The bounty hunter’s ballad: How US foreign policy still plays by Wild West rules

The opening whistle of Ennio Morricone's theme for 'For a Few Dollars More' is instantly recognisable. It is the sound of a sun-baked frontier, of tense stand-offs, of bounty hunters circling their prey for cold, hard cash. 

Listen closely today, beyond the celluloid, and you might hear its eerie echo resonating from the halls of power in Washington, DC.

The recent placement of a $50 million US bounty for information leading to the arrest of Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro is not just a diplomatic manoeuvre; it is a scene ripped straight from the Wild West playbook that has long defined American foreign policy. This is not merely politics; it is a genre piece, with the United States casting itself as the relentless gunslinger enforcing its own law on a frontier it claims as its own — the entire planet.

Think of the classic Western. The landscape is harsh, the law is often arbitrary or absent, and survival hinges on strength, cunning, and the willingness to draw first. Powerful figures — ranchers, railroad barons, corrupt sheriffs — impose their will. 

Enter the bounty hunter: a figure operating outside traditional structures, motivated by profit, sanctioned by those in power to eliminate "undesirables." Attorney General Pam Bondi stood before cameras, not in a dusty saloon, but in the polished corridors of the State Department, to announce that the US would double its already announced reward of $25 million for information leading to the capture of Maduro and several associates on narcoterrorism charges. 

The message was clear, visceral, and deliberately cinematic: Maduro is a wanted man, and the world's most powerful nation has put a price on his head. The frontier justice of Tombstone has arrived in Caracas.

This is not an isolated shoot-out. It is the latest act in a long-running saga in which the US, particularly in its own hemisphere, acts as self-appointed sheriff. The doctrine underpinning this dates back centuries. The 1823 Monroe Doctrine, declaring the Americas off-limits to European colonisation, subtly reserved for the US the right to be the hemisphere's policeman. 

Fast forward through interventions in Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Chile, Grenada and Panama — the list reads like a rogue's gallery of frontier towns in need of a 'clean-up'. The methods evolved — from Marines landing on beaches to CIA-backed coups and crippling sanctions — but the narrative remained constant: imposing "order," protecting 'interests', removing 'outlaws' always framed as necessary, even noble.

Professor John Mearsheimer, the realist scholar, would see this not as noble idealism but as the brutal logic of power playing out. His theory of "offensive realism" posits that in an anarchic international system — the ultimate lawless frontier — great powers are driven to maximise their relative power and strive for hegemony to ensure survival. 

For the US, dominating the Western Hemisphere is not merely a preference; it is seen as a strategic imperative. Venezuela, sitting atop the world's largest proven oil reserves and led by a government fiercely resistant to US influence, became a direct challenge to that dominance. The bounty is not about drugs; it is a high-stakes tactic in the relentless game of weakening a rival — a modern version of putting a price on a rival cattle baron's head to destabilise his operation. It signals to allies and adversaries alike who sets the rules and enforces them.

The impact of this "bounty diplomacy" is devastatingly real, far beyond the wanted posters. It is economic strangulation. US sanctions, significantly amplified since 2017 and targeting Venezuela's vital oil sector, have been described by UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan as "devastating," contributing significantly to a complex humanitarian emergency affecting millions. 

It is political isolation, rallying allies such as the now-defunct Lima Group to ostracise Caracas. It is the constant drumbeat of regime change, funding opposition groups and endorsing figures such as Juan Guaidó, whose self-declared interim presidency in 2019 was swiftly recognised by Washington and its allies.

The goal? Not just Maduro's removal, but the dismantling of a political project deemed hostile, ensuring a compliant government takes its place — a classic Western plot of replacing the "bad" sheriff with one beholden to powerful interests in the capital.

But the world is changing. The saloon is no longer as crowded with yes-men as it once was. The 2020 International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor's report found reasonable grounds to believe crimes against humanity had been committed in Venezuela; crucially, it also opened a preliminary examination into whether US sanctions themselves constituted crimes against humanity by exacerbating the humanitarian crisis. 

While the ICC later focused its investigations internally, this marked a significant, if symbolic, challenge to the narrative of untouchable US righteousness. Nations across the Global South — from Africa to Asia to Latin America — increasingly reject this unilateral enforcement. They see the hypocrisy: bounties and sanctions for some, unwavering support for allies engaged in similar or worse conduct. They see the devastation wrought by interventions justified by "Wanted: Dead or Alive" posters — from Iraq's phantom WMDs to Libya's descent into chaos after NATO's "humanitarian" intervention. 

The collateral damage — the ordinary civilians caught in the crossfire of sanctions and instability — is immense. The UN estimates that millions have fled Venezuela since 2015, driven by complex factors in which US sanctions undeniably play a significant, exacerbating role.

The Morricone soundtrack is reaching a crescendo, but the audience is growing restless. The tired tropes of the lone gunslinger imposing order are losing their appeal. The call is not for a different sheriff in the same corrupt town; it is for a whole new cinema. A cinema of the multipolar world, where no single power holds a monopoly on defining law or justice. This is not about replacing American hegemony with another; it is about building a world where sovereignty is not a privilege granted by Washington, but a right respected by all, where disputes are settled through strengthened international institutions, diplomacy and mutual respect, not through bounties, sanctions or drone strikes. Where nations of the Global South are not passive backdrops or targets in someone else's Western, but co-authors and directors of their own destinies.

The $50 million bounty on Maduro is more than a policy; it is a symbol. A symbol of a foreign policy stuck in a loop, replaying the same dusty reel of frontier justice. It is the sound of spurs jingling towards another confrontation, another attempt to force the plot towards an ending written only in Washington. 

But the world is no longer a single-screen theatre showing only American Westerns. New narratives are emerging, demanding recognition and agency. The challenge for the 21st century is to mute the familiar, ominous whistle of the bounty hunter and compose a new score – one of genuine dialogue, shared sovereignty, and a multipolar world where justice is not auctioned to the highest bidder, but built together. The curtain needs to fall on this particular Western. It is time for a different kind of show.

Sketch: TBS

Zakir Kibria is a Bangladeshi writer, policy analyst and entrepreneur based in Kathmandu. He can be reached at zk@krishikaaj.com

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard