Regional Security LensViewed through a regional security lens, Venezuela’s sustained economic collapse and democratic decay have undeniably spilled beyond its borders. To conflate regional disruption with a mandate for unilateral force is to erode the very norms that structure international order. Contemporary invocations of hemispheric security and resource stabilisation echo earlier doctrines that conflated regional order with external tutelage. Unsurprisingly, the US operation has been met with widespread condemnation across the Global South, reinforcing perceptions of a selective and hierarchical international order. Sovereignty and non-intervention retain meaning only when upheld under pressure, for international legitimacy ultimately rests on such restraint.