There are FOUR distinct theories that justify a country’s attack on the sovereignty of another country.

FIRST, there is the statutory prohibition against the invasion of another country’s sovereignty. It is codified in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, a treaty to which every country that belongs to the United Nations is a party. It states: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence.” (Emphasis added).

SECOND, there is the customary international law of ‘preemptive self-defense,’ which is not prescribed by convention or treaty, but it exists as matter of custom among countries by virtue of a consistent practice over time with a conviction of legal adherence thereto (opinio juris). This theory developed out of a situation involving the United States and Great Britain over Britain’s 1837 destruction of The Caroline, a steamer suspected of ferrying help from the American sympathizers to the anti-British republican insurrectionists in Canada. The Brits justified the destruction of steamer as an act of necessary self-defense. The dispute over the Caroline Incident ended by an exchange of notes between the U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster and the British Plenipotentiary Alexander Baring (Lord Ashburton) in 1842. Ashburton wrote, “[m]ost to be regretted is that some explanation and apology for this occurrence was not immediately made.” In his reply-note, dated 6 August 1842, Webster replied that President John Tyler was pleased with Ashburton admitting the inviolability of the territory of an independent country as “the most essential foundation of civilization” but there were exceptions to this rule, such as acting on the necessity of self-defense in cases in which “the necessity of that self-defence is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.” (Emphasis added).

In 1977, a French company built for Iraq an above-ground light-water nuclear materials testing research reactor at Al Tuwaitha, some eleven miles southeast of Baghdad. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), in September 1980, two Iranian warplanes attacked and damaged the facility. France repaired the reactor. In June 1981, Israel conducted an air attack on the same facility based on the fear that Iraq would use the nuclear fuel for and from the reactor to produce weapons. Israel launched an act against the facility (Operation Babylon - codeword: Opera) from Etzion Airbase with eight F-16 multi-role fighters and six F-15 escorts.[1]

Israel claimed that it attacked the facility in self-defense, and that the reactor had less than a month to go before it might have become critical.[2] In June 1981, the U.N. Security Council noted in a resolution that, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iraq was in compliance with all IAEA safeguards. It noted with deep concern the danger to international peace and security created by the premeditated Israeli air attack on Iraqi nuclear installations, which could have at any time exploded the situation in the area, with grave consequences for the vital interests of all countries. The resolution strongly condemned the military attack by Israel in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct; called upon Israel to refrain in the future from any such acts or threats thereof; called upon Israel urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards; and considered that that Iraq was entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction it had suffered, responsibility for which had been acknowledged by Israel.[3]

THIRD, there is the theory of self-help, by which an action is neither permitted by statute (U.N. Charter Article 51) nor by customary international law of preemptive self-defense (Caroline formula), but is necessitated in reaction to an affront that does not fit the other two categories and act that is not in violation of international law.

In June 1976, the agents of the radical arm of the Palestinian Liberation Organization hijacked an Air France flight with 244 passengers and twelve crew members during a Tel-Aviv to Paris flight. They forced the plane to Benghazi, Libya, and then to Entebbe, Uganda, where all Israelis passengers were segregated. While many of the passengers were let go, some ninety-six Israelis remained captive. On 3 July three planeloads of Israeli commandos made a surprise landing at the Entebbe airfield and rescued the Israeli hostages, except four, and flew them out of Uganda. Five days later, the issue of the hijacking and the rescue mission was raised in the Security Council of the United Nations. The debate lasted four days. No resolution or declaration was issued.[4]

When Professor Alfred P. Rubin of the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University (Administered with the Cooperation of Harvard University) suggested the existence of such a subjective basis for conduct in international relations there existed no academically viable and plausible legal justification for Israel’s raid on Entebbe Airport in Uganda, even though there was great sentimental approval for it.

The Entebbe Raid sparked a debate about the conditions under which a country may violate the territorial sovereignty of another country in the pursuit of a humanitarian or rescue mission. The fact President Idi Amin of Uganda was not much liked in the international community[5] complicated the search for a new doctrine because the United Nations Security Council seemed to condone the Israeli action. The labeling of the Israeli mission as a traditional act of self-help was not consistent with universally-accepted definitions of self-help. The classical jurists considered legally admissible “self-help” to be in the form of self-defense, reprisal, or retaliation (retorsion). The Israeli raid was not in the nature of a legitimate reprisal. Nor was the Israeli action an act of self-defense under the U.N. Charter. Nor did the Israeli mission qualify as an act of “humanitarian intervention.” This was a short-term use of armed force, in what would have been otherwise a violation of Ugandan sovereignty, for the protection from death or grave injury of nationals of the acting country (Israel) by their removal from the territory of another country (Uganda).

From the ashes of the Entebbe Incident arose the FOURTH exception to inviolability of a country’s sovereignty – Rectification. Under this doctrine, the self-help remedy of “rectification” obtains where (1) there is a clear perception or apprehension, in good faith, that people have suffered or are about to suffer by virtue of a violation of international law, which is measured by the effects or imminent effects on the victims; (2) the situation does not require preliminary attempts at redress due to the immediacy of the harm, especially if a rescue mission is better served by preserving for the victim-State the element of surprise; (3) the counteraction must be to protect or vindicate a legal right, not simply policy, for the purposes of which protecting one’s nationals, or gaining their freedom from a hostage situation, is a sufficient right or legal basis; (4) the counteraction must be limited to righting the wrong and not be for purposes of vengeance or punishment; (5), the counteraction must be of the minimum duration required for achievement of its justifiable goals; and (6) there is no need, beyond the normal requirements of responding to diplomatic notes, for the acting country to submit its actions for review.[6]

The Entebbe Raid Incident was not Israel’s first rodeo when it came to rectification, nor it will be its last. After the end of World War II, Otto Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust, by using a fraudulently obtained laissez-passer from the International Red Cross took refuge in Argentina, working as a foreman for the German automotive company Mercedes-Benz when in April 1960 the agents of the Israeli Government abducted him and transported him, sedated and disguised, on board an El Al flight to Senegal and then to Israel. In June 1960, Argentina requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council, to protest what Argentina regarded as the violation of its sovereign rights. In the ensuing debate, the Israeli representative Golda Meir argued that the incident was only an isolated violation of Argentine law. The Security Council passed a resolution that requested Israel to make appropriate reparations. In August 1960, Israel and Argentina issued a joint statement that announced their decision to regard as closed the incident.

In consequence of the frustration suffered by the U.S. administration to secure the release of the American diplomatic and consular staff held hostage by Iran, on 23-24 April 1980, the U.S. forces attempted a rescue mission by deeply penetrating into the interior of Iran. Known as Operation Eagle Claw, the attempt was aborted when three helicopters that were part of the operation were damaged or forced by sandstorms to return to the carrier Nimitz in the Arabian Sea. As the U.S. expeditionary force prepared to leave Iran, a refueling accident at “Desert One” staging area led to the destruction of the remaining helicopters and a C-130 Hercules refueling aircraft, along with the charred remains of eight American servicemen. No Security Council action on the matter was reported, but the International Court of Justice took in the U.S. complaint viewed the rescue mission with disdain.

General Manuel Noriega was the self-styled “chief executive officer” of Panama when in 1989 United States invaded Panama and removed him from power (Operation Just Cause). He was captured, detained as a prisoner of war, and flown to United States, where he was tried in April 1992 on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. His prison sentence in United States ended in September 2007.

In the run-up to the U.S. invasion, the U.S. President George H. W. Bush alleged that forces under Noriega’s command had shot and killed an unarmed American serviceman, wounded another, arrested and brutally beat a third American serviceman and then brutally interrogated his wife, threatening her with sexual abuse. In December 1989, a few hours after the start of the military operations, President Bush listed four reasons for the invasion: (i) to safeguard the lives of U.S. citizens in Panama; (ii) to defend democracy and human rights in Panama; (iii) to combat drug trafficking; and (iv) to protect the integrity of the US-Panama treaties relating to the Panama Canal.[7] In the same day, the murder and mistreatment of U.S. citizens were recited by the U.S. ambassador at the United Nations Security Council as sufficient grounds for the invasion as an act of self-defense within Article 51 of the U.N. Charter.

On December 22, 1989, the Organization of American States passed a resolution deploring the invasion and called for the withdrawal of the U.S. troops. On December 29, the U.N. General Assembly condemned the invasion as a flagrant violation of international law.[8]

In 2006, the U.S. National Security Council issued its strategy with respect to its continuing efforts to ensure the security of the homeland.[9] It stated that the security environment confronting United States was radically different from what United States had faced before. Yet the first duty of the U.S. government remained what it always had been – to protect the American people and American interests. “It is an enduring American principle,” the statement read, “that this duty obligates the government to anticipate and counter threats, using all elements of national power, before the threats can do grave damage.” The greater the threat, the greater would be the risk of inaction – and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend the United States, even if uncertainty remained as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. “There are few greater threats,” the statement said, “than a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction.” To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by the adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively in exercising its inherent right of self-defense.[10]

If the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela by the United States on January 3, 2026, does not fit any of the foregoing exceptions to the inviolability of a country’s sovereignty then one might as well open a tab for a FIFTH exception – lawlessness, doing as one pleases because one has the physical might to do so. In another era that would be called the ‘Law of the Jungle.’ In that category one may list the following REGIME CHANGE operations with the U.S. paw prints all over them:

Hawaii (1893): overthrew of the native monarchy of Queen Liliʻuokalani to push for annexation by the United States;

Nicaragua (1909): overthrow of the Zelaya government by boots on the ground.

Iran (1953): overthrow of the Mossadegh government;

Guatemala (1954): overthrow of the democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán on behest of the commercial interests of the American-owned United Fruit Company.

Congo (1960): over throe by assassination of the Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba.

South Vietnam (1963): instigation of the assassination of the unpopular President Ngo Dinh Diem.

Indonesia (1966): overthrow of the Sukarno regime.

Chile (1973): overthrow of the Allende regime.

Iran (1978-79): overthrow of the Pahlavi kingship.

Nicaragua (1981): overthrow of the Sandinista government.

Philippines (1986): overthrow of the Marcos regime.

Afghansitan (1992): over throw of PDPA regime.

Afghanistan (2001): overthrow the Taliban regime.

Libya (2011): overthrow of the Gaddafi regime (NATO Operation).

Iraq (2003): over throw of Saddam Hussein’s government, acting on the claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, which were never found.

WHO IS NEXT? Cuba is next (The Monroe Doctrine certainly demands it, not?).

The late Tip O’Neill of Massachusetts, who served as the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1077 to 1987 used to say all politics is local. In the age of Trump all politics, particularly in international affairs, is also personal (Note: ‘I get along with Putin. I get along with Xi of China. And the accolades Trump has heaped on the Emirs, Sheikhs and Sultans of the Persian Gulf region). But it is also local. There are some “380,000 Venezuelan-born residents in Florida, with Miami-Dade and Broward counties being major hub.[11] Interestingly, a survey shows that these folks are mostly Democrat in their electoral leaning.[12] On December 9, 2025, Eileen Higgins won Miami mayor’s race, breaking a nearly 30-year Republican hold. Will the Venezuelan expats now switch Republican now that President Trump has liberated their homeland from the tyranny that caused them to flee in the first place?    

The ascendance of Hugo Chavez to the presidency of Venezuela triggered a mass migration of Venezuelans. Those who landed in Florida were predominant from governing elite, upper- and middle-classes, including businesspeople and highly skilled professionals.[13] The Chavez and Maduro regimes systematically confiscated or expropriated vast amounts of private property, including farmland, businesses (banking, steel, telecom, retail), and even homes.  In the petroleum sector, Chavez pressured Chevron to give Venezuela’s state oil company (PDVSA) majority ownership in their projects. Companies that refused, such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, had their assets seized by the government.[14] It is no wonder that in his national address on January 3, 2025, President Donald Trump mentioned the joy to be felt by the Venezuelan expat community, who yearn to go back to their country, ostensibly to regain the properties that were confiscated from them, and the U.S. petroleum companies getting back in the game in Venezuela.[15]

With Venezuela in the back mirror and the Monroe Doctrine 2.0 in fill swing, one anticipates that the next target of the U.S. neocolonial pursuit would be Cuba.  Florida is home to the largest Cuban population in the U.S., with estimates around 1.6 to 2.4 million people of Cuban descent, concentrated heavily in Greater Miami (especially Miami-Dade County and Hialeah).[16] “The U.S.-born Cuban Americans are more evenly split in party affiliation: 33% registered as Democrats, 38% as Republicans, and 26% as Independents.

Newer arrivals (since 1990) also show a higher Democratic lean compared to earlier arrivals. Younger Cubans (ages 18-49) nationwide have shown a significant Democratic lean, with over half (56%) identifying with or leaning toward the Democratic Party in one analysis, compared to only 39% of those 50 and older.”[17]

An end to the socialist/communist regime in Cuba could very well produce a greater appreciation for the Republican Party in Florida come the mid-term elections in November 2026. Cuba has more than just a moribund or already dead sugar cane industry, cigars, coffee, tourism, cuisine, music, arts, and highly skilled professionals (doctors and scientists) and a general population cloaked with dignity. “Cuba has significant petroleum reserves, with estimates varying widely but pointing to substantial onshore and potentially vast offshore deposits, especially in the North Cuba Basin, though extracting the deepwater oil faces major technical and financial hurdles, meaning it relies heavily on imports while developing its proven, albeit smaller, domestic field.”[18]

Unlike in the case of Venezuela, where the United States is looking to extract from it, the question with regard to Cuba is what the United States will give to Cuba and the Cubans in return other than an opportunity for expats in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, Broward, Palm Beach, and Tampa, and beyond in New York City-New Jersey, Los Angeles, Houston, and elsewhere in the United States to reclaim properties that they lost more than sixty-five years ago.