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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.
Total aura shift for Trump. He was a lame duck, dead in the water. The Fuentes doomers were winning. Trump had failed. He hadn't met his campaign promises, and his approval rating was in the gutter. But then, in an decisive display of competence and leadership, he ousted a dictator and took over a country that had been a thorn in the US's side for decades. And he did it at almost no cost.
His speech was fascinating and a dramatic shift from anything we have heard in the past 80 years. No "muh democracy." He talked about Venezuela's crumbling infrastructure and the inability of their government (deliberate or not) to stop the drugs. Their mortal sin was not dictatorship, it was incompetence and the negative impact their incompetence was having on the United States. He openly acknowledges that the oil will benefit the US, and says this is a good thing. And it resonates.
Trump wanted a big legacy-defining move, like buying Greenland, and this time he got it. Under his leadership, the United States took over Venezuela in a matter or hours at minimal cost. The outcome is truly astonishing. And he might not be done. He alluded that "something needs to be done" about the Mexican cartels. Destroying them would be a true legacy-maker. We'll see how it all works out in the long-term, and whether it becomes of a legacy of greatness or failure.
I predict we'll see a boost in Trump's approval ratings. The average person knows nothing about Venezuela except that it was bad and a problem. And now they see that Trump appears to have fixed it overnight.
One thing I find interesting about these threads is how the speed itself became part of the legitimacy. Whether real or perceived, “matter of hours” is doing a ton of heavy work here. In modern geopolitics, swift action reads as competence, and slow process as decay. A very post-Iraq, post-Afghanistan inversion where success isn’t measured by institutions built, but by how little time the public has to think about such quagmires. By this logic, it's not even about Venezuela itself. You just need to believe that disorder is contagious and that someone finally hit the off switch. Really shows how much the bar for persuasion has shifted from ideals to outcomes, or at least the perception of outcomes.
Time is a pretty good proxy for competence. Time is also money. Maduro was a thorn in the US' side, and for a minimal investment of time and money the US is at the very least going to get someone marginally preferable to Maduro running Venezuela. That's a good deal.
Why do you assume the next man up will be marginally preferable to Maduro?
The next man up will probably not be married to Maduro's wife, who was a central power player in the Chavista movement on the policy/coalition side and a queennpin in her own right who had held significant government power.
Flores was a non-trivial part of the political competence of the Chavista movement at the policy maker level, in the 'knows how to systemically setup an apparatus to coordinate harassment and violence against the outgroup' sense. In so much that the Maduro regime was on its way towards becoming an Nicaragua-Ortega-style dynasty, Flores was both the cause and a key parallel.
The US getting Maduro and Flores is probably one of the more significant things about today's raid, and honestly does more to imply a deal with someone- whether Maduro or someone else in the Venezuelan government- such that Flores couldn't step in as acting-president on her husband's behalf.
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