have a shared interest in keeping basic guardrails in place. Even the most powerful of nations does not find advantage in a world governed by the law of the jungle.

American security is best served not by reckless interventions, but by diplomacy with clearly stated aims, military restraint, and respect for international law. Saturday’s action was a blow to all three of these protective principles.

I hope you will consider joining us Tuesday, January 6 at 2pm ET for a discussion of this dangerous intervention and its potential consequences ([link removed]) featuring John Mearsheimer, non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and the R. Wendell Harrison distinguished service professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, Miguel Tinker Salas, non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and professor emeritus of Latin American History at Pomona College, and Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative magazine. Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, senior advisor for the Quincy Institute and editor-in-chief at Responsible Statecraft, will moderate.
RSVP FOR WEBINAR ([link removed])

We are proud of our record challenging Washington's disastrous bipartisan foreign policy consensus for war and dominance. Thank you for standing with us.
Sincerely,

Lora Lumpe
CEO

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