The latest installment of 'Empire: The Reality TV Show' has reached its predictable, albeit nauseating, climax with what the press-release-regurgitators are calling a 'semi-warpath.' It is a charmingly diminutive term, is it not? As if we are merely half-murdering the concept of national sovereignty. In a display of tactical subtlety usually reserved for a demolition derby, the United States has decided that the most effective way to manage the complex, multi-polar chess board of the twenty-first century is to simply flip the table and start stuffing heads of state into the trunk of a metaphorical sedan.

The meticulously planned military operation on January 3, which saw US troops physically abducting Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, is the kind of ham-fisted theater that both the Left and the Right will find a way to monetize for their respective donor bases. To the Right, it is a glorious restoration of the Monroe Doctrine, a chest-thumping reminder that if you sit on top of oil and speak Spanish poorly, Uncle Sam reserves the right to evict you without notice. To the Left, it will trigger a cascade of performative hand-wringing and hashtags about 'imperialist overreach,' though they will secretly breathe a sigh of relief that they no longer have to explain why a bus-driver-turned-despot was their favorite aesthetic project. Both sides are, as usual, missing the point: this isn't about democracy or liberation. It is about a dying empire trying to prove it can still throw a punch, even if it breaks its own wrist in the process.

The strategic genius behind this 'semi-warpath' apparently believes that by snatching Maduro and squeezing Iran until its geopolitical pips squeak, the United States can somehow dissolve the thickening glue between Beijing and Moscow. It is a delightfully quaint worldview, one that assumes the rest of the world is as easily cowed as a freshman congressman at a lobbyist’s steak dinner. The idea that crippling Venezuela or further antagonizing the mullahs in Tehran will cause China and Russia to suddenly abandon their anti-Western alliances is a delusion of gargantuan proportions. If anything, these clumsy interventions serve as the ultimate recruitment brochure for the very alliances we claim to be dismantling. Nothing says 'you need a security pact with China' quite like watching your neighbor get bundled into a black-site transport because he didn't play nice with the Washington consensus.

Let us look at Iran, the perennial bogeyman for a Washington establishment that treats foreign policy like a recurring nightmare it refuses to wake up from. The campaign to remove adversarial governments is framed as a necessity for global stability, yet it is executed with the foresight of a goldfish. By pursuing this aggressive removal of leaders, the administration is not creating a vacuum for 'freedom'—a word that has been stripped of all meaning and left to rot in the sun—but rather a playground for the next iteration of chaos. But then, chaos is profitable, is it not? The defense contractors need their dividends, and a 'semi-warpath' provides just enough friction to keep the gears of the military-industrial complex greased with the blood of the irrelevant.

The reality is that we are witnessing the twitching of a nervous system that no longer understands the body it inhabits. The abduction of a sovereign leader, regardless of how much of a categorical failure that leader might be, is a signal that the 'rules-based order' we so smugly lecture others about is merely a suggestion for the weak. China and Russia are not cowering in the face of this 'aggression'; they are taking notes. They are watching as the West burns its remaining moral capital to achieve a tactical victory that offers zero long-term strategic gain. It is a spectacle of profound stupidity, a masterclass in how to win a skirmish while ensuring you lose the century.

Ultimately, the 'semi-warpath' is the perfect metaphor for our current era: a loud, violent, and expensive distraction from the fact that no one in charge has a single coherent idea about what comes next. We are led by grifters who treat the globe as a series of photo opportunities and 'strongman' poses, while the actual foundations of the society they represent crumble under the weight of their own incompetence. Maduro is gone, Iran is under the thumb, and yet, the air is no cleaner, the people are no smarter, and the impending irrelevance of the Western hegemony remains as certain as death. But please, let us continue to celebrate the 'meticulous planning' of a kidnapping. It’s so much easier than admitting we’re all just passengers on a ship being steered by a captain who thinks the iceberg is a target.