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In a week, about a quarter of the entire US Navy will be off Venezuela. Trump has made claims about Venezuela smuggling Fentanyl to America, but this is completely laughable and anyone with a room temperature IQ knows its a lie. (Though, who knows, Trump may believe it, not having a room temperature IQ.)
Anyway, Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and Trump does love other people’s resources.
But I think the geopolitics are more important. The entire world outside of America’s direct vassals are throwing off the West’s shackles. Madagascar, for example, has said it is ending ALL ties to France. Yemen successfully defied America. America isn’t toothless yet. Syria and Lebanon attest to that, and Egypt and Turkey’s groveling acquiescence shows the America whip, though dulling, is still feared by some.
Still, Brazil told America to go take a hike when Trump tried to interfere in their legal system. Colombia’s President said he is willing to end all military cooperation with the US and that the only thing Colombia would miss is the helicopters. (Russia or China or even Iran can make this up, it isn’t advanced tech.)
What made America an Empire was the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine and the ability to enforce it. Every country in the Americas had to bow to the whip, except Canada and other British possessions. They fell under the whip after World War II. In Canada’s case the carrot was the auto-pact (you can manufacture some cars) and the whip was “and you will give up your aviation industry, because it is more advanced than ours and that is unacceptable.”
Oh there were rebellions and the Cubans even managed to make it stick, at great cost, but by and large if you didn’t do what America wanted a coup would happen, or your leader would wind up eating a bullet, and the wives of the opposition would be raped by dogs, as in Peru. People learned to fear the whip, and not to rebel too far. America was the monster next door, who’d kill you, torture your family and rape your women. They’d even kill priests and nuns. (No, you don’t get to pretend America isn’t responsible for its proxies.)
But the calculus is changing. Once half of Africa lived in fear of France’s regime change and “anti-terrorism”. Like the Americans, there was no evil they would not commit. And the Americans had their bases too, and everyone with sense feared the whip, especially after the USSR fell and there was no countervailing force.
But now there is. The dual alliance: China and Russia. In the old days the whip was supplemented with a simple fact of life. If you wanted any advanced technology, including cars, anti-biotics, electricity or planes, it had to come from the West.
But China can sell you all of that now. And Russia, well, their mercenaries can keep the peace. Yeah, they’re nasty, but they don’t turn on their host governments (or not so far.) And a nice Russian base is excellent inoculation against a case of American or French base. Meanwhile the Chinese have better fighters, better missiles and better drones. China or Russia can supply your military, and China will build you ports, hospitals, railroads, schools… whatever you want. When they lend you money, the interest rate is lower than anything the West offers and they don’t require IMF readjustments which destroy your economy and impoverish your people.
So all the US and the West have left is the whip. Thing is, the whip’s getting dull. America weapons are no longer the best. America can’t make its weapons with supplies from China, some of which, the rare earths, were just cut off. The US Navy is getting smaller. The Chinese navy is getting larger. The US can’t meet recruitment quotas.
America’s in terminal decline and everyone knows it. But like Britain in the 1930s, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still powerful and couldn’t fuck you up.
The smart people in Trump’s administration, I think, see that their military force is a wasting asset. The longer they wait to use it the less they have, and the more their enemies have. Russia and China could get enough gear and advisors to Venezuela to make attacking it a complete no go, in principle, and given time, they will. Same with almost every other reasonable sized country.
So if America wants to attack Venezuela it has to be soon.
Of course, even if it works, it’ll be a complete fiasco. A proxy government gets propped up, can’t suppress the opposition effectively in a huge country with jungles and mountains made by God for guerilla warfare and a peasantry and urban poor who are hostile and well organized. Either they lose (probably experiencing a colonel’s coup) or the Americans have to go in themselves. First it’ll be mercs, of course, but they won’t be enough. The oil won’t flow, because it’s easily interdicted and damaged by a competent insurgency, Venezuela will become even more of a basket case, and so on. Eventually the Americans will leave. Perhaps they’ll get a semi-stable puppet government running, but it won’t last, for the simple reason that as time goes by, siding with the US instead of China will be stupid. China and its junior partner Russia, just offer so much more.
Venezuela, the like the Gaza genocide and land grab, are among the last gasps of America empire. Empires die bloody. If we get away without a nuclear or world war, we’ll be doing well.
May America then break up into multiple states and never again be a unified nation capable of exerting its will upon the rest of the world.
