Brett McGurk is a NCS international affairs analyst who served in senior nationwide safety positions below Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
More than twenty years in the past, on January 24, 2004, I landed in Baghdad as a authorized adviser, assigned an workplace in what was then generally known as the Green Zone. It was raining and chilly, and my duffle bag was thrown right into a puddle off the C-130 plane that had simply completed a corkscrew dive to achieve the runway with out danger of floor hearth. Young American troopers greeted me as we piled right into a car, sped out of the airport advanced after which alongside a street known as the “Highway of Death” attributable to automotive bombs and snipers.
What has our nation gotten itself into?
That was my first thought on that harrowing trip, and over the course of a yr within the nation after which throughout subsequent presidential administrations, I usually endorsed prudence and warning when setting American overseas coverage targets. That is particularly the case in relation to using navy energy, the applying of which should be tied to clear, articulated and achievable aims.
You would possibly assume the current situation in Venezuela – the place the US has now deployed 15% of its naval energy and is conducting floor workouts close by – triggers a cautionary story to cease earlier than our nation as soon as once more finds itself in a state of affairs that we do not absolutely perceive with unsure penalties.
Not so quick.
The state of affairs in Venezuela at present has little comparability to Iraq and way more resembles Panama 35 years in the past, earlier than the US navy operation to take away a dictator and set up an elected authorities that loved huge assist from the inhabitants there. That mission was a hit, and Panama at present is a functioning democracy, pleasant to the US, albeit not with out issues from crime to corruption.
Is it potential that we’re so paralyzed by the Iraq (and Afghanistan) expertise, to overlook a chance to enhance the lives of Venezuelans and stability in our personal hemisphere alongside the traces of Panama?
Venezuela and Panama: Similar Pretexts
On December 20, 1989, President George H.W. Bush addressed the nation to outline the rationale behind the mission he had simply ordered into Panama. He defined that Panama was led by “an indicted drug trafficker,” Manuel Noriega, who would quickly “be brought to justice” within the US. Bush added that Noriega annulled democratic elections, and that the winners of these elections would quickly take energy in Panama City possible with broad assist. Noriega’s regime additionally threatened and harmed Americans, together with the latest loss of life of an American soldier, shot by Noriega’s safety companies.
Finally, Bush mentioned the strategic significance of the Panama Canal, and Washington’s dedication to present treaties that Noriega was unlikely to honor.
Against that backdrop, Bush defined the objectives of the mission: “To safeguard the lives of Americans, to defend democracy in Panama, to combat drug trafficking, and to protect the integrity of the Panama Canal Treaty.”
Two weeks later, Noriega was in US custody, the elected opposition authorities took energy, and US forces started to depart the nation.
I not too long ago spoke with a former US navy counterpart who took half on this operation, parachuting into Panama earlier than Bush made that tackle. “Out of our many military ventures since Korea,” he informed me, “Panama must be considered one of our most successful. To go there now is to see a very prosperous Democratic country.”
Now, let’s take a look at Venezuela –
The nation is run by Nicolas Maduro, who like Noriega faces felony indictments in US courts. The prices towards Maduro are extra in depth. His 2020 indictment in New York lists counts of narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and corruption. He is additionally accused of heading the trafficking group “Cartel de los Soles,” which the State Department simply branded a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Washington has provided a $50 million reward for anybody that may assist deliver Maduro into US custody.
Like Noriega, Maduro has additionally invalidated successive elections and violently suppressed democratic actions inside his nation. The US and most of its Western allies acknowledge the opposition led by Maria Corina Machado as Venezuela’s reliable authorities. Opposition events in accordance with unbiased observers obtained 70% of the nationwide vote in Venezuela’s presidential elections in 2024, which Maduro claims to have gained.
Finally, Maduro, like Noriega, has threatened and harmed American residents, in addition to regional peace and safety. In latest years, like his allies in Iran, Maduro has successfully held Americans as hostages for diplomatic maneuvering with the US. These hostages embody an American sailor vacationing in Venezuela, longtime American residents of the nation, and US-based executives of Citgo, the US subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil firm.
In 2023, Maduro threatened to invade neighboring Guyana, an American ally, and at present claims sovereignty over two-thirds of Guyana, justifying the declare – very like Putin over japanese Ukraine – primarily based on false historical past and a staged referendum.
If Maduro is changed in Caracas, there is no assure that native authorities all through the nation would work with the brand new authorities, opening the prospect for civil wars and a violent competitors for energy and sources. Maduro claims to have recruited a militia within the hundreds of thousands to withstand any US-backed operation, and whereas that declare could also be exaggerated, we should always presume that drug cartels might seize management within the countryside versus the forces of democracy we’d hope or want to see prevail.
Venezuela is over 10 occasions bigger than Panama, one thing navy planners would possible suggest required a far bigger pressure than the practically 26,000 personnel deployed in within the 1989 operation.
The geostrategic context is additionally vastly completely different. In 1989, the Soviet Union had collapsed with the Berlin Wall coming down six weeks earlier than the US invasion of Panama. America was the undisputed nice energy on the earth, and there was no motive to anticipate or anticipate different nice powers resisting the navy operation or making strikes of their very own in different hemispheres.
Today, Russia and China are aligned with Maduro, and their leaders would possible cite any US operation in Venezuela as additional justification to pursue their very own hemispheric ambitions, towards Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively.
President Donald Trump final week said cryptically that he had “made up his mind” on a plan of action in Venezuela. That adopted NCS reporting on a number of excessive stage White House conferences with navy commanders on choices following the Naval buildup off the coast and workouts performed by the US Marine Corps throughout rural and concrete areas of Trinidad and Tobago.
Maduro appears to be studying into these strikes a potential American intervention, calling up his militias whereas additionally interesting for dialogue, even singing John Lennon’s peace anthem “Imagine” at a latest rally.
Adding to the confusion, the administration has not been clear on the aims for what it now calls Operation Southern Spear. The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, described the mission as one to “defend our homeland, remove narcoterrorism from our hemisphere, and secure our homeland from the drugs that are killing our people.” While there was no point out in official statements of restoring democracy in Venezuela, or an goal to hunt the removing of Maduro as its chief, Trump has declared Maduro’s days “numbered” and the navy deployments, together with probably the most superior service strike group within the US arsenal, recommend aims past the publicly said objectives of Southern Spear.
U.S. plane service arrives close to Latin America amid Venezuela tensions
To be certain, the removing of Maduro is within the pursuits of the US and the individuals of Venezuela. Before the rule of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, the nation was among the many most affluent in South America, whereas at present it’s a shambles with per capita earnings falling by 72 p.c, one of many sharpest financial collapses in historical past. More than three-quarters of the nation by respected polling opposes his rule, and there is an opposition authorities ready to take energy if given the possibility to take action.
The Trump administration regardless of its saber rattling appears unlikely to pursue regime change militarily, a plan of action that might reduce towards its said aversion to extended navy engagements. Nor would I counsel them in any other case. The variations with Panama at this stage outweigh the similarities or hope that an operation towards Maduro would possibly go in addition to Panama over three many years in the past.
But the administration ought to not withdraw the leverage that it has now constructed up towards Maduro and use it to good impact.
Short of a navy operation to oust Maduro, the administration can demand that he hand over key figures of the drug trafficking networks inside Venezuela, withdraw claims on Guyana, and pledge to carry new elections with worldwide observers, which he would absolutely lose. To go a step additional, the administration would possibly demand his exile, maybe to Russia, the place he can be a part of Bashar al-Asad, the previous president of Syria, one other dictator who destroyed his personal nation for the sake of private energy. For any of this to work, the administration would want to safe assist from allies, together with in South America, one thing that to this point it has been unable or unwilling to do in relation to its aims in Venezuela.
In any case, earlier than the US embarks on a coverage to interchange Maduro, whether or not by navy means or in any other case, there must be a congressional debate to weigh professionals and cons, one thing that at present additionally is not occurring attributable to dysfunction in Washington.
The US after twenty years of protracted navy engagements abroad is rightly cautious of any new endeavor that envisions regime change. That warning is warranted, however in Venezuela the case for Maduro’s removing from energy are each compelling and draw extra parallels to Panama than to Iraq. However, the build-up of navy energy off its coast can greatest be used to realize targets that in the long run do not require its use within the nation.