The astonishing nighttime capture of Nicolas Maduro from his own bed was the culmination of a years-long, high-stakes standoff with the United States.

Behind the scenes, secret planning for the raid had been going on for months as President Donald Trump toyed with an idea he once furiously railed against: Regime change in a foreign country.  

Trump has long been enraged by the flood of Venezuelan migrants crossing America's southern border and the narcotics trafficking fueling the crisis.

But a military strike on a sovereign nation always carried enormous risk.

The president's 'America First' base would undoubtedly cry foul over a foreign intervention. European allies would almost certainly accuse him of violating international law.

In the end, Trump found his justification in a dusty 200-year-old policy that previous presidents had invoked sparingly: the Monroe Doctrine.

Introduced by President James Monroe in 1823, the doctrine boldly asserts American dominance over the Western Hemisphere – effectively giving Washington the right to police its own backyard.

For Trump, it was the cover he needed to pull the trigger.

An explosion rocks Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning during a US military operation which resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro  

Notably, on December 2, the anniversary of the doctrine's founding, Trump issued a message from the White House.

He said: 'Today, my Administration proudly reaffirms this promise under a new “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine: That the American people - not foreign nations nor globalist institutions - will always control their own destiny in our hemisphere.'

Just days later, planning for a potential military raid to capture Maduro began.

At his press conference after Maduro's capture, President Trump was even clearer on how the Monroe Doctrine is influencing his strategic foreign policy.

He accused Venezuela of stealing 'massive oil infrastructure' and being guilty of a 'gross violation of the core principles of American foreign policy, dating back more than two centuries. All the way back dated to the Monroe Doctrine. And the Monroe Doctrine is big deal.

'But we've superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe document.'

The President added: 'We sort of forgot about it, very important but we forgot about it, we don't forget about it any more.

'Under out new National Security Strategy, American dominance in the Western hemisphere will never be questioned again, wont happen. 

'We will never allow foreign powers to rob our people and drive us out of our hemisphere.'

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