What Just Happened Overnight?

I woke up to one of those surreal moments when all at once the world does not seem real. What—the US just invaded Venezuela, captured the president, and he has now been arraigned in court in New York? And all of this happened overnight? I slept through an entire war?

Hard to take that in. 

Besides sounding impossible, isn’t this a grave violation of international law? First, invading another country with whom you are at peace, and second, targeting the leader personally to take them out. 

Back when Bush Sr. invaded Panama to arrest Noriega, that was my position. 

But international law is not really codified; it evolves, like the common law. And I think it is evolving. 

It began with the massacre in Rwanda. Popular opinion condemned the French in particular for not stepping in and preventing it, when they had the ability. They, and the UN forces, were constrained by this doctrine in international law that one must not interfere with the internal affairs of another country. This left a deep trauma. Surely that cannot have been right.

In reaction, when things got nasty in Serbia over Kosovo, NATO collectively decided they had the right to intervene—although Kosovo was long an integral part of Serbia, with no history of independence.

The idea had evolved to a right and perhaps a duty to intervene to protect human rights in another country, when the violations are egregious. After all, all men are brothers. Do we want another Holocaust, and another? Had Hitler not invaded Poland, would we merely accept his extermination of the Jews as an internal affair?

Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Watch accuse Maduro of multiple violations of Venezuelans’ human rights. On that basis, given this new doctrine of international law, Trump had a right to intervene. Not acting solely on his own opinion, but on that of recognized international bodies. He acted alone, not with a coalition of other nations—but that was necessary to make the action swift and relatively bloodless.

Does this give other regimes the right to do likewise? After all, this was more or less Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine: to defend the human rights of Russian-speakers in the Donbas against a “fascist” Ukrainian government.

That is no doubt a concern. But it is about what aggressors could always do under the old rules: fake some false flag operation, and claim they were defending themselves. This is what Hitler did to justify his invasion of Poland. In either case, we have to rely on the general opinion of nations. Are the claims plausible?

For Trump and America, there is also the issue of the drug scourge. It is a crisis in North America. Is it reasonable to see them, as Trump does, as a weapon intended to weaken the US? Wasn’t that what Britain did to China with opium centuries ago? Hasn’t China openly claimed they are pursuing war by unconventional means, “wolf warriors”? There are claims, too, that Venezuela has been subverting elections elsewhere, including the US.

Must the US just sit there and accept this? With changing technology, the weapons of war have changed. Perhaps we must begin to act accordingly.

And if you are justified in going  to war, Trump did so in the quickest and most bloodless way.

This may be the way of the future. Trump did something similar in Iran, the recent “twelve day war.” Which may now be bearing its final fruits in regime collapse. Go in, strike decisively, take out your opponent, and leave. He did something similar with Isis in Syria and Iraq. He seems to have understood something about how war has changed.

Bush Jr. could have done the same in Afghanistan or Iraq. The initial victories were quick and easy. He made the mistake of hanging around and trying to colonize.

It looks like Putin tried to imitate Trump’s approach in Ukriane—go in with a surgical strike, take out the opposing government, and it’s over. But Putin botched it. Russia does not have the technical capability and organization. They had to try it with brute force.

And Ukraine suggests that conventional war, in which armies line up on the field and shoot at each other, is obsolete; and of course, nuclear war works for nobody. Might it actually be the way of the future, and more just and humane, to fight by surgical strikes with superior coordination and technology?

The taking of Maduro seems, in any case, a brilliant strategic victory for the US. It should have an immediate effect in Iran, just when such a signal is needed. Trump has as much as said it is a warning to them. If they obviously violate Iranians’ human rights during the current protests, the US is will similarly step in. They are “locked and loaded.” “We know where you live.” 

A dealmaker, Trump is a brilliant psychologist.

This makes it much more likely the Iranian government, already on a knife edge, will fall.

Now imagine if Venezuela becomes, under a new government, an American ally, which is naturally likely to occur. Imagine if Iran soon also, under a new government, becomes a close American ally. Lots of oil previously used as a geopolitical weapon against the US and its allies now comes under their control. A huge geopolitical win.

Especially since it is oil sales that are propping up Putin and financing his aggression in Ukraine. He too may now see the writing on the wall. Three birds with one stone?

Or four birds... It should also have a dramatic effect in Cuba, already in desperate economic conditions, hanging on by a thin stream of oil extending across the Caribbean from Venezuela. Their source of electricity, and financial support until recently, is gone. 

It would surely be a great morale boost to America, and a boost to its prestige, if this thorn in its side were soon removed. Gulf of America indeed.

And, of course, the action is well calculated to frighten other hemispheric regimes into shutting down the drug trade and avoiding antagonizing America.

2026 is starting with a bang. Happy 250th birthday, America.

. 

Mad Maduro

 

I predict that nothing will come of the current Venezuelan threat to annex most of Guyana.

Of course, the reason they suddenly want to do so is that a large reserve of oil has been discovered off the Guyanese coast. 

How large? At least 11 billion barrels, putting it in the top twenty producers worldwide, with the second largest reserves per capita, after Kuwait. And there may be more.

I doubt, busy as it is elsewhere, the US will let Venezuela swoop in and take that oil, any more than they let Saddam’s Iraq grab Kuwait’s oil back in the 90s. The geopolitical stakes are too high. If the US is overextended, Britain or Canada, plus the Caribbean nations, as fellow members of the Commonwealth, might, at American urging, take up the cause, or join a “coalition of the willing.” The more so since Guyana is an English -speaking democracy, and Venezuela a failing dictatorship.

Or Brazil might. The Guyanese region actually has no roads connecting it to Venezuela. The only road runs through Brazil. In order to attack Guyana in any force, Venezuela will actually first need to invade Brazil. Brazil is not likely to be too keen on that, and they are much bigger and wealthier than Venezuela. Rather, a Venezuelan incursion into Brazil would give Brazil an excuse to go in and take Venezuela itself, with its own oil, while America approved.

Brazil has already sent a contingent, if a small contingent, of troops to the border. Ensuring at least that it will come to blows.

Might the Venezuelans try instead a landing from the sea? 

Perfect. Plays into the American or British strength: sea and air power.

Presumably this is all for Venezuelan domestic consumption, an attempt to rally the people behind the government by whipping up a foreign enemy. It is the sign of a government in desperation.

If Maduro is desperate and reckless enough to go through with it, I expect the result to be similar to what happened when the Argentine government tried the same trick over the Falkland Islands, or the Greek government over Cyprus. The main result will be the collapse of the Maduro regime.

Let’s hope nobody gets killed along the way.