U.S. foreign policy expert Thomas Graham calls the U.S. operation in Venezuela “a violation in international law” and “an aggression against a sovereign state” while noting that the Trump administration has framed the move as a legal action tied to Nicolás Maduro’s indictment.
Graham, a National Security Council senior director for Russia under President George W. Bush, told Independence Avenue Media that while Moscow and Beijing will study the operation for what it reveals about U.S. military capabilities, he does not expect it to change how either operates on the global stage.
On Ukraine, Graham cautions against placing too much weight on President Donald Trump’s public statements and stresses that negotiations are in “a delicate phase.” The U.S. focus on Venezuela is already diverting senior-level attention away from Russia-Ukraine diplomacy, potentially slowing momentum, while key issues —security questions, territorial matters and the future status of critical infrastructure — remain unresolved.
According to Graham, progress toward a peace process will depend on direct engagement with Russia and whether the United States is prepared to pressure on Moscow.
The following interview was conducted on January 5, 2026, and has been edited for length and clarity.
Kartlos Sharashenidze, Independence Avenue Media: Let me start with the U.S. operation in Venezuela. What’s your read on it? What does it signal about this administration’s broader foreign policy?
Thomas Graham, former National Security Council senior director for Russia: The administration’s action is consistent with what came out of the national security strategy, which indicated that the Western Hemisphere would be a top priority for this administration over the next several years. The goal was to reassert U.S. preeminence in the region to ensure that countries weren’t being used by rival powers, particularly China, to erode American influence in its own backyard.
IAM: There’s an ongoing discussion about how lawful this operation in Venezuela actually was. From your perspective, does this action have a solid legal basis under international law? And if you were advising this administration today, how would you justify it?
Graham: The action is clearly a violation in international law. It’s an aggression against a sovereign state. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. That said, the administration has presented this as a legal action. Nicolás Maduro had been indicted. People from the Department of Justice were allegedly trying to detain him, to bring him to justice in the United States, and because of the situation on the ground in Venezuela, U.S. military forces were needed to protect U.S. officials. I think that’s a very thin veneer for an action that raises questions about its legality under international law.
IAM: So, what’s your assessment of why it was necessary for the United States?
Graham: From the standpoint of the Trump administration, this issue has a geopolitical element to it and a resource element to it. The geopolitical element is that Venezuela is a country that is located very close to the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal is a strategic asset that is extremely vital to United States, enabling communication between our East and West coasts. So, from a geopolitical standpoint, you can understand why the administration wanted to have a friendly power in Venezuela.
On the resource side, the oil is clearly an important factor here. Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil in the world. Its industry has declined over the past several years because of poor management, and the administration would like to get access to that oil to be able to develop the oil fields. This is good for American energy companies. The president has said that some of the profits will be used for the benefit of the Venezuelan people.
IAM: Based on the reactions from Russia and China, how do you see this operation shaping the broader dynamics among the United States, Russia and China in the near future?
Graham: Russia and China will pay attention to what the United States has done, and certainly they’re going to analyze the military aspects of it. This was, from a tactical standpoint, an extremely successful but very complicated military operation. It probably didn’t go unnoticed in Moscow that this was close to what Russia wanted to do in Ukraine in February 2022, with results that were quite different from the ones that we just saw in Venezuela.
In China as well, the military capabilities of the United States will be examined very closely: how this operation was put together, what it tells the Chinese about American military capabilities and how that might be applied in an Indo-Pacific scenario, specifically with regard to Taiwan. I don’t believe that this is an action that now tells the Chinese and the Russians that they can do similar things.
The operation, to the extent that it was successful, depended on a superb American military capability. These are not necessarily things that the Chinese or the Russians enjoy in the types of actions they might take. So the Russians and the Chinese will be concerned. They’ll study this quite closely, but I don’t think it’s going to change the way they operate on the global stage.
IAM: What implications, if any, does this development have for U.S. diplomatic engagement related to a Russia-Ukraine peace process?
Graham: The obvious point is that it takes attention away from the Russia-Ukraine peace process. People will be engaged in Venezuela, including the Secretary of State and the national security adviser Marco Rubio. Quite intensively, other people at lower levels will also be spending more time on this. So the amount of time that can be devoted to Russia-Ukraine correspondingly diminishes.
So, whether we’ll see the same intensity of development, the same intensity of talks in the near future, I think is under doubt.
IAM: On Ukraine — President Donald Trump has said he does not believe Moscow’s claim that Ukraine attacked one of the Russian president’s residences. And following the Venezuela operation, he also said he was “not thrilled” with Vladimir Putin because “he’s killing too many people.” What do these statements suggest about the direction of U.S. diplomacy and the prospects for a Russia-Ukraine peace process?
Graham: I never read too much into the president’s statements. He makes different statements [and] contradicts himself over time. … That said, the negotiations are in a delicate phase. There have been intensive negotiations with the Ukrainians and the Europeans over the past few weeks.
The next step is to engage in very direct consultations and negotiations with the Russians to test their reaction not only to the initial 28-point plan that was released by [Trump special envoy] Steve Witkoff back in November but also the revised 20-point plan that has been worked out with the Ukrainians and the Europeans. Now, as we know, even in that 20-point plan, there are still issues that need to be completely resolved. Security issues and territorial issues, among them, also the future status of the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia.
IAM: After the Mar-a-Lago meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Trump, Zelenskyy said the U.S. was offering 15-year security guarantees. What’s your read on those guarantees for Ukraine?
Graham: Certainly, it’s advanced from what the administration was prepared to offer, say, six months ago. So they are very specific security guarantees. That indeed would require the United States under certain circumstances to come to the direct aid of Ukraine with military force if it were attacked. Presumably, the aggressor would be Russia, but that’s not stated explicitly in the security guarantees. …
The questions about the length — obviously, the Ukrainians would want security guarantees to be longer than the United States would want. So, we will see what agreement Washington and Kyiv can come to — a compromise on the duration of the security guarantees. And that said, we still need to see what the Russian reaction is, and whether that will be acceptable to the Russians, and if it’s not, whether the administration is prepared to put pressure on the Russians to persuade them to agree to the type of security guarantees the United States is prepared to give Ukraine at this time.
IAM: How do you see the next developments in the Western Hemisphere? Do you see other countries — like Cuba or Colombia — coming into focus? And with President Trump’s statements, including on Greenland, what are your expectations for the near future?
Graham: The United States is going to have its hands full dealing with Venezuela for the next several months, I would argue. It’s still not clear who is in charge, how the new government will deal with the United States, what the exact expectations of the U.S. government are at this point, and whether the new Venezuelan authorities will be able to meet those or agree to meet those.
So this is going to occupy the time and attention of the administration for a considerable amount of time. It’s hard to imagine further operations in the Western Hemisphere, whether it be Colombia or Cuba or Greenland at this point, until we have greater clarity on how things are going to unfold in Venezuela itself.
IAM: Was it a surprise to you when President Trump said, “We will run the country until the transition.”
Graham: That was a surprise not only for me but for many, many people since this is a president who campaigned against the idea of nation building. … And now he has taken on perhaps not a nation-building process but the task of determining the policies for another country.
This goes well beyond what he campaigned on, what the expectations were for his MAGA base. And how he’s going to deal with that as a domestic issue is a major question at this point.
