Blockade ‘For Now’
President Donald Trump’s order for a fleet of warships, containing around 4,000 military personnel, to be stationed in the Caribbean Sea near the Venezuelan coast has renewed hopes that the Chavist dictatorship may be coming to an end.
Many of us are skeptical that the United States will actually carry out a military operation or even a “surgical” intervention in Venezuela. Perhaps because, emotionally, we do not want to get our hopes up again that “this time will be different” and the government will finally be toppled. Perhaps it is also because Trump, obsessed with winning a Nobel Peace Prize and appearing to be a great international mediator (though his activities do not include photo ops and high-profile appearances with officials from nations like India and Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda), believes that using force against Nicolas Maduro’s narco-tyranny could disqualify him from this illustrious accolade.
The naval mobilization is probably a contemporary example of “big stick diplomacy,” a strategy used by President Theodore Roosevelt in Latin America between 1901 and 1909 by using dialogue and diplomacy while simultaneously showing military power. Maybe Trump remembered that, through these methods, Roosevelt was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for negotiating an end to the Russo-Japanese War.
This latest American military exercise in waters close to Venezuela has been accompanied by other actions. The reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest has been increased to $50 million – more than the sum offered for information about Osama bin Laden or any drug kingpin – and members of the so-called “Cartel of the Suns” have been added to the list of people Washington considers terrorists.
At the moment, the naval blockade remains, in an attempt to halt drug trafficking, which constitutes 30% of Chavist income. We will soon see if this strategy is successful in breaking the resolve of its leaders. A limited military operation is not off the table but does not seem imminent* — as Hugo Chávez said after his failed coup d’état in Venezuela in 1992, “for now.”
*Editor's note: On Sept. 2, the U.S. carried out a military strike in the southern Caribbean, bombing an alleged drug-carrying vessel from Venezuela.
Many of us are skeptical that the United States will actually carry out a military operation or even a “surgical” intervention in Venezuela. Perhaps because, emotionally, we do not want to get our hopes up again that “this time will be different” and the government will finally be toppled. Perhaps it is also because Trump, obsessed with winning a Nobel Peace Prize and appearing to be a great international mediator (though his activities do not include photo ops and high-profile appearances with officials from nations like India and Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda), believes that using force against Nicolas Maduro’s narco-tyranny could disqualify him from this illustrious accolade.
The naval mobilization is probably a contemporary example of “big stick diplomacy,” a strategy used by President Theodore Roosevelt in Latin America between 1901 and 1909 by using dialogue and diplomacy while simultaneously showing military power. Maybe Trump remembered that, through these methods, Roosevelt was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for negotiating an end to the Russo-Japanese War.
This latest American military exercise in waters close to Venezuela has been accompanied by other actions. The reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest has been increased to $50 million – more than the sum offered for information about Osama bin Laden or any drug kingpin – and members of the so-called “Cartel of the Suns” have been added to the list of people Washington considers terrorists.
At the moment, the naval blockade remains, in an attempt to halt drug trafficking, which constitutes 30% of Chavist income. We will soon see if this strategy is successful in breaking the resolve of its leaders. A limited military operation is not off the table but does not seem imminent* — as Hugo Chávez said after his failed coup d’état in Venezuela in 1992, “for now.”
*Editor's note: On Sept. 2, the U.S. carried out a military strike in the southern Caribbean, bombing an alleged drug-carrying vessel from Venezuela.
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