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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.
Somehow I doubt that Trump bothered consulting Congress. Have his lackeys provided any excuse for the Constitutionality here?
As usual, I predict little to no backlash from any Republican who criticized Biden’s foreign policy.
A big difference. Trump wins, Biden loses. Israel and Iran was played well. Ukraine neither solved. Though Ukraine War started under Biden watch. Biden fumbled Afghanistan withdrawal. People care far less about process than they do winning. Trump wins.
It's less that Trump wins and more that Trump is very good at persuading his supporters to forget when he loses.
A simple question here would be to asks you to define terms of “winning” before this plays out. Taking Maduro out is impressive logistically but creating chaos alone isn’t winning. It’s what you build after.
What’s the end game for Venezuela that you would agree is “winning”?
Super long-term is too long to wait for. But we can define going on the right path. Within in the next month we should have inklings of the new power structure and more apparent in 6m-1 year. And obvious win would be Machado being the leader but that seems to have been ruled out by Trump.
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.
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