When rules bend, small states break

For years, Washington has cast itself as chief guardian of a “rules-based international order,” a phrase Philippine officials invoke almost reflexively whenever China harasses Filipino vessels in the West Philippine Sea. The promise embedded in that phrase is simple: power should be restrained by law, and even the strong should be bound by rules.

But the events unfolding in Venezuela have sharpened an old and uncomfortable question in Manila: how firm are those rules when U.S. interests are at stake?

On January 3, U.S. forces carried out a military operation in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his forced transfer to the United States for trial. Washington framed the action as a security necessity. Yet to many governments and observers, it looked like a textbook violation of sovereignty — an armed intervention conducted without United Nations Security Council authorization and outside the accepted bounds of international law. The situation escalated further when President Donald Trump declared that the United States would “run the country” until further notice and that American oil firms would take over Venezuela’s vast petroleum sector.

Two days later, the Philippines reacted with a carefully calibrated statement. The Department of Foreign Affairs expressed concern about the “evolving events in Venezuela” and their impact on peace, stability, and the rules-based international order. It reiterated familiar principles: sovereign equality, peaceful settlement of disputes, non-use of force, and non-interference in domestic affairs.

These are the very principles Manila relies on in confronting China’s actions in the South China Sea — principles Washington has long claimed to support. Yet in Venezuela, the United States bombed a capital, seized a sitting president, and announced direct control over another country’s affairs. The contradiction is stark, and for smaller states like the Philippines, unsettling.

The UN Secretary-General’s office warned that the unilateral action could set a “dangerous precedent.” Governments across regions echoed that alarm. Brazil called it a serious affront to sovereignty. China described it as a blatant use of force. Colombia warned of an assault on Latin America’s political order. Taken together, these reactions underscore a troubling reality: international law appears fragile when confronted by great-power interests.

That fragility matters deeply to the Philippines. Manila has invested enormous political and diplomatic capital in international law, from UNCLOS to the 2016 arbitral ruling, precisely because law is the great equalizer for middle and small powers. As political scientist Cleve Arguelles has warned, when “might makes right” replaces rules, countries like the Philippines are left more exposed.

Security analyst Justin Baquisal adds another layer of concern: the normalization of regime change by force. If great powers feel entitled to depose leaders they dislike, the precedent can be twisted and reused. The logic, once unleashed, does not remain contained.

The Venezuela episode also revives historical anxieties. Like Venezuela, the Philippines is a former Spanish colony that fell into America’s orbit. It has experienced direct U.S. intervention before — from colonization to Cold War backing of authoritarian rule, and later influence during the 1986 political transition. Today, with expanded U.S. access to Philippine bases under EDCA, the asymmetry of power is once again impossible to ignore.

None of this suggests moral equivalence between Washington and Beijing, nor does it erase China’s violations in the West Philippine Sea. But it does expose the uncomfortable truth behind the rhetoric: the rules-based order is only as strong as the willingness of powerful states to follow it themselves.

For Manila, the lesson is sobering. International law remains indispensable — but it is not self-enforcing. When the guardians of the rules bend them, smaller states are the first to feel the strain.