On The Radar: A Geopolitics Dispatch

In last week’s survey a large majority of our readers asked for more geopolitics. So as a user-responsive publication, and after a long Thanksgiving weekend for many of us, we are starting off this week with an omnibus roundup.

Across the map, strange doings are afoot. In Venezuela, a US military buildup has pushed the country to the edge of a confrontation that could escalate by accident as much as by intent. On Ukraine, new talks are scheduled in Miami as Washington’s mediation is starting to look like pressure for a deal that would lock in Russian territorial gains, Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a pardon midway through his corruption trial — on the heels of his establishment of an Oct. 7 whitewash commission — tests whether democracy can survive such an actor; in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro’s imprisonment shows what happens when a democracy insists that no one is untouchable. Israel, improbably enough, can learn from that.

Meanwhile, the United States, a country built on immigration, is urging other countries to crack down on immigration. As for the markets, they are telling a more complicated story than the headlines suggest: a booming S&P driven almost entirely by a handful of tech giants while much of the real economy lags behind.

Hasta luego, Maduro?

The standoff between the United States and Venezuela intensified this weekend after Trump announced the total closure of Venezuelan airspace and signaled what he called “land strikes” against drug-trafficking infrastructure “very soon.” Venezuelan “President” Nicolas Maduro called it colonialist, which is somewhat true. But it is also true that he is an illegitimate leader and a criminal.

The move expands Operation Southern Spear, under which US forces have already launched lethal attacks on around 20 suspected smuggling vessels in the Caribbean since September, leaving more than 80 people dead. Caracas has described the actions as “extrajudicial executions,” and international monitors have raised concerns over proportionality and legality. And yes, some of the videos look like executions, which would basically be a war crime.

The US has deployed roughly 12,000 troops and a dozen warships, including an aircraft carrier, near Venezuela’s coast. Officials in Washington say the mission targets narcotics networks linked to Venezuela’s military hierarchy. The Biden administration previously labeled the so-called “Cartel