The Jeddak of Jeddaks expounds on…well, pretty much everything, basically.

The Caracasian Cut
Regime decapitation and the consequences of competence

We might ask, in the spirit of an augur inquiring after the flight of a dove at daybreak, a circling hawk at high noon, or the cold gaze of a crow in the gloaming, what is the meaning of the Caracas raid? We do not need to assume that the meaning we look for in this action is intentional, though we should not rule this out, either; what matters is how the act will manifest symbolically, how it will be interpreted in the minds of onlookers, which it will do regardless of intention.

The superficial import of the action is clear enough. America has seized control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the largest in the world, and at a stroke applies crippling pressure to the economies of China, Iran, and Cuba (who were Venezuela’s best grey-market customers), as well as to the economies of its adversary Russia and its wayward sibling Canada (both of which depend for their prosperity upon high oil prices). Both China and Russia have been deprived of a key New World ally, and thus the Monroe Doctrine is reasserted, and foreign powers pushed out of Washington’s sphere of influence. A hostile communist government has been decapitated, opening the way for the millions of Venezuelans displaced by Bolivarian tyranny, refugees whose presence has destabilized Venezuela’s neighbours for many years now, to return home.

Trump’s declaration that America now owns Venezuela’s oil feels a bit premature. Can one really claim control, without boots on the ground? I confess that it is not at all clear to me exactly how this is all supposed to work. Perhaps it is meant to function through pure intimidation: whoever ends up assuming power in Venezuela, they will know that if they don’t do as they’re told, they might be next, and perhaps will not be given the grace of an arrest and a show trial but simply executed without warning by drone; meanwhile, America offers itself as the sole legitimate customer for Venezuela’s sole marketable product, while providing its oil industry engineers to rebuild (and assume control of) infrastructure fallen into disrepair following Chavez’ nationalization and subsequent decades of neglect and mismanagement. Trump holds out one hand in an offer of assistance and mutual benefit, while holding back his other curled in a mailed fist, a threat made plausible by the fact that he just punched them hard in the mouth.

Still, all of this is nothing more than realpolitik, the hard edges of power in the material world.

The real meaning, the symbolic importance, lies deeper. It is not measured in dollars or barrels of oil. It is a message.

Over the last several months of military buildup in the Caribbean, many have issued dire predictions of the inevitable boondoggle that would result if the US allowed itself to be drawn into an invasion and occupation of Venezuela. A repeat of Iraq and Afghanistan, or worse yet Vietnam, an ugly guerrilla war in the steaming tropical jungle that would drain American blood, treasure, and will into the fetid third world swamp in tragicomic counterpoint to MAGA’s promise to drain the swamp at home. There was excellent reason for this cynicism. Every military adventure of the GWOT has been a debacle. Trust is as thin as ragged tissue paper.

Calmer heads pointed out that there was little prospect of an invasion: the forces being assembled in the Caribbean could land at most a few thousand troops, enough for a punitive expedition but hardly sufficient for an occupation. The plan, therefore, was clearly something other than an occupation, though exactly what it was no one could say for sure. My personal guess was that they were simply intending to squeeze the Venezuelan communists to death, enforcing the embargo on oil exports by interdicting contraband tankers flying under the false flags of countries they weren’t actually registered in, and watching from a safe distance as the unpaid military and unfed people turned on one another like starving jackals behind their besieged walls. Ugly, with an immense human cost, but effective.

I certainly never expected them to simply descend like Odin with the Wild Hunt and snatch the country’s president in a lightning raid.

Neither, of course, did anyone else expect such an audacious manoeuvre. Which was the point.

This being a characteristically superb piece in the grand old John Carter style, you’ll definitely want to read it all.

Update! Okay, after scanning through the piece again, I realized just how profoundly remiss of me it would be not to include this delicious bit.

This is the same American military that spent twenty fruitless years fighting to replace the Taliban with the Taliban, climaxing with a humiliating route from Kabul in which billions of dollars of military equipment were abandoned to the very Taliban that the military fought so hard to replace the Taliban with.

It is the same American military that, until just a year ago, was struggling to fill its ranks, because the warrior class had concluded that it was not a military worth belonging to, that a government which held them in such contempt was not a government worth fighting for.

Only one thing changed: a year ago, when Trump won the election, the American state was decapitated.

Because Trump won the election, he could fire the fat bureaucrat Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defence, and appoint in his place the energetic, muscular young Hegseth as Secretary of War. Because Hegseth was the Secretary of War, he could begin eliminating the dross of the Cancelled Years and refocus the American military on its actual mission.

It turned out to be that simple. Change the leadership, replace the dance troupe of hollow men and men in dresses that has cavorted through the halls of power for far too long with platoons of competent men, and allow the competent men to do what they know how to do, without interference from politicians, lawyers, and ideologues. Just point them in the right direction and get out of their way.

OOOF! That one’s gonna hurt all the right people in all the right ways, for all the right reasons.

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