The United States has finally done something decisive, or so the headlines would have you believe. An airstrike in Venezuela has eliminated the leader of the Tren de Aragua gang, a criminal organisation that has metastasised across the Americas. The Treasury Department notes that this group has been behind everything from extortion to murder-for-hire. London, predictably, has issued a statement condemning gang violence. But do not mistake this for a victory lap. This is a tactical hit, not a strategic triumph.
Consider the parallels to the Roman habit of decapitating barbarian tribes only to see them reform under a fiercer chieftain. The gang’s hierarchy is surely not a single strand of spaghetti. It is a hydra. Cut off one head, and two more emerge from the slums of Caracas. The real rot lies not in the man but in the system that breeds such men. Venezuela is a failed state, a petro-state turned narco-state where the government trades survival for complicity. The Tren de Aragua are not insurgents; they are parasites feeding on a corpse.
The London condemnation is a masterclass in hollow moralising. When was the last time the Home Office addressed the Tren de Aragua cells operating in Luton or Brixton? The gang has links to human trafficking rings that bring young women to the UK under false pretences. Yet our response is a press release. The US at least dropped a bomb. We fling words.
The deeper question is one of empire and decline. The US can no longer police the globe but occasionally reminds the world it can still swat flies. This airstrike is a signal to China, to Russia, to the cartels: we are still dangerous. Yet it is also an admission of weakness. The US cannot stabilise Venezuela because stabilisation requires nation-building, and that project is dead. Ask any veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan.
History, as Gibbon noted, is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. The Tren de Aragua are a symptom of a civilisation that has lost its nerve. We trade liberty for security. We tolerate despotism if it keeps the oil flowing. We drop bombs and issue condemnations, but we refuse to address the moral rot that gives rise to such violence.
Let us not pretend this airstrike is a turning point. It is a feverish twitch in a long decline. The empire is still breathing, but the breath smells of cordite and sanctimony.
