In George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, the world is divided into three spheres of influence: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, all perpetually at war. Sometimes two of the states form an alliance against the third. Sometimes they abruptly switch sides. No reasons are given. Instead, the Party tells the proles, “We have always been at war with Eastasia.” Newspapers and history books are quickly rewritten to make that seem true. Orwell’s world is fiction, but some want it to become reality. Since well before President Donald Trump’s second term, the idea that the world should have three spheres of influence—an Asia dominated by China, a Europe dominated by Russia, and a Western Hemisphere dominated by the United States—has been kicking around the internet in a desultory way, mostly promoted by Russians who want to control what they call their “near abroad,” or perhaps just want their country, with its weak economy and faltering army, to be mentioned in the same breath as the United States and China. Back in 2019, Fiona Hill, a National Security Council official in the first Trump administration, testified to a House committee that Russians pushing the creation of spheres of influence had been offering to somehow “swap” Venezuela, their closest ally in Latin America, for Ukraine. Since then, the notion that international relations should promote great-power dominance, not universal values or networks of allies, has spread from Moscow to Washington. The administration’s new National Security Strategy outlines a plan to dominate the Americas, enigmatically describing U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere as “Enlist and Expand,” and downplaying threats from China and Russia. Trump has also issued threats to Denmark, Panama, and Canada, all allies whose sovereignty we now challenge. [Anne Applebaum: The longest suicide note in American history] In some ways, the military raid that took the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro into custody does resemble past American actions, especially the ouster of the Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega in 1989–90. But the use of this new language to explain and justify the Venezuelan raid makes this story very different. At his press conference on Saturday, Trump did not use the word democracy. He did not refer to international law. Instead, he presented a garbled version of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, a policy originally designed to keep foreign imperial powers out of the Americas, calling it something that sounded like the “Donroe Document”: “Under our new National Security Strategy,” he said, reading from prepared remarks, “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.” Toward this end, he said the United States would “run” Venezuela, although he didn’t say who would actually be in charge. Viceroy Marco Rubio? Governor-General Pete Hegseth? Asked about María Corina Machado, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Trump was dismissive. “She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect within the country,” he said. Machado, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, leads a movement whose presidential candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, received two-thirds of the vote in the 2024 election. Although the state-controlled media backed Maduro, and although Maduro’s police and paramilitaries harassed, arrested, and murdered their supporters, Machado and González not only won; they collected documentation from polling stations proving that they had won. Maduro never produced any such proof. He declared victory anyway. For the moment, Trump isn’t interested in identifying the legitimate leader of Venezuela. The administration is instead hinting that the U.S. might work with Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who would presumably keep Maduro’s regime intact—not regime change, in other words, just dictator change. But Trump isn’t trying very hard to provide legitimacy for his own actions either. Before kidnapping Maduro, he did not consult with Congress, U.S. allies, or Venezuela’s neighbors, many of whom might have wanted to contribute to a solution. Although his administration has described this action as a criminal arrest, and has justified it with an indictment for drug smuggling, this isn’t part of any consistent policy. Trump just pardoned the former president of Honduras, who was legitimately indicted on drug charges six years ago. [Read: Making sense of the Venezuela attack] None of this is logical, but it isn’t meant to be: Like the Party in 1984, the would-be dominators of the Western Hemisphere seem to feel no need for logic. If might makes right, if the U.S. gets to do what it wants using any tools it wants in its own sphere, then there is no need for transparency, democracy, or legitimacy. The concerns of ordinary people who live in smaller nations don’t need to be taken into account, because they will not be granted any agency. Their interests are not the concern of the imperial companies that want their mineral resources, or the imperial leaders who need the propaganda of conquest to keep power at home. Russia’s and China’s responses to Trump’s actions this weekend have been surprisingly soft, given their billions of dollars of investments in Venezuela. Perhaps this is because the language Trump is using to justify the kidnapping of Maduro echoes some of their own narratives. Ukraine belongs to Russia’s sphere is Vladimir Putin’s main argument, after all. Taiwan is part of China’s sphere will be Xi Jinping’s justification if he decides to invade the island. That doesn’t mean that Moscow is really in a position to control Europe, or China to control Asia: The European Union’s combined GDP is nearly 10 times the size of Russia’s, and there aren’t any countries crying out to become Chinese colonies either. For all of Trump’s bluster, neither are Americans exactly in control of our sphere of influence. Two days after the capture of Maduro, Trump already risks falling victim to his own propaganda, just like Putin. Venezuela, as one former U.S. ambassador to the country recently wrote, is “a failed state riddled with illegal armed groups and foreign terrorist organizations.” The regime has not been removed. The military and various paramilitaries are all still in place, and although some might cooperate with the Trump administration, others might not. With no U.S. troops in Venezuela, will Americans “run” Venezuela by issuing loud statements and threats? By ordering periodic military interventions? Perhaps the administration has made a deal with some members of the regime—that would explain why the American raid met so little opposition—but there is no guarantee that such a deal will produce the kinds of benefits Trump expects. Oil isn’t something that lies around on the ground to be picked up and taken home. It requires long-term investments, relationships, contracts. If the government of Venezuela is likely to fall or change at any moment, none of those will materialize. But Trump’s error is even more fundamental. The division of the world into spheres of influence implies that smaller countries cannot influence events, and it’s a grave mistake to imagine Venezuelans won’t try. Many of them wanted an American intervention, are overjoyed that Maduro is gone, and no wonder: He and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, together turned the richest country in South America into the poorest, fortifying their ugly security state with guns and surveillance systems purchased from autocracies around the world. But now that Maduro is gone, the people who fought for years for justice, freedom, and self-determination aren’t going to want to live in a Trump-backed dictatorship staffed with Maduro’s cronies. One Venezuelan exile, who requested anonymity because of risks to his family, told me that on Saturday, he felt like he was on a roller coaster. First the elation of Maduro’s exit, then the shock of Trump’s press conference, then the angry realization that maybe nothing has changed and he still can’t go home. I don’t think Americans will be any happier if another authoritarian is installed in Venezuela either. Most Americans still do want their country to stand for something other than greed, and most don’t want their expensive military to fight on behalf of Trump’s oil-industry donors. Trump’s pursuit of an illusory sphere of influence is unlikely to bring us peace or prosperity—any more than the invasion of Ukraine brought peace and prosperity to Russians—and this might become clear sooner than anyone expects. If America is just a regional bully, after all, then our former allies in Europe and Asia will close their doors and their markets to us. Sooner or later, “our” Western Hemisphere will organize against us and fight back. Far from making us more powerful, the pursuit of American dominance will make us weaker, eventually leaving us with no sphere, and no influence, at all.