The United States is flexing its military might, but regime change in Venezuela will not be easy
America’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and its group of warships are on their way to the Caribbean in a stunning escalation of American military power in the region.
The Trump administration said its arrival in the coming days will help disrupt drug trafficking. The report finds that the same also applies to US strikes on about 14 ships in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, killing at least 57 people and raising legal questions about the fate of military service members who were ordered to carry out what some say were extrajudicial killings.
The administration said the strikes were justified because the country was in armed conflict with drug gangs.
Why did we write this?
The increasing US military presence near Venezuela has raised questions about whether the goal is counternarcotics or regime change. Any attempt to oust President Nicolas Maduro would carry risks – with or without US troops on the ground.
Others see the regime change as aimed at ousting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the White House describes as an illegitimate leader.
In fact, aircraft carriers are not particularly suitable for drug interdiction. But they are highly skilled at carrying out air strikes and as a launching point for troops, vehicles and supplies heading to hostile shores.
Perhaps Mr. Maduro gets the gist of the matter: Venezuelan forces have begun large-scale defensive exercises. Mr. Maduro also announced the mobilization of 4.5 million militia members, although experts doubt that Mr. Maduro has a civilian armed force of that size.
The question is whether, as the White House envisions, this will involve US military strikes or is merely a flex of muscle to push Mr. Maduro to step down.
Since the United States began exerting military pressure on Venezuela, a Russian transport plane linked to the country’s military and the former Wagner Group, a private military company funded by the Russian state, has landed in the country.
Maduro is also escalating repression at home even as the economic situation there continues to deteriorate, with inflation expected to approach 270% by the end of 2025, according to International Monetary Fund estimates.
She saw a hairdresser in Caracas, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of persecution, and her two sons flee the country, leaving her there alone. She closed her beauty salon because her clients “don’t have any money. Everything is expensive, so people have other priorities” than dyeing their hair, she says.
However, she is attending a Catholic Mass and hopes her country is “closer than ever” to democratic change.
Challenges of regime change
There has been speculation about whether the Trump administration, in its militaristic stance toward Venezuela, is seeking negotiation or escalating toward confrontation.
Many analysts began leaning toward the latter view after the White House rejected Mr. Maduro’s offer to make “fairly significant concessions to the United States in terms of handing over parts of its oil industry,” says Ben Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities, a think tank in Washington. “The Trump administration asked them to take a trip.”
Since then, US forces have been seen training off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago, a two-island country near Venezuela. The guided missile destroyer USS Gravely also arrived for a port visit.
U.S. Special Operations forces, including the Army’s Night Stalkers — the usually secretive 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment — have also been spotted in the area. These forces helped lead the US invasion of Panama in 1989.
The arrival of the Gerald R. Ford wanted to add another 5,000 sailors to the US military contingent, which currently consisted of 10,000 US soldiers, about half of whom were on warships. The other half is in Puerto Rico.
However, regime change is no easy task: it would take a force of at least 50,000 soldiers and, by some estimates, as many as 200,000 soldiers to successfully invade Venezuela.
Most analysts say a US ground war scenario remains unlikely and, in any case, would be very different from the 1989 invasion of Panama.
“It will not be quick and easy,” says Rebecca Bell Chavez, head of the Inter-American Dialogue. “It will be prolonged.” “There is no appetite in the United States for death [American] Troops on Venezuelan territory.”
Venezuela’s size and terrain, which includes urban centers such as Caracas as well as vast tracts of tropical forest, make ground warfare particularly difficult. Dr. Chavez says the troops will also have to fight several armed groups whose fate is closely linked to that of Mr. Maduro, including illegal mining groups and “illicit trafficking organizations of all kinds.”
Air strikes are more likely
Analysts believe that US air strikes are a more likely scenario than a ground invasion. Gerald R. Ford’s planes come equipped with F/A-18 Super Hornets, and the Tomahawk cruise missiles have a range of 1,000 miles or more. The offensive strikes launched by the United States are likely aimed at paralyzing Venezuelan command and control centers and disabling the country’s main air bases.
The threat of air strikes alone could be designed to encourage a military coup led by officers who want to avoid US military intervention.
But there are obstacles to this plan.
A human rights lawyer in Caracas, who withheld his name to speak freely, says any mass protests against the Maduro regime are unlikely. “We know [government] “The response will be violent and completely disproportionate.”
Dr. Chavez says Mr. Maduro has proven “adept at using carrots and sticks to keep his military commanders in check.”
In 2016, Maduro’s government appointed military generals to oversee food production and distribution in the country. Instead of resolving the crisis, many have benefited from selling imported food at inflated prices on the black market. Dr. Chavez says that thanks to Mr. Maduro, military officers have “so much control over the economy that they have a great interest in its survival.”
Venezuelan opposition leaders are also likely to oppose any deal with the Trump administration that gives Mr. Maduro or his military commanders concessions in exchange for them giving up power.
At the same time, the Venezuelan government that would emerge from US military intervention would carry its own risks, including the perception that it would be beholden to the United States, says Txomín Las Heras Lizola, a researcher at the Venezuela Observatory at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Colombia.
Instead, he adds, regime change in Venezuela will depend on the opposition’s ability to remain united and present a credible alternative.
There is also the issue of control. In the past, strikes “based on some sort of theory that you can enable opposition groups to seize power” have historically given the United States “very little control over what happens,” notes Mr. Friedman of Defense Priorities.
“We’ve seen this in countless other circumstances,” he adds. American intervention in Libya is a clear example.
Mr. Friedman adds that the unrest in Venezuela could also accelerate refugee flows to surrounding countries and, “sooner or later, to the United States.”
Pressure campaign tactics
For now, B-52 and B-1 bombers continue to circle the Venezuelan coast in what US Southern Command – which oversees the Pentagon’s operations in Latin America – referred to on social media as a “bomber strike demonstration.”
Seeing these flight paths through open source tracking reinforces the idea of the White House’s pressure campaign. The same applies to the $50 million reward offered by the White House for information leading to the arrest of Mr. Maduro.
Some of President Donald Trump’s closest supporters have suggested that Mr. Maduro flee the country.
“I’m going to go to Russia or China now,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida advised in an appearance on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “His days are numbered. Something will happen.”
Dr Chavez says it is also possible there could be US military strikes aimed at discouraging drug trafficking in Latin America more broadly. Recent strikes on boats in the Pacific could signal to Mexico, Colombia and other countries in the region that the United States is willing to use military force to stop the flow of illicit drugs into the United States.
The upcoming National Defense Strategy is poised to emphasize hemispheric and U.S. security, suggesting, some analysts say, that current deployments will become the new normal, much like an updated Monroe Doctrine that asserts a U.S. sphere of influence in Latin America.
Mr. Friedman says President Trump has proven that he is “uniquely willing not just to use force, but then to stop using force on a dime.”
He adds: “The very likely scenario is that the United States carries out some kind of limited strikes in Venezuela, and then withdraws.”