Maduro Adios?

Venezuela Insta-analysis

It seems that Comrade President Maduro is, as I write this, either an ex-Comrade President who has gone to meet his maker or he’s cowering in a bunker somewhere and likely to become an ex-Comrade President fairly soon. [Update: or rather, he’s now a guest of the United States somewhere]

President Trump made it extremely clear over the last year that he wanted Maduro out of Venezuela and for the his regime to be replaced by one headed by the democratically elected Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado. He also made it clear he was unhappy with the regime’s apparent involvement in drug smuggling and numerous other criminal activities via Tren de Aragua gang which Trump and others said were directly linked to the Maduro regime.

I have no idea if he is correct. I expect he is, but it doesn’t matter because President Trump has decided that Maduro was not going to reform himself and that the US was going to do it for him.

Tactical Observation

The actual attacks appear to have caught absolutely everyone by surprise. There were no leaks and no blustering deadlines. Just a decision to attack with assets that everyone thought were in the region to blow up “fishing boats” and stop oil tankers.

source

In addition to the lack of air defense, some of the videos on X and probably soon on the MSM show what look to me (reminder I am not a Military Analyst, nor do I play one on the Internet) like secondaries which tells me that there won’t be much if any air defense going forward either. So almost certainly the US has achieved air superiority which means that it can do whatever it wants with relative impunity. It has also, apparently, hit the airfield where the Maduro regime had their bug out planes, so they won’t be leaving.

Depending on what the operational objectives are we could see the US forces simply withdraw after this emphatic sending of a message, or we could see them actively support the opposition to Maduro as they try to take their country back. My guess is the latter, though this will very much depend on how successful the decapitation strikes against the Maduro regime have been. And since Maduro has been captured there is certainly going to be a lot of confusion among the survivors as well as a significant degree of panic.

Notably one of the strikes was against Fuerte Tiuna - the main military base in Caracas - so one imagines that a significant number of regime enforcers are now ex-regime enforcers. It is not clear to me (or probably anyone) at this moment just how much damage has been done but it certainly seemed like this was as close to a surgical strike as you can get.

Strategic Impact

The first thing to note is that when the recent US defense review talked about the Monroe doctrine they weren’t kidding. Venezuela has been hooking up with Iran, Russia and West Taiwan as well as having a long standing relationship with Cuba. The first three of these are now on notice to stop. Something that the Chicoms in particular will feel because they had a special envoy there who had a meeting with Maduro just a few hours earlier.

I would assume that Venezuela is now closed to Russians and Iranians of all stripes and the Chicoms will need to consider their next steps carefully. For sure they won’t be getting any oil from the current Venezuelan regime and neither will they be providing any military hardware.

This may help Russia in the short term as it seems likely to lead to an oil price rise, but that is likely to complicated by a lack of tankers to export it and places where it can be mixed with other oil and laundered on to the global market. On the other hand, this has very clearly shown the difference in quality between Russian special forces and American ones. The Russian ones were of course thoroughly defeated and destroyed as they attempted to take out Kyiv. That’s a point which will resonate elsewhere too.

It is a total nightmare for Iran, which now has one less ally it can use while it is the midst of serious protests against the Mullahcracy. Moreover even if there are no US boots on the ground semi-permanently I expect that Venezuela will be blockaded by air and sea so any Iranian forces in Venezuela are now stuck there unless they can cross the land border with Colombia. As I understand it the only easy border crossing is to Cúcuta and we note that the US has probably established complete air superiority so that border crossing is likely to be closely watched.

That of course also applies to the surviving Cuban enforcers. Apparently yesterday there were some 20,000 of them. Depending on where they were deployed there could be considerably fewer today. And like any putative Iranians or Russians, let alone Venezuelan regime members, I don’t think they will be leaving except when the USA says they can. That also means that Cuba may collapse because my understanding is that it relied on Venezuela for fuel and other critical imports like, err, food. I’m fairly sure that in addition to it not getting its enforcers back it isn’t going to get shipments of anything from Venezuela. If both the Venezuealan and Cuban regimes collapse then Trump will have achieved policy goals of successive US governments going back to JFK. If he can get President Machado to rule Venezuela he will also have implemented a number of UN resolutions calling for that outcome, which will be highly ironic.

There will undoubtedly be much wailing and impotent gnashing of teeth by UN leaders, the EU and all the other believers in supernational institutions and a “rules based global order”. It is quite clear to me that the Trump response to their noise is going to be:

“What are you going to do about it?”

And the answer to that question is going to turn out to be… nothing.

That’s going to result in lots more shrieking but all that noise is simply going to reinforce that they can’t actually do anything. I suspect the long term result of this is going to be the end of the UN because it has become clear that neither of the world’s two super powers - the US and West Taiwan - feel particularly bound to obey that body or any of its associated agencies and laws.

Finally, and circling back to the Russians, every single dictatorial sort who isn’t Winnie the Flu is going to be considering long and hard how to avoid getting a similar wake up call. This will particularly apply to those in the Americas, but one feels that leaders of other states all around the world that have apparently irritated POTUS will be looking to ease tensions rather than continue to insult him.

Domestic Relevance

One interesting point is that the Venezuelans effectively declared war on the US.

Likewise, he has ordered the immediate deployment of the Command for the Comprehensive Defense of the Nation and the Comprehensive Defense Directorate Bodies in all states and municipalities of the country. In strict adherence to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Venezuela reserves the right to exercise legitimate defense to protect its people, its territory, and its independence. We call on the peoples and governments of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world to mobilize in active solidarity against this imperialist aggression. As Supreme Commander Hugo Chávez Frías stated, “in the face of any circumstance of new difficulties, no matter how great, the response of all and every patriot… is unity, struggle, battle, and victory.”

There’s a certain amount of ironic amusement in that this declaration is part of a statement that, just before that section, claims

President Nicolás Maduro has signed and ordered the implementation of the Decree declaring a State of External Commotion throughout the national territory, to protect the rights of the population, the full functioning of republican institutions, and to immediately proceed to armed struggle. The entire country must activate to defeat this imperialist aggression

That is almost certainly a total lie because I very much doubt President Nicolás Maduro had the opportunity to give any orders at all before being hauled away, but none the less I’m fairly sure the survivors of the regime will echo that proclamation and thus demonstrate that Venezuela is at war with the US.

That just rendered all the arguments about Venezuelan illegal immigrants literally moot. There is absolutely no doubt that foreign nationals in the US who are from a regime that has declared war on the US and do not have a US visa are ripe for internment, expulsion or similar. This is such settled law that I imagine very few of the activist judges will be willing to grant habeas corpus or similar and that, if one does, he or she will be slapped down by SCOTUS in a 9-0 decision because it’s so clear.

That may also apply to all the Venezuelans on temporary visas too come to think of it.

It also 100% opens those who attempt to stop the arrest and deportation of Venezuelans to charges of treason because they are literally providing aid to the enemy. This does of course apply to politicians and particularly to naval officers who have yet to resign their commissions …

And talking of reserve naval officers. What happens if, due to the declared war, a senator is called back to serve at sea somewhere? How can such a senator vote in the senate? does he have to resign his seat? I’m sure actual constitutional experts know the answer, but activation of reservists in time of war is sufficiently standard that he’d find it hard to object. If of course he decided to resign his commission he’d look like a coward. If he didn’t he’d get in a real legal hole if he continued to bloviate like a senator while serving on active duty.