The immediate reactions to the US assault on Venezuela and the capture of Nicolas Maduro has ranged from joy for many Venezuelans to deep suspicion by Democrats to condemnation by Iran, China, Russia and Mexico. But an honest assessment at this point would have to be guarded.
If we had judged the War in Vietnam based on the first day US marines landed at Danang in 1965, we would have come to a very different conclusion than we did after the Tet Offensive in 1968. Venezuela is not Vietnam, and Maduro is not Ho Chi Minh, but the same principle of analysis should apply: any plan is good until first contact with the enemy. In war, things go awry, and it is not clear that the Trump administration has prepared the world or the American people for what could come next.
In two areas thus far, the Trump administration is on the right side of history. First, the removal of Maduro was a service to humanity. As Britain’s Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said, we “should shed no tears” for a regime guilty of attacking anti-government protestors, co-ordinating international drug cartels and using its oil and gas revenue to prop up the equally odious dictatorship in Havana.
Second, the US military executed its mission with precision few others could match. The tactical planning and co-ordination between the intelligence services, regular forces, and special operators (particularly the Army’s Delta Force) resulted in the successful extraction of the heavily guarded Maduro with no US casualties and no loss of equipment.
He will now stand trial for drug trafficking like former Panama president Manuel Noriega, who was toppled by President George HW Bush in 1989 and died in 2017.
The operational planning that went into toppling Maduro was impressive but the planning for what comes next appears quite thin.
Other judgments on the efficacy of the operation are less clear cut.
First, Trump has obfuscated, redirected, and improvised in explaining the purpose of military force.
At various points he has said that military operations were necessary to stop deadly Fentanyl trafficking to the US, but the boats from Venezuela have been carrying cocaine and marijuana.
In his televised remarks after the intervention, the President said that the US would take over Venezuela’s oil and gas exports, offering a different justification for the use of force and one that is fraught with legal and diplomatic problems. This is classic Trump – shifting and improvising objectives in order to please different constituencies and then declare victory no matter what happens.
But over time that becomes a Ponzi scheme and public support collapses – as it has for the President’s aggressive and inconsistently explained tariff and immigration policies.
Trump started on weak political ground with this intervention. In a YouGov poll last month, only 17% of Americans were in favour of using force to overthrow Maduro. Trump’s own MAGA base has split over the attack, with the combustible Marjorie Taylor Greene declaring Trump had abandoned America First principles. Trump is unlikely to get a “wag the tail” political boost from deposing Maduro and has no margin for error politically if things go wrong.
The split in his base also means that Democrats could get majorities in the House of Representatives to call hearings on the attack even before they win mid-term elections, as most analysts expect.
Without defining clear objectives, the administration also risks dangerous mission creep. In his remarks at the weekend, the President said his cabinet would run Venezuela for now and that he was prepared to put boots on the ground if necessary.
He seems to be hanging his hopes on Venezuela’s Vice-President serving as a proxy, but she has condemned the attack and demanded the release of Maduro.
Any US occupation of Venezuela would be a disaster: the country is larger than Ukraine and while the armed forces are less motivated to fight than Ukrainians, they enjoy far more advantageous terrain for guerrilla warfare should they fight.
Occupation would be political suicide for Trump, but how will he shape outcomes on the ground? Or will he be satisfied just to arrest Maduro? The operational planning that went into toppling Maduro was impressive but the planning for what comes next appears quite thin.
Finally, there is the geopolitical risk. Back-to-back successful military missions in Iran and Venezuela will likely give the US more leverage as Tehran reels from massive anti-regime protests. And while Latin American publics will seethe at the image of American imperialism, they will also tread more carefully when dealing with Cuba, Russia, Iran or China. That could be a net benefit in realpolitik terms for US interests in the hemisphere and the Middle East.
In Asia and Europe the net effect could be negative. Beijing and Moscow will be far less intimidated by the skill of American special forces since they are gearing up for competition in the hi-tech domains of space, cyber, nuclear weapons, and undersea warfare.
Beijing and Moscow will definitely use the attack in their own anti-Western narratives in the Global South and no doubt hope the Trump administration gets sucked into a longer-term morass in Venezuela that depletes US resources and reputation.
We will see in coming days whether Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez works with the US to reduce Venezuela’s human rights abuses, drug trafficking, and support for Cuba.
That would be a net positive result for the US and its allies and allow for greater focus on Asia going forward. It is also possible Trump is unable to control what happens next in Venezuela and has a political and geopolitical setback as damaging as Joe Biden’s retreat from Afghanistan in 2021 … or that his overbearing attempt to control Venezuelan oil leads to a backlash on the ground in Venezuela and in congress.
US allies would do well – as Canada and Britain are – to steer the administration towards the first scenario. Australia’s position has been more ambiguous, and no doubt Venezuela seems far away, but what happens next will matter to Australia too.