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A stable, reasonably* democratic Venezuela, reasonably traceable to Trump's actions/policies. That is to say, if Trump negotiates free and fair democratic elections, that's a win. If Trump negotiates for another authoritarian figure to take over who is subsequently toppled by a popular uprising, that's not a win. Likewise if the country devolves into a dysfunctional narco-state where the government doesn't actually control a large share of its territory.
Half a year to a year is probably too short to tell if it is successful, though it may be long enough to say if it failed.
*it doesn't need to be topping democracy index charts, but it does need to have real elections. I'll give partial credit for a pragmatic, competent authoritarian who unfucks things, but incompetence is the default state of authoritarian so I don't see much reason to expect that.
That isn't 'devolving' it's the current state of Venezuela.
Beat me to it
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I considered putting in a disclaimer because I knew some smartass would make a comment like this. Venezuela has severe problems, but it still has a long way to go before it hits rock bottom.
Is it other people being a smartass, or you underestimating how bad the status quo already is?
Venezuela is already in a state comparable to, and in some ways worse, than many of the major geopolitical wars of the last quarter century. The previous leader was headed by a literal Catro fanboy who saw Cuba, and went 'I want my country to be like that,' and then saw that Iraq War insurgency and went 'I want my capital to be like that too, except in peacetime.' And then the next leader doubled down, and added another decade to that.
Don't get me wrong- I am always up for a 'it could get worse' musing. But rock bottom isn't even the bottom there, because you can blow up the rocks and go even deeper. It's an expression that means precious little if you don't peg it to some level of what 'rock bottom' even is. Genocide? Natural as well as man-made famine?
The reason that actual civil wars are considered 'rock bottom' in most cases is because they do think like break basic infrastructure like clean drinking water or medical services (already happened years ago), or see increased civilian casualties (has been the case for approaching decades), or see government forces or proxies extort and target local residents (ayup), or that the government resorts to prison camps or blacksites and disappears dissidents (ayup again), or it ruins the local economy (errr....), or it causes mass migration refugee crisis as people flee (ha...ha...sob), and many other things, several of which have also come to pass.
But these are additive qualities in most contexts, things that wouldn't exist except for the but-for the test. But for a war, Venezuelans would still have clean drinking water. But for an uprising, the government wouldn't back gangs to prey on people. But for the opposition, the economy would be fine.
When these are not additive qualities- when these are the status quo- 'rock bottom' appeals have to put in the work for some distinction that's worth a difference.
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While it's literally true that Venezuela is not a narco-state, it's hard to imagine it getting any worse than it already is. The reason it's not a narco-state now has probably more to do with the surrounding economics (oil is more valuable than drugs) than the current government's competence.
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We won’t agree on win conditions. I don’t care about Democracy especially in that region. The administration doesn’t care about Democracy. An American aligned regime is better for us and better for the region. The ideal would be a Pinochet or MBS. A get shit done guy who locks Venezuela as a friend for a generation. I am not opposed to Democracy but it’s not a key.
Exxon etc returning to Venezuela because they trust the regime. A significant portion of the Venezuela diaspora returning would be a win. Let’s say 5 years out 4-5 million barrels of oil production.
I probably would have said Machado in charge with elections in 3-4 years would be ideal. But honestly that’s not important to our interests or the Venezuelan people. To be honest when most of your population is sub 90 IQ Democracy just doesn’t work that well.
Our current regime isn’t a bunch of neolibs trying to spread Democracy. Which is a big reason why they can win versus the Bushes and Clintons trying to put geopolitical packages wrapped in Democracy. Saudi Arabia worked - the roads are greats in large part because we never fucked with Democracy there.
I'm confused. Do you want a 'get shit done' guy or not?
Of course, the odds of getting something like that are vanishingly rare anyway. The central lie of authoritarianism is that it's effective. It's not. KSA is a shithole that's able to paper over the flaws due to sheer natural resource wealth enabling them to hire foreign experts to manage everything important despite incredible waste and corruption. The likely outcome of Trump cutting a deal with a replacement authoritarian is that the new leader pays off Trump and dials up the repression.
Why should I or any other American who isn't an Exxon shareholder care about this? My interests and the interests of a handful of nominally American multinational oil and gas companies are not closely aligned (they are, in fact, negatively aligned).
“Get shit done guy” I advocated for a MBS or Pinochet is that in question?
“A guy like that is vanishingly rare” Outside of white societies and some East Asians how many successful Democracies are there?
“Paper over flaws due to sheer natural wealth?”
Have you heard about the natural resource curse? How many non-white civs have monetized natural resources? Besides MBS. Two biggest oil reserves Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.
I am suggesting that you are badly overestimating their competence.
Also, you haven't really articulated why it's a win for America that Trump's cronies get license to loot Venezuela (assuming that even pans out).
Other than, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Others have already answered you on this, but let me turn it around. Where are the successful autocracies? Every country people want to live in is a liberal democracy and that is not a coincidence. Democracies are institutionally more capable of reform and less prone to corruption. Even democracies with serious corruption problems (e.g. in Latin America or Eastern Europe) are generally better off than their authoritarian counterparts.
The resource curse is a meme. Insofar as it is a thing, it is a thing where natural resources allow incompetent authoritarian regimes to prop themselves up well past the point where they would otherwise collapse. With a few exceptions in one direction or the other (e.g. Japan, Norway), developed countries generally have both excellent natural resource endowment and economies which do not depend on natural resource extraction.
KSA and the other Gulf States lucked into sitting on top of an enormous share of a critical resource while having proportionally small populations (KSA has fewer people than CA, and the other Gulf States are even smaller). Natural resource extraction is generally a low-tier economic activity. These states could never function as they do without oil wealth.
KSA isn't even doing particularly well compared to other oil states. It's bigger, in both land area and population, but MBS has an insatiable love of expensive vanity megaprojects rather than serious economic diversification.
Nice word play.
Is China a country?
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There actually is no such a thing. There is negative correlation between QoL and share of natural resources in GDP but positive correlation between QoL and quantity of resources in soil.
in ME, not only KSA but also UAE and Qatar. In Africa, Botswana is good on African standards (it's the only "green" corruption index in all of Africa!)
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Most of Latin America is successful democracies now.
Which ones? That aren’t somewhat narco states or commie? I would only say Chile (who had Pinochet)
And I don’t hate Sheinbaum though she’s not really Mexican. But she won’t get rid of the cartel influence. Which means outside of Mexico City and Monterrey she’s not the dominant force.
Chile, Argentina (even before Milei; the problem isn't lack of democracy, the problem is Latin Americans tend to like commies), Panama (thanks GHWB), Uruguay, Colombia (hasn't been a narco-state for a long time), Ecuador, Costa Rica, Belize.
These countries aren't particularly wealthy, of course.
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