Wed, Jan 07, 2026 page8

• ‘Necessary evils’ and strategic traps

  • By Simon Tang 湯先鈍
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  Statements by US President Donald Trump regarding Venezuela stressing decisive action and strategic control over regional outcomes have revived a familiar, but dangerous, argument: When a regime is deemed sufficiently “evil,” extraordinary measures that bypass legal and institutional constraints can be excused, or even applauded.

  For Taiwan, this line of thinking should raise immediate alarm.

  The real issue is not whether a particular operation achieves short-term tactical success. The deeper and far more consequential question is institutional: What follows? Who shapes the political future? What precedents are being normalized in the process?

  An uncomfortable historical record deserves honesty. I have never doubted the overwhelming superiority of US military power. Since 1980, the US has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to prevail decisively on the battlefield. What history has not shown with equal consistency is the ability to convert military victory into stable political order.

  Time and again, decisive force has been followed by prolonged instability, governance vacuums and unresolved political fragmentation. Winning wars has proven far easier than securing peace.

  That failure matters — especially for smaller states — because precedents do not end with battlefield outcomes. Actions justified as “exceptions” rarely remain exceptional. Once powerful states begin treating international law as optional, the rules-based order begins to erode. It advances one precedent at a time, until restraint itself becomes the exception.

  Before World War II, repeated violations of international law were justified as necessary responses to ideological or security threats. By the time the world recognized that the “cure” was as destructive as the disease, the international system had already collapsed. Small and vulnerable states bore the heaviest costs.

  International law exists precisely to restrain power, not to serve it. When outcomes are allowed to justify means, legal boundaries lose meaning. What replaces them is not justice, but discretion — exercised overwhelmingly by the strong.

  Some argue that such concerns are naive, insisting that power politics has always defined international relations. That argument misses the point. Power politics is exactly why legal norms matter most to countries like Taiwan.

  For great powers, international law might appear inconvenient. For smaller democracies, it is a survival mechanism.

  Taiwan does not lack internal sovereignty. It has a democratically elected government, an independent judiciary, a professional military and a population that exercises political choice freely. What Taiwan lacks is not legitimacy, but universal recognition — a condition imposed through sustained coercion, not democratic consent.

  The Venezuela issue also points toward a broader structural shift. Trump’s rhetoric and instincts suggest a revival of the Monroe Doctrine, in which the US prioritizes uncontested dominance in the western hemisphere, while tacitly accepting a world divided into spheres of influence among major powers. In such a system, Washington would focus on maintaining hegemony in the Americas, while tolerating regional dominance elsewhere by other great powers.

  For Taiwan, this is a sobering prospect. A world organized around spheres of influence is not governed by law, but by proximity to power. In that world, legal norms, democratic values and moral arguments matter less than geography and strategic bargaining.

  The lesson for Taiwan is clear and uncomfortable. It should worry first and foremost about protecting itself — politically, economically and militarily — not about becoming so helpless that it lures others into protecting it. Dependence is not deterrence. Credibility comes from capability, not sympathy.

  Supporting the erosion of international norms today — even when politically tempting — weakens the very system Taiwan depends on tomorrow. When rules collapse, power does not become more just; it simply becomes less constrained. In such a world, the first to lose protection will never be the strong — it will be states like Taiwan.

  Simon Tang is an adjunct professor at California State University, Fullerton, who lectures on international relations.
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