"The Possibility of US Intervention in Venezuela"
Wilder Alejandro Sanchez
Providence
23 October, 2018
Originally published:
https://providencemag.com/2018/10/us-intervention-venezuela/
“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit
down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” (Luke
14:28)
As the crisis in Venezuela continues and with Nicolás Maduro showing
no intention of ever stepping down from power, diplomatic pressure from
various Latin American governments and the Organization of American
States has done nothing to shake the confidence of the
chavistas
in Caracas. In this situation, the US media has reported that US
officials have met with anti-Maduro military officers, apparently to
discuss a regime change in the South American state. But what does
history and the Bible tell us about planning before acting?
Meetings and Statements
According to a September 8
article in the New York Times,
the White House held “secret meetings with rebellious military officers
from Venezuela over the last year to discuss their plans to overthrow
President Nicolás Maduro.” The article described various meetings,
during which Venezuelan military officers requested communication
equipment to coordinate their coup, which Washington did not provide;
nor did it, according to the article, endorse the conspirators’ plans.
As for President Donald Trump’s opinion about Venezuela, back in 2017 he
talked about a “military option” to deal with the situation there. Then, while attending the United Nations General Assembly in September 2018,
he once again mused that
“all options are on the table,” adding that “the strong ones and the
less than strong ones—and you know what I mean by strong.” At the same
time, he has said that he is
willing to meet with President Maduro.
Other senior officials have made direct or vague statements about the
use of military force in Venezuela. For example, Vice Admiral Craig
Faller, who has been nominated to lead
Southern Command (which oversees US military operations in most of Latin America and the Caribbean) has stated that “
we are not doing anything other than normal, prudent planning that a combatant command would do to prepare for a range of contingencies.” On the other hand,
Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeted in February that “the world would support the Armed Forces in
#Venezuela if they decide to protect the people & restore democracy by removing a dictator.”
It is unclear exactly what role the US would play should
something
actually occur in Venezuela. Would the US back a coup carried out by
Venezuelans? Or, as President Trump seems to think, could US troops land
in Caracas? There are regional precedents for these speculations: in
1964, Washington sent a
carrier group, led by the USS Forrestal,
to Brazil to support, if necessary, a military coup against President
João Goulart. As for more “traditional” regime change operations, in
1989 the US invaded Panama to overthrow the
late dictator Manuel Noriega.
Discussion
Regime change operations are problematic, whether covert or overt.
They should not occur without, as the Bible verse at the beginning of
this essay states, lengthy discussions and analyses in order to attempt
to predict and prepare for different outcomes, both positive and
negative. After all, a government may intervene in another nation with
the best of intentions, such as to remove a repressive regime that has
brought the country to financial ruin while perpetuating its own power,
but the consequences may not be as expected. The US experienced this not
long ago when then-Vice President Dick Cheney said that “
my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators” as US troops prepared to go to Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and when then-President George W. Bush declared
“mission accomplished.” History proved them wrong.
In Venezuela, the problem is not
just President Maduro, but
also other officials like Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, the cabinet of
ministers, the unconstitutional National Constituent Assembly
(including its
president, Diosdado Cabello), and the military leadership, like
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, a key supporter of the regime. Any attempt at regime change would have to oust all of those individuals, as well.
Even more, should violence break out (whether between rival factions
or against a foreign military), it is unclear how the Venezuelan
military and other security agencies would react. We know there is
some level of discontent within Venezuela’s National Bolivarian Armed Forces; in recent years Caracas has arrested
many military officers,
accusing them of plotting coups. But how the military would react if a
coup or foreign intervention occurred is unknown. Again, it is unwise to
be blindly optimistic.
As a final point, another regime change operation backed by US
involvement would have regional (if not global) repercussions. In
addition to the aforementioned examples, other US interventions include
Guatemala in 1954, the Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1983, and
numerous (failed) attempts against the Castro regime throughout the Cold
War. Hence, although Washington would be helping to remove a very
unpopular regime—Maduro’s allies in the hemisphere have been reduced to
Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and a handful of
Caribbean islands—this would trigger memories of indiscriminate US interventions in the region within living memory. How
Latin American
and Caribbean citizens and governments would react, and what this would
mean for Western Hemisphere geopolitics, is anyone’s guess.
Final Thoughts
The general consensus in the Western Hemisphere, with few exceptions,
is that the Maduro government is a dictatorship that wants to
perpetuate itself in power. Washington has hinted that “all options are
on the table” when it comes to dealing with Caracas and has already
imposed
sanctions against high profile individuals.
Recent media stories about meetings between the US government and
opposition military leaders to discuss some sort of regime change in
Caracas are likely true. After all, Washington has a lengthy history of
intervention in the Western Hemisphere.
Alas, interventions, whether via military or other tactics, are
tricky, and the decision making and planning process cannot be rushed.
Washington and most of the hemisphere strongly desire Maduro’s removal,
but prudence is found in thinking about the future rationally.
—
Wilder Alejandro Sanchez is an analyst who focuses
on geopolitical, military and cyber security issues in the Western
Hemisphere. The views expressed in this article are those of the author
alone and do not necessarily reflect those of any institutions with
which the author is associated.
