The United States’ dramatic military operation in Venezuela — culminating in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro — deepened geopolitical uncertainty for investors in resource-rich nations. 



According to a new report by SBM Intelligence, the intervention, when viewed alongside recent US strikes in Nigeria, signals a shift in American strategic behaviour that could materially affect investment risk profiles across Africa and beyond.

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SBM Intelligence’s analysis, titled “Venezuela and Nigeria usher in a brave new world,” argued that Washington’s Venezuelan operation was not an isolated incident but the culmination of a broader unilateral doctrine articulated in the 2025 US National Security Strategy.

This doctrine prioritises transactional, interest-based interventions over the post-World War II rules-based order, effectively treating sovereignty as negotiable when strategic resources are at stake.

“Targeting major energy exporters has repriced sovereign risk in commodity markets to include an intervention probability, which will suppress long-term investment in resource-rich nations unless underpinned by geopolitical security guarantees,” the report stated.

Test Case, New Risk Paradigm

“Nigeria’s experience over the past weeks exemplifies how this new geopolitical calculus plays out in practice, the report explained. On Christmas Day 2025, US forces conducted precision air strikes inside Nigeria’s northwest against militant groups — operations framed by Washington as counter-terrorism cooperation but seen by Abuja as a routine partnership,” it added.

The SBM Intelligence report further revealed that the disparate narratives between the US and Nigerian governments weaken shared understandings of sovereignty and open the door to external justification for force.

“The report is clear-eyed about the consequences: by striking both Venezuela — home to roughly 17 per cent of the world’s oil reserves — and Nigeria — Africa’s most populous oil producer with tens of billions of barrels in reserves — the United States has effectively introduced an ‘intervention premium’ into the sovereign risk calculus for resource-rich markets.

“The targeting of two major energy-exporting countries … fundamentally reprices political risk in global commodity markets,” SBM Intelligence warns, noting that this shift prioritises geopolitical alignment over economic fundamentals in investment decisions.

Rising Risk, Uncertain Alignment 


For foreign capital allocators, according to the report,
the implications are multifaceted.

It stated that commodities and energy markets might see elevated risk premiums as governments reassess the stability of supply and the potential for external interference.

“Analysts already point to rising geopolitical premiums in crude markets tied to tensions around Venezuelan exports. Investment decisions in oil, gas, and strategic minerals will increasingly hinge on diplomatic and security relationships rather than pure price or reserve fundamentals, especially for countries perceived as lacking robust institutional safeguards.

“Geopolitical risk scoring — traditionally centred on governance, macroeconomic fundamentals, and security — must now factor in the likelihood of external state action as part of sovereign risk assessments. This geopolitical layer compounds existing challenges in Nigeria.

SBM Intelligence’s Africa Country Instability Risk Index recently placed Nigeria in the “critical” category, reflecting deepening insecurity, governance strains, and economic fragility — conditions that already weighed on investor confidence before US military actions.

Both in Abuja and among international observers, there is a growing sense that nations with abundant natural resources but internal vulnerabilities may be viewed as arenas for great-power competition rather than autonomous actors.

The SBM report frames this trend as part of a “brave new world” of unilateral enforcement, where smaller economies must navigate rising geopolitical risk premiums if they hope to attract long-term capital.