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The United States of America is now at war with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Dozens of Venezuelan military targets have been bombed in the last few minutes, including a major army base just outside the capital. American Chinooks have been seen flying across the Caracas skyline.
This could be the most important geopolitical happening since the Ukraine War. We do it yet know if this will be a limited run of bombing like the Kosovo strikes, or a full on Iraq style invasion and regime change. If it is the latter, it will be an important test of America’s military might, and failure could very well be America’s Suez moment. I have speculated here several times that I thought the US would have difficulty conducting a thunder run of a non-peer or near-peer adversary in its current state, and it looks as though my theory may be put to the test. On a geopolitical and moral level though, I have little sympathy for Venezuela, for the same reason I have little sympathy for Ukraine. If you repeatedly antagonize your neighboring superpower, you get what you get.
This will also no doubt further fracture the Republican base in a major way, as interventionist neocons clash with America-First isolationists.
This is also adds to an intensifying pattern of conflict in multiple theaters that could lead to global war. It also increases the likelihood of a Chinese attack on Taiwan as American asserts are entangled in multiple theaters.
I will post more information as I hear it.
A true gentleman scholar post “inb4 source” and is vindicated in the light of history.
Edit:
There are now multiple airstrikes occurring within Caracas. The United States FAA has issued a NOTAM warning that civilian aircraft should avoid overflying the entire territory of Venezuela.
Reuters is now reporting that there are US ground troops active within the capital of Venezuela.
I am baffled by my ignorance, but
Why?
What has led to this?
Anyone who tells you they understand what's going on is probably an idiot. It seems likely to me that it all makes the most sense if you have classified intelligence at your fingertips. But what I have noticed is that over the past decade or so China has been influencing a lot of current events in a plausibly deniable way.
China pushes on Iran and Russia to stir up regional trouble. Iran pushes on Hamas and Hezbollah to create Oct 7th. Venezuelan oil goes to Cuba and China to be refined (because they mismanaged their oil industry enough that they no longer have the ability to refine it locally.) Russia and Cuba have soldiers stationed in Venezuela. Russia supplied Venezuela with the Buk-M2E air defense system that the US completely stomped on last night.
These countries are all tangled with each other. You can't really have a foreign policy for one without taking the others into account. And a good proportion of the US political class is terrified of China. China has been building up a fleet and industrial capacity that can utterly dominate the US Navy. And no country goes through the enormous expense of building up a fleet without intending to use it.
It's not a coincidence that China sent an envoy to Venezuela yesterday, where they reportedly spoke with Maduro for 3 hours.
It's also not a coincidence that China has fleets of ships around South America, ostensibly to deplete the fish around the coast (which is bad enough.) But consider how many drones can fit in a shipping container. Consider how the Ukraine pulled off one of their more successful attacks against Russia. It doesn't take a lot for China to turn their annoying and environmentally damaging fishing fleet into a drone kill fleet, right at America's south.
If you want to understand what is going on, you need to start seeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Iranian water riots, China firing missiles and practicing live fire drills while surrounding Taiwan, and the US capture of Maduro as all different angles of the same problem.
One reason why I think the US pulled on this thread of the knot is because we have a True Democratically Elected leader of Venezuela safely tucked away, who can potentially take the reigns. That's the harder part to pull off and what will probably determine if this was actually a successful operation.
They're fishing boats off the coast of Peru. Ukraine's drone containers were smuggled onto russian territory, a few hundred meters from the planes.
Except the US, who, I assume, does it out of benevolence?
Well, no. The US obviously uses our fleet to maintain its hegemony. Most of the time our fleet keeps shipping safe and reliable. But more than that, we maintain our military dominance to prevent another World War. A tactic which has been successful for 80 years, we shall see if that can continue.
China building a rival fleet is obviously threatening to the US. I do not comment on the relative morality of it. They have as much of a right to it as the US. Though there is something to be said about China not showing as much of an interest in keeping shipping lanes safe.
You said building a fleet is proof of intention to use it. That's like saying anyone carrying a gun is premeditating murder. You interpret everything china does as aggressive against you, when it's far easier to see it as defensive in nature. The US is scary.
I agree with you that the US is scary. Building a fleet is an intention to use it. The US built a fleet and intends to use it, as shown by them using it all the time. I don't see the contradiction here.
No, I don't think they use it all the time. The size of the US fleet is massive overkill for what it's used for. It's like Britain's old policy of having a bigger fleet than the next two powers combined. It wasn't because they needed the ships for some coups in zanzibar or wherever.
There is, I note, a consistent history of Britain very much using that fleet for several hundred years.
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In the comment above this you said, "The US is scary." Now you are saying the US doesn't use it's Navy. This seems like a contradiction.
The US doesn't have to shoot things in order for the Navy to be used. The Navy is used by projecting power. Every time a country wants to do something that may have geopolitical implications, they have to think, "But what about the Americans?"
The Americans don't want to have to deal with China the same way the rest of the wold has to deal with us. On some level it's sheer pragmatic selfishness, on another we believe our Christian/Liberal morals are superior to all others and so if there must be a Hegemon, it is best if it's us. But either way there's no contradiction here.
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One of the other things this entire adventure has demonstrated is that the US can suddenly and rapidly flow forces to a previously abandoned airstrip and rapidly project power to that location.
In every "Eagle v. Dragon" wargame, China pummels the heck out of US airbases in Guam and Japan with ballistic missiles, destroying large portions of US air power on the ground. If the US can, at short notice, transform any of the dozens or hundreds of little airports in the AO into operating bases and start reconstituting old World War-vintage airstrips to platforms for tactical aircraft, the target set for Chinese ballistic missiles expands dramatically.
And of course this is not a surprising US capability. But it's one thing to know we can do it in theory and another thing to see the US actually execute on it so briskly. A successful snap air assault against a prepared enemy is icing on the cake.
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