Roundtable: is Venezuela just the start?

Organised by the 'Crisis, Conflict, and Critique Research Themes in Politics and International Relations', this roundtable examines the seismic shift in global governance signalled by the release of the 2025 US National Security Strategy (NSS). Tracing the trajectory from neoconservative exceptionalism, rooted in the imperial narratives of George W. Bush’s 2002 NSS, to the ‘America First’ realism of Donald Trump’s 2025 strategy, the discussion considers a world in which the so-called ‘rules-based order’, whether real or imagined, is being actively dismantled by its former architects.

The roundtable will explore contemporary and future political moments through the lenses of crisis, conflict, and critique. Bringing together a plurality of perspectives and voices, the discussion will engage with pressing questions, including:

• Is intersectional global justice (including queer, Indigenous, and post-colonial formations) possible in a world of transacted and transactional security?
• Are we witnessing the decline of NATO and the end of alliance-based politics?
• The populist turn: whose truth, whose order?
• The Monroe Doctrine reborn: how will renewed US dominance of the Western Hemisphere affect peoples, states, and geopolitical orders?
• Venezuela as a template: does it signal new modes of engagement in global politics?
• Greenland and sovereignty: what prospects remain for territorial integrity amid a reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine?

We are grateful for the engagement and support of the Global Diplomacy Initiative, who are contributing to and speaking at this event. The Global Diplomacy Initiative is a student-led society at the University of Westminster that provides a unique platform connecting students and alumni with academics, diplomats, and policymakers.

Learn more about the Global Diplomacy Initiative.