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Notes -
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.
Lol, Mr. and Mrs. Maduro additionally charged with possession of machine guns and destructive devices. Apparently even foreign heads of state need a US firearms permit.
Once again reminding everyone that nothing like this would ever happen to a nuclear-armed regime.
My previous comment:
The most salient lesson of the post-Cold War era: Get nukes or die trying.
A nation's relationship to other states, up to and especially including superpowers, is completely different once it's in the nuclear club. Pakistan can host bin Laden for years and still enjoy US military funding. North Korea can literally fire missiles over South Korea and Japan and get a strongly-worded letter of condemnation, along with a generous increase in foreign aid. We can know, for a fact, that the 2003 Iraq War coalition didn't actually believe their own WMD propaganda. If they thought that Saddam could vaporize the invasion force in a final act of defiance, he'd still be in power today. Putin knows perfectly well that NATO isn't going to invade Russia, so he can strip every last soldier from the Baltic borders and throw them into the Ukrainian meat grinder.
Aside from deterring attack, it also discourages powerful outside actors from fomenting revolutions. The worry becomes who gets the nukes if the central government falls.
Iran's assumption seems to have been that by permanently remaining n steps away from having nukes (n varying according to the current political and diplomatic climate), you get all the benefits of being a nuclear-armed state without the blowback of going straight for them. But no, you need to have the actual weapons in your arsenal, ready to use at a moment's notice.
My advice for rulers, especially ones on the outs with major geopolitical powers: Pour one out for Gaddafi, then hire a few hundred Chinese scientists and engineers and get nuked up ASAP.
I have always thought that nuclear weapons program by itself should be casus belli for nuclear strike. If more nations start trying - I can assure you that the big five will come to my opinion too.
More interesting question - which is the jury of Maduro peers ...
It seems to me what's happened with Iran is sufficient to provide quite a bit of deterrence. Seems to me that nuking countries for trying to get nukes would cause more problems than it would solve.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think you are confusing American law with the law of some other country (maybe the UK)? I'm pretty sure that American law requires an impartial jury, but not one which is necessarily made up of the Defendant's "peers."
The Sixth Amendment says you have the right to a trial "by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." But Maduro never committed any crimes in the United States, and it doesn't look like admiralty or military law applies. Near as I can tell, there is no American court with the jurisdiction to try him for the crimes he's been indicted for. Not sure how the admin intends to get around that issue.
You're forgetting article 3.
So that provision of the Sixth Amendment applies only to crimes that were committed in the US.
And, if Congress chooses to criminalize activity that occurs outside the US (which it has done for the crimes alleged in this indictment), there is no requirement for the jury to be composed of locals.
This sort of detailed commentary is one of the reasons I come to this place. Thanks.
Copy-pasting large chunks of text should not be considered "detailed commentary".
Perhaps, but you still knew which "large chunks of text" to copy-paste, and where to find them. You still had the expertise to know how to track down these citations and share this information with us, and then put in the effort to do so. Which, "copy-pasting" or not, still puts it ahead of the average comment this far down a reply chain on the Motte — it's definitely better than most of what I post on here. So, even if "detailed commentary" is the wrong phrase to describe it, it's still appreciated.
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