There are so many different angles to find from the US intervention in Venezuela over the past weekend. But herein are a few takeouts from me:
First, I find with a lot of the analysis on Trump that there is a lot of effort to fit some grand strategy, or strategies, behind Trump’s actions to imply that this is all well thought out and there is some grand plan.
In this idea of the Donroe Doctrine, a new US focus on the Western hemisphere fits into this kind of ex post facto fitting a strategy to events. Similar to the idea of the reverse Nixonian to explain Trump’s Russia-friendly policies as some effort to pull Russia into an alliance against China.
There are certainly people in the MAGA circles pushing the Donroe Doctrine or Reverse Nixonian agenda. And Trump is happy to take the acclaim for supposedly playing some grand, well-thought-out strategy. But I don’t think this actually explains Trump’s actions.
Rather than trying to understand Trump, I think it is simply all about his huge ego, self-aggrandizement, and personal wealth accumulation. It’s all about Trump. He has shaped his second term into a Sun King-like POTUS. And it’s all about his instant gratification and celebrity.
Trump wants quick, easy wins, and those around him who can deliver that to him get on. Sycophantism is rewarded. If you can pitch an idea to Trump that makes Trump look good he is likely to pull the trigger, quite literally. But there is no deep thought about the consequences of these actions.
Like now on Venezuela where there does not appear to have been much thought about what comes after Maduro - even though Trump talks about the US running the country now for an indefinite period of time, how exactly? Blank faces.
Similar in many respects to the Gaza ceasefire, which looks frail - it has reduced the scale of the killing, but not the killing of Palestinians at least. Or the much-talked-about Ukraine peace deal, which, in its current form, seems very short on long-term security assurances for Ukraine.
Trump wants easy wins with low risk, and in the US military, he has a world-class, tech-leading-edge tool to deliver on that. Whether it is bombing Iran, ISIS forces in Syria or Nigeria, Yemen or now Venezuela.
Trump is looking for asymmetric payoffs, and the US military provides them. But note on the US strikes on Iran, it was only largely after the IDF had done most of the work already, then delivered the final bunker-busting strikes to Trump for the win. Only when Trump could see the inevitable win did he pull the trigger.
Trump wants easy wins with low risk, and in the US military, he has a world-class, tech-leading-edge tool to deliver on that. Whether it is bombing Iran, ISIS forces in Syria or Nigeria, Yemen or now Venezuela.
Trump is looking for asymmetric payoffs, and the US military provides them. But note on the US strikes on Iran, it was only largely after the IDF had done most of the work already, then delivered the final bunker-busting strikes to Trump for the win. Only when Trump could see the inevitable win did he pull the trigger.
On Venezuela it is clear that Trump wanted a quick win - the ousting of Maduro. US forces built up offshore and it became a trial of strength between Trump and Maduro. The longer Maduro lasted the weaker Trump looked, and US forces could not be held offshore indefinitely. Something had to give.
But the action of the weekend removes the figurehead of the Chavista regime, but not the regime. Notably, then, Trump had little truck for those hoping for real regime change - Machado et al were quickly sidelined, the latter for ungraciously stealing the Nobel prize, which Trump thought was rightly his.
Trump took the win, basking in the success of a short, sharp U.S. military victory, which seems to have been assured by back-room deals with elements of the Chavista regime.
The removal of Maduro, and the threat of future action against Chavistas not willing to bend to the demands of Trump, now creates a dependency by the regime in Venezuela, which the Trump team will exploit to bring economic benefit, whether in oil, precious metals, or other minerals.
It is all a little reminiscent of the Ukraine minerals deal – Trump saw weakness and vulnerability on the part of Ukraine and saw that as an opportunity to be exploited for economic gain. No matter that Ukraine had been subject to brutal invasion at the hands of Russia, war crimes, genocide, et al, or that Ukraine was standing on the front line to defend Europe, Western values, the rule of law, democracy, et al.
It is all a little reminiscent of the Ukraine minerals deal – Trump saw weakness and vulnerability on the part of Ukraine and saw that as an opportunity to be exploited for economic gain.
Actually, Trump and his team’s criticism of Zelensky for not holding an election, despite the war, undermining Zelensky’s democratic credentials, just made it easier for him to force terrible minerals deal down Ukraine’s throat.
In Venezuela, Trump seems to have thrown those same democratic values he cared so much about out in Ukraine to the wind. Some have called it close to colonial exploitation - well, one can expect something similar now in Venezuela et al.
It almost appears as if Trump is playing geopolitical monopoly, and with the US Supreme Court having delivered a perennial get out of jail for free card, and with Trump now owning the bank - the bank being the global hegemony of the dollar, plus a similar role now being played by the US military, in its clear global military supremacy.
Trump is able to go around the world collecting real estate, or economic rent, be that Venezuela, the Ukraine minerals deal, the Panama Canal deal, Gaza-Lago, but also watch Trump seize Greenland et al.
Trump’s move on Maduro also had shades of Wag the Dog. The Trump administration was lagging in the polls due to unpopular policies at home - the cost-of-living crisis, healthcare crisis, the government shutdown, ICE crackdown, and growing inequality. Venezuela offered a distraction. It changed the news cycle, also from Epstein.
And I also expect Trump’s move to annex Greenland to be part of a similar script - a likely distraction to turn the GOP fortunes just before midterms. And taking Greenland would be an easy win for Trump, as Denmark and European NATO have no military response. Rather as the Russian military taking Crimea in a matter of hours, I expect the US would, could, and will do the same sometime this year.
And I also expect Trump’s move to annex Greenland to be part of a similar script - a likely distraction to turn the GOP fortunes just before midterms.
As Ann Applebaum has said, this is not about US national security interests, as Denmark would let the US, its NATO partner, deploy whatever military assets to Greenland it wishes to deter potential Russian and Chinese threats. But this is about delivering a political win for Trump, making a big statement on the map, and massively expanding the US’s footprint, and likely gaining access to immensely lucrative mineral assets for the US and Trump’s friends.
Trump will do it because he can, and no one will and can stop him. The consequences are bad for Europe, but Trump has few cares as the more unreliable the US appears as a NATO partner, the more desperate that Europe is to write cheques to keep the US weapons and “security backstop” alive.
For Europe, Trump’s move in Venezuela against Maduro makes for an uncomfortable outcome. The intervention by the US clearly runs against international law - military intervention in another sovereign nation without a UN mandate. In so doing, it undermines the West’s arguments against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - more so if Trump then moves to annex Greenland.
Venezuela, Greenland, and others further undermine the rules-based international order that the Western alliance had hitherto held up as the mainstay of its own security, particularly in Europe. Indeed, a move against Greenland would drive a dagger into the heart of Europe, as a green light to the Putin doctrine being pursued in Ukraine, that international borders can indeed be redrawn by force.
For Europe, with numerous territorial and ethnic divisions dating back to WW2 but hitherto thought to be settled with EU accession and enlargement and the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, ongoing actions by Trump present new existential threats. Imagine European countries now revisiting those claims and issues, by force, and as all are now increasing defense spending.
US intervention in Venezuela and the potential move against Greenland open up a Pandora’s box for Europe in terms of its own future security. But for Europe, the question is how, if at all, it could respond to a U.S. move to annex Greenland. There is clearly no military option for Denmark or European NATO; they simply cannot take on the might of the US military. But would Denmark, for example, invoke NATO’s Article 5 defense (how would that even be possible with a NATO member as the aggressor), or even threaten to withdraw from NATO. Any such move would present an existential threat to the survival of NATO - surely a big win for the enemies of NATO, including Russia and China.
US intervention in Venezuela and the potential move against Greenland open up a Pandora’s box for Europe in terms of its own future security.
But would Trump want to be seen to be responsible for the demise of NATO - and would Denmark be prepared to take this to the line, given the importance of unity in the NATO alliance to its continued support for Ukraine in its, and Europe’s, existential battle with Russia?
A US move to annex Greenland would be a gift to Russia. It would enable Putin to justify his invasion of Ukraine, and any weakening of unity in NATO as a response to the annexation of Greenland would be exploited to the full in Ukraine - a diversion of military supplies by Denmark, for example, to its own defense and away from Ukraine.
Denmark has been one of the largest per capita providers of support to Ukraine. And to a degree, the US intervention in Venezuela also helps Russia support its narrative in Ukraine - the right of great powers to have spheres of influence.
All that said, the success of the US military operation in Venezuela will also surely be ringing some alarm bells in Moscow. First, another close ally of Russia has been taken out, and coming on the back of the fall of Gaddafi, Assad, Nasrullah, a weakening of Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
A US direct intervention in another sovereign state to remove a dictator and opponent of the West might suggest similar actions could be used against Russia and Putin, albeit unlikely by the current Russophile Trump administration.
Second, the dismal performance again of Russian military technology - Venezuelan air defenses this time around - was brutally exposed, and with it the US and the West’s now huge technological advantage over Russia et al. Perhaps no foreign leader is now safe from the reach of the U.S. military, including Putin.
Third, the consensus is that the US move against Maduro will open the Venezuelan oil industry to US investment, offering the prospect of higher global oil supply and lower prices. This is because Russia is already straining under Western sanctions and the oil price cap and is seeing a near-halving of Russian energy-related export revenues.
This will further starve the Russian war machine. Enough to force Putin to make concessions for peace in Ukraine? Not when Putin still thinks that Trump can be bought off with minerals and precious metals deals, and the NATO alliance is set to be weakened by a Trump move against Greenland.
Rather, I worry here that Putin might take Trump’s actions against Maduro as a similar move to remove Zelensky, perhaps by some new missile strike. Now I doubt that would debilitate the administration in Kyiv - there are plenty of alternative leaders waiting in the wings who would step up and likely be even less compromising than Zelensky on peace talks - former military chief Zaluzhnyi, for instance. But any such move would undoubtedly create new fears and uncertainties, to be exploited again by Russia.
Back to Venezuela, and one interesting nuance is surely the position of US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Hailing from the US Cuban diaspora, his anti-Communist, anti-Chavista credentials are strong.
I struggle, though, with how Rubio can be comfortable with Trump’s actions in Venezuela to remove Maduro but not the Chavista regime, and that Trump seems intent on dealing with that regime. One might have thought that Rubio would have set a red line around any operation, seeing the end of the Chavistas and the installation of the democratic forces around Nobel prize winner, Machado.
I struggle, though, with how Rubio can be comfortable with Trump’s actions in Venezuela to remove Maduro but not the Chavista regime, and that Trump seems intent on dealing with that regime.
Rubio has indeed spoken a lot about the need to support the return of democracy in Venezuela, but also in his beloved Cuba. So why is he now seemingly supporting a US policy that seems to stab the Venezuelan democratic opposition in the back?
Well, either Rubio’s support for the Venezuelan democratic opposition was always skin deep, or now his own personal political ambitions are to the fore.
Or perhaps his main focus and agenda is Cuba, and he sees US control now of Venezuela as tightening the noose around the incumbent regime in Cuba - the cutting of oil supplies from Venezuela, Russia, and Iran is likely to be devastating for Cuba.
Perhaps Rubio is willing to play a longer game here - unable to persuade the boss that a more sustained US intervention in Venezuela to deliver real change was worth the risk versus the reward. In the end, Trump chose the easy, short-term win. But Rubio still assumes the dominoes are lining up, also against Cuba.
See the original in the author’s @tashencon blog here.
The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.