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In the long history of direct and indirect US interventions in Latin America – historians have counted at least 70 – the current president Donald Trump has accomplished something unprecedented. For the first time, the United States launched a military attack against a South American state, Venezuela.

In the past, invasions had targeted the US's immediate neighborhood: Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean; the most recent of which was in Panama in 1989, marked by the abduction of the ruling general, Manuel Noriega. A few troops had also been sent in the 19th century to more distant countries, mainly to protect US citizens.

This time, with the January 3 abduction of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, "a threshold has been crossed, and the consequences are unpredictable," said Jorge Heine, former Chilean minister and diplomat, in Responsible Statecraft, a publication of the Quincy Institute, a think tank based in Washington. According to him, the official justification for the operation – that Venezuela was exporting large quantities of fentanyl to the US – was reminiscent of the pretext of "the non-existent weapons of mass destruction" during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The history of US interventions in Latin America in the 20th century unfolded in four major acts: First, the "Big Stick" ideology of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909), characterized by an indiscriminate use of power, then the "Good Neighbor policy" of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945), marked by spectacular withdrawals. Then came the Cold War, punctuated by coups orchestrated in the shadows and direct interventions. In the late 1980s, the US shifted its attention away from the continent and toward other areas. But it is now returning to Venezuela in force.