From 9/11 to Maduro: 25 years of insecurity
The capture of Nicolás Maduro comes in a year laden with symbolism: it coincides with the 25th anniversary of the 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, a turning point that completely redefined global (in)security. The coincidence is not merely chronological: it also serves to contrast two eras, two ways of understanding global threats, and two ways of justifying things that are more or less unjustifiable.
In 2001, the world discovered the extent of its vulnerability to non-state actors capable of squeezing the planet's greatest power at its very core. In 2026, however, the landscape is more fragmented, more technological, and more unpredictable, and the arrest of a political leader accused of transnational crimes reflects this new complexity. Twenty-five years ago, China was nowhere near what it is today, and the then-struggling Russian Federation did not yet have the strength to attempt to rebuild the USSR, as it is doing now. The chessboard has changed radically, and Trump has done the rest. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was surrounded by rather elaborate rhetoric and sophisticated alibis. The remote-controlled Venezuela of 2026 can be summed up in a simple idea repeated by Marco Rubio immediately after the events: President Trump always does what he says he will do. And that's all there is to it.
The aftermath of 9/11 ushered in an era marked by the war on terror, military interventions, and the consolidation of a security model based on preemptive strikes and intelligence services increasingly reliant on new technologies. Today, threats have become decentralized and diffuse, and radicalization has gone digital: many conflicts have shifted to cyberspace, to disinformation, to large-scale manipulation. Security no longer depends solely on physical borders, but on virtual networks, vast databases, visible false invulnerability (the increasingly pathetic military parades, for example), and genuine invisible vulnerabilities (the total technological dependence on material elements like coltan, for instance).
In this context, Maduro's capture takes on a dimension that transcends the event itself. While in 2001 fear stemmed from clandestine organizations operating from caves or remote training camps, today threats can originate from extremist groups as well as state or paramilitary structures involved in drug trafficking, illicit cyber activities, or regional destabilization. A quarter of a century ago, the response to Bin Laden was military; after a few years, the predominant tools in the West—including the United States—began to take on a more judicial or financial character. Sanctions, police cooperation, the tracking of economic flows, and diplomatic pressure became instruments as, or even more, decisive than armies. However, all of this has proven illusory and ephemeral: the military intervention in Venezuela represents a return to dynamics that seemed to have been left far behind.
In any case, there is one fact that, as Europeans, gives us pause for thought. Twenty-five years ago, the United States explicitly sought the military collaboration and political complicity of Europe—not just NATO member countries—to combat international terrorism. In retrospect, the ill-fated "Azores photo" was a colossal mistake that led to a chain of other errors. We are still suffering the consequences today. However, from that unfortunate episode, we would like to highlight another consequence: Europe's opinion today on Venezuela, or on Madagascar, or on the constellation Cassiopeia, is no longer of interest to anyone. Europe has been left out of the equation. as we were trying to explain a week agoA completely idiotic analysis would be to infer that this way we avoid another Azores photo op... But no, things don't work that way. In fact, Trump's grotesque and now out-of-control figure has a lot to do with Europe's decline, that is, with the radical shift in the balance of power that has taken place in less than a quarter of a century. In a way, the real degeneration of the "Azores photo op" is Ursula von der Leyen pandering to Trump... for nothing in return.
Donald Trump has Greenland, a territory under Danish sovereignty, between his horns. He has never hidden this fact. Marco Rubio's words are prophetic: Trump always does what he says he's going to do. In such a case, how would the European Union act? By establishing a gender-balanced and sustainable study commission with a view to the 2030 Agenda?
