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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.
If this does actually end up being a ground war then how long it takes us to capture Caracas will be a strong indicator of how much pur military has (or hasn't) been weakened over the last few decades. Took us 3 weeks to capture Baghdad and month to take Kabul, if we don't see a comparable timetable here then it means our military competence really has declined. I do consider South American militaries to be slightly more competent than Middle Eastern/South Asian ones, so if it takes more than 2 months I'll consider that our military competence probably really has declined. If we do it in 2 months or less I'll need to readjust my priors and mot think so poorly of our military's competence (the opposite of how I adjusted my priors about Russia after their failed push on Kiev).
Large operations are hard to hide logistically. Given the complete lack of rumors about troop deployments (Iraq had announced call-ups of tens of thousands of reserves in advance), I have trouble believing this is more than a few already-deployed special forces and airstrikes. How many (active duty, even) folks could go missing from their normal places without being missed? Any "military exercises" going on, like Russia was doing in Belarus in 2022? IMO the number of pieces on the board can't be that large.
ETA: Nonzero chance it's already over, and the rest of us don't know it yet: the US-Iran conflict this year lasted a few hours.
Yea its already over; either the HVT objective has been met or a new narrative spin will be executed to justify why the shock and awe is a sufficient first demonstration. Either way, bringing in rotary assets unmolested into Caracas is fucking ballsy and signals total degradation of any Venezuelan air control, especially given the lack of even preliminary SEAD/DEAD.
It might be a fait accompli if Maduro stayed put because he believed his own copium regarding air defense or bigbrains asserting that USA doing this was retarded. For all the degradation of the US military as a strategically independent thinker they do at least maintain kinetic capability and wont put boots on the ground without a decisive vetted go signal. At least for their sake I hope so.
I wonder if we trust our countermeasures against their MANPADS or we have guys on the ground passively or actively making that a non-issue for us or both. Really seems like it should not be hard to have a few squads of dudes with Iglas or something wherever you go.
On the other hand, for all I know at this point the helicopters we saw were the extraction forces and the ingress was by covert assets on foot. Will be interesting to see how much we can learn about what exactly happened.
At this point I'm convinced whoever was on air defense duty was told to go for a midnight taco raid and the presidential guards rushed maduro out made a wrong turn straight into a delta team and oh no the clumsy americans dropped a usb with 10 bitcoin on it what clumsy fumblefingers they are.
Quite possibly.
I actually think the longer-ranged air defense elements (like the S-300s) just wouldn't be able to target low-flying helicopters (doubly so if jammed) so the real question to me is where the short-ranged stuff was at.
Seeing as how Trump was toying with Venezuela like a cat with a mouse I think someone deciding to Maduro offer up as a sacrifice makes total sense, particularly if there are bitcoins in it for you.
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