Dead
On Arrival – A Brief Post-Mortem On The US’ Regime-Change
Operation In Venezuela
Strategic
Culture Foundation
By
Joaquin Flores
25
June, 2019
From: Strategic
Culture –
Joaquin Flores
They
say hindsight is 20/20, and nothing exemplifies that more than the
kind of post-mortem that can be done on the failed attempt by the US
to overthrow the government of Venezuela. Working through the
lack of options that the US has in terms of regime-change in
Venezuela, should lead towards a higher degree of investor confidence
in the Bolivarian Republic.
We
understand that there are ultimately only three ways to attack a
target state until it collapses:
-
Supporting an internal coup/revolution or terrorism;
-
Economic embargo perhaps leading to or justified by 1, and;
-
Military invasion justified by the government’s reaction to 1
Then
we can see that US has failed in the first two. While the US does
appear on the rhetorical level to be willing to embargo the rest of
planet earth, they would have to effectively do so in order to
embargo Venezuela. By promoting globalization as a virtue, at the
institutional level, and not simply recognizing it with problems and
all as an inherent component of market economies, the US has withered
its own ability to control other civilizations and states in the
world’s growing multipolar system.
While
the US can place sanctions on Venezuela, and get some countries to
even go along with these sanctions, it only improves or strengthens
the role and power of those middle-man countries like China which act
as ‘value transactors’ of Venezuelan commodities into the global
economy. Because it is impossible to ‘cut’ China out of the
global economy, it is impossible to cut Venezuela out as well.
Given how much China is invested into Venezuela’s economy, as
the Wall Street Journal notes,
there’s little chance that will change either.
Despite
an effort to unseat the democratically elected PSUV government, we
were offered some keen insights into the US’s own self-realization
regarding their failed process, and publicly so by Pompeo himself.
The
level of honesty coming from the Trump administration in the US is
refreshing even as it is only half the truth. When we read that
Pompeo has explained that the Venezuelan opposition is ‘divided’,
this is of course nothing other than good news for those concerned
with regional stability, economic development, and a de-escalation of
tensions that can lead towards war and instability.
It
is also tremendously true, even if Pompeo doesn’t really explain
why it’s the case, at least not entirely. But the facticity of the
claim in itself reveals that there can be no US sponsored ‘internal
regime change’ in Venezuela. Both the governments of Brazil and
Colombia – close US allies under their present administrations –
have ruled out any sort of military intervention into Venezuela.
Pompeo’s
Confession
In
comments published
by the Washington Post,
from an audio recording, it was reported then that Pompeo admitted
that:
“We
were trying to support various religious institutions so that the
opposition would unite,” Pompeo remarked, going on to explain that
“they [the opposition] remain divided on how to confront the Maduro
regime.”
This
admission came on the heels of the recorded statement to the WP,
where he previously explained:
“Our
dilemma, which is to keep the (Venezuelan) opposition together, has
turned out to be tremendously difficult,”
He
continued, saying that:
“At
the moment when (Nicolás) Maduro leaves, everyone will raise their
hands and say: ‘Choose me, I’m the next president of Venezuela.’”
Subsequent
to that comment, he would explain that an excess of 40 different
Venezuelan opposition politicians have come forward expressing their
view that as Guaido is but a transitional figure, that they ought to
be ‘selected’ by the US to win an actual (i.e. staged) election.
This would be, ideally for them, an election that comes on the heels
of an absolute restructuring of the security apparatus of Venezuela.
The idea would be to ensure the marginalization of the PSUV forces
from the electoral process, a ‘counter-revolution’ of sorts. The
staged elections involving various opposition parties and leaders
would be an afterthought in all reality. And still, there is no
consensus among this opposition on who should lead. Pompeo would
continue to explain:
“Our
dilemma, which is to keep the (Venezuelan) opposition together, has
turned out to be extremely difficult […] The moment Maduro leaves,
everybody’s going to raise their hands , ‘Take me, I’m the next
president of Venezuela.’”
Pompeo
expressed tremendous exasperation with this state of affairs,
commenting that his realization of the problem isn’t one that came
about recently, but is one in fact he was aware of since he began his
work in the Trump administration with the CIA. To that point he
stressed that these are problems which not only manifested themselves
in “public during these last months, but since the day I became
director of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), this was something
that He was at the center of what President Trump was trying to do. ”
That’s
to say, Pompeo understood this problem all along. The whole project
was dead on arrival.
There
is no military option
Given
that Venezuela can’t really be effectively more embargoed than it
presently is, the US is left with one option remaining. Yes, that
leaves military options, nominally on the table in terms of US
pressure tactics and techniques. But the reality is that these are
something much less tangible than the US has historically relied
upon. A lot of this has to do with the general decline of the US
military in comparative terms. While the US maintains something
approximating its military capacity in absolute terms, compared to a
decade or two ago, it has not managed to maintain that in relative or
comparative terms. The ‘gap’ between the U.S and other rising
powers, military speaking – and this reflects economic changes as
well – has become smaller. Even the Washington
Post,
as well as other mainstream US billionaire blogs, has admitted as
much.
The
fact of Venezuela’s anti-air capabilities in the form of the S-300
system are enough to bring unacceptable levels of material and human
loss to the US air forces (Navy/Marine, Army, etc.). These
could potentially
bring the number of downed US fighters to many dozens in the first
hours, of the first sortie.
The loss of prestige alongside the scores of Cindy Sheehans this
would produce, makes the venture a non-starter from go.
So
this leaves the US in something of a conundrum. It has indeed brought
Venezuela to the near point of collapse over the course of recent
years, creating an economic catastrophe through a combination of
sanctions and the manipulation of oil prices. But it failed to push
it over the edge, and its thanks to a growing and new international
consensus that this was the case.
Venezuelan
leadership for its part has admitted
also that there are a number of measures and policies that ought to
have been in place,
long term economic measure in terms of diversifying the economy that
would have helped to off-set the worst of the damage done by the
manipulated attack on Venezuela’s economy. We’ll recall that
Russia experienced similar, based in the same manipulation of oil
prices, leading to a temporary ‘shock’ to the Ruble, which
plummeted in value relative to the Dollar overnight, stoking a major
crisis between June and December of 2014. Russia was in a better
position to manage this, and though without hiccups, has managed to
avoid the sorts of repercussions that Venezuela has faced.
Strong
reasons for optimism and the coming bullish trend
The
inability of the US to move further against Venezuela’s economy has
only given Caracas time, and organization, to work around them. These
work-around measures by Venezuela can improve, but the distance
between the economic attacks from the US, and the operationalizing of
Guiado in a coup gambit, was too great for the US to use them in
combination in an effective way.
It’s
worth noting also that the general ‘game plan’ of the US has been
effectively written about, expounded publicly, and absorbed by
private intelligence agencies and government networks alike. The
science and art of regime change has given rise to the science and
art of the counter-coup.
When
we understand that there is no really viable military option, Caracas
knows that it is bracing for further acts of terrorism and sabotage
on its critical infrastructure. International help in combatting such
state-sponsored terrorism, as reported
by Venezuelan state news agency TeleSurhas
already been had, however, and so we can expect that we will see how
effective this has been through the lack of much materializing in
this direction.
Taken
all together, the essentials for a rebounded Venezuelan economy are
in place. Investor confidence and the assurances to Spanish, and
therefore by extension German, banking interests operating without
the US as a middle-man in Latin America, are well-founded and lead
towards a bullish trend.
As
a post-mortem on the US’s failed regime change operation in
Venezuela, it is an excellent case study in how the international
community can properly deal with and respond to the often irrational
and potentially destabilizing actions of former global hegemons when
in a state of decline. As far as Venezuela is concerned, it’s an
excellent case study in sovereignty in the 21st century, despite
a west-centric socio-economic focus on globalization.
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