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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?
It's the monroe doctrine. Basically the US is the hegemon in the western hemisphere, and Cuba is the sole allowed exception. Venezuela had this coming a long time.
How is Cuba an allowed exception? Cuba is still embargoed, despite being no worse than Vietnam.
Because the US has explicitly committed to not invading it despite hosting Russian military bases.
I could find only that since Cuban Crisis USSR/Russia had only sigint base on Cuba, not military.
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Yet it is still subject to an incredibly harsh embargo. Long after similar "communist" regimes and direct Russian allies that killed relatives of mine have become major trading partners. That doesn't really fit with "allowed."
That’s because of Cuban exiles in Miami-Dade County. Florida was a critical swing state in American electoral politics and Miami-Dade county was critical for winning Florida. Any party that normalized relations with Cuba would have lost the White House for the next 25 years.
That doesn't really point to Cuba being "allowed" to exist peacefully in opposition to the United States.
The reason Cuba has been "allowed" to exist for so long is not out of some reasoned exception to the Monroe Doctrine, it is simply because the Castro regime has historically been competent and popular enough that overthrowing it has not been practical.
In Venezuela, Chavez poked the United States more than Maduro ever did, but he was a competent strongman and so he lived to die of cancer in power.
I think it’s a few things.
•The first likely window for an invasion was the Cold War. Kennedy’s handshake deal not to invade Cuba meant that Cuba wasn’t going to be invaded for the last 30 years of the Cold War. Even if Washington doesn’t value honor, nobody wanted to pick at that scab after the nuclear near miss in ‘62, and several other fronts of the Cold War were more important anyway.
•The next likely window for an invasion would have been in the 90s, after the USSR fell. But no one had any appetite for major military action in the 90s, and Cuba wasn’t engaging in any particularly theatrical genocides that would have moved the US to action.
•The third likely window for an invasion would have been during the post-9/11 paranoia spiral. But Cheney’s priority list was Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North Korea, and the Iraq boondoggle meant that he never even managed to finish the top five, much less cleaning up the D-listers.
•After that there was a pretty big phobia of wading into regime change, and Cuba just kind of kept lumbering on due to inertia.
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