4-Dimensional Chess

I woke up yesterday on January 3, 2026, to learn the news that United States military landed in Caracas, Venezuela, captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, and transported him to New York City, where he was indicted and will eventually be tried as being a narco-terrorist – a charge for which he had already been indicted in 2020. It was a bold and shocking move by the President of the United States – a move that took me a few minutes to get my head around. Almost on cue, people started objecting to what President Trump did. And the more I saw who was objecting to this action, the better I felt about it.

The people who just marched in the No Kings protest, were now defending a totalitarian dictator. That made a lot of sense. Iran’s Foreign Ministry publicly condemned “the US military aggression and the violation of that country’s [Venezuela] national sovereignty and territorial integrity." Beijing's foreign ministry released a statement stating that "China is deeply shocked and strongly condemns the US's blatant use of force against a sovereign state and its action against its president." Russia Foreign Ministry condemned the action by saying, “this morning, the United States carried out an act of armed aggression against Venezuela. This causes deep concern and condemnation.” The new communist mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, called President Trump and voiced his objection to his military action. A quick rule of thumb, if Iran, China, Russia, the far-left and Mamdani are against something, you should be for it.

There have been far-left protests across the world in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York City, Portland, Atlanta, Seattle, Amsterdam, Prague, Istanbul, Rome, Paris, and London. My social media feed has been littered with leftists and anti-Trumpers objecting to the removal of this illegitimate totalitarian dictator, asking questions and making statements like:

“How does starting a foreign war keep us safe?”

“We overthrew a foreign government because Americans can’t control their appetite for drugs.”

“Trump did this because he only wanted their oil.”

“Taking out foreign dictators is not putting America first.”

“Are we now supposed to overthrow every dictator in the world?”

“It was an unconstitutional use of military force.”

“Presidents are not allowed to start wars without the approval of Congress.”

The people who are making these objections are playing checkers while Donald Trump is playing 4-dimensional chess. These people can only see the one move that is right in front of them, while Donald Trump sees 5 to 10 moves in advance, and he sees the entire chess board from every angle. Trump sees the confluence of Islamism, communism and totalitarianism with the unholy alliance of Iran, China and Russia. This alliance has been building since the Berlin Wall fell and the end of the Cold War with the shared goal of the destruction of the Western World, especially the United States of America. And Venezuela became the launching pad in their ultimate attack on America and the West.

The day before we removed Maduro, a Chinese contingent visited Caracas and was forging a deal with Maduro and Venezuela for China to control the largest oil reserve and valuable mineral deposits on the planet. The money from the oil would be used to fund international Islamic terrorism which is designed to destabilize the free world. China controlling the oil reserves in Venezuela would have propped up Russia’s economy and continued to fund its war in Ukraine because China would have been able to manipulate the price of oil on the world market to Russia’s advantage. Maduro would have been able to continue to flood Western countries with deadly drugs that destroy the fabric of their societies. And China would have control over Venezuela’s vast mineral deposits which are vital to China’s plan of controlling the world through their massive technological expansion.

If China took control of Venezuela’s oil reserves and mineral deposits, they would have become the most powerful player in South and Central America. They would control more than half of the Western Hemisphere. The United States would become completely isolated because Canada and most of Europe are willingly handing their sovereignty over to communists and Islamists who are conquering their countries from the inside. It would only be a matter of time before the United States fell. So, this move was not “just about oil” or merely “overthrowing a dictator”, it was so much bigger and more far reaching than what the anti-Trumpers who are stuck playing checkers are capable of understanding. Trump just captured their queen as they were poised to put the West into checkmate and not only did Trump capture their queen so they cannot play her against us, he now controls the queen and can play her against them. Trump completely upended the power structure and the dynamics of the geo-political chess board with this one move. History will prove that it is not an overstatement to say that what Trump orchestrated on January 3, 2026, saved America and the Western World.

But this fight is never going to end because the communists are never going away even when they are soundly defeated and proven inexorably wrong like when the Soviet Union collapsed. All the Marxists suffer from the same disease – they believe they are smarter and more moral than everyone else when in fact, they are neither. And that is their real danger. When the Soviet Union collapsed, there was not one communist who admitted that communism was wrong. When staring at the 100 million innocent people who were killed in the name of communism in the 20^th century, there was not one communist who admitted that communism is immoral. The Marxists continue to lecture those of us who believe in freedom, democracy, free markets and human rights as if we are the dumb immoral ones. They are blinded by their evil ideology, just as their allies Islamists are blinded by their worship of the devil.

In light of their most recent defeat in Venezuela, the forces of evil are already plotting their next move to take down the United States and the West – that which stands in their way of world domination. The game doesn’t end here and now in Venezuela, and if our future Presidents and political leaders continue to look at the geo-political landscape as if it is a game of checkers, and not the 4-dimensional chess board that it is, we will be soundly defeated in the future.

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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.