This article poses the question of the US's goal and capabilities, realistically. It doesn't seem like the US has enough troops in theater for a full-scale invasion of a country that size. So is this even a credible bluff on Trump's part? I could see Maduro making some fake agreement to give Trump a PR win and defuse pressure. But go into exile for the rest of his life and hope there is no regime change in his host country and that they don't sell him out at some point? Unless they can very credibly threaten him from the air and with special forces teams, why should he agree? The US has enough forces to do regime change in Venezuela, but seemingly not enough prepositioned and anyway, this would generate significant US casualties in a war the public doesn't want and hasn't been prepared for the way Bush did build support for the Iraq War. So I just don't get what is happening. Is Trump being misled? Is he just going for the fake agreement with Maduro to end drugs or whatever?

https://apnews.com/article/trump-venezuela-airspace-faa-maduro-pressure-campaign-39d624a0f5d5422cdfb62826a5a56373

Posted by Ok-Yak7370

12 comments

  1. The US can likely get the outcome it wants with just air and naval superiority as well as support from locals in Venezuela who are desperate for regime change. I don’t see any boots on the ground. Maybe special ops

  2. The US doesn’t need to actually kill Maduro from the air or otherwise. It only needs to overwhelmingly destroy the military and whatever paramilitary units are primarily responsible for Maduro’s protection. Once those are gone, I would expect that internal opposition forces would remove him from power one way or another. Or, Maduro would absolutely flee the country (if he hasn’t done so already) leaving the opposition to take control of the Venezuelan government.

    The overwhelming majority of regular Venezuelans do not like Maduro, nor do they want to see him continue to remain in power. The US just needs to provide an opportunity for them to do something about him and his government.

  3. It shows how bad the CIA have become if they need to resort to this.

  4. >How Realistically could US take Maduro out from the air?

    If “take Maduro out” mean just kill him with a cruise missile, it’s doable. If by “take Maduro out” if you mean take the regime down, no that’s not gonna work. Was US able to take out the Houthis by bombing? How about Iranians?

    >With Special Forces?

    Again, you can send the SEAL team 6 to kill the guy but that’s not gonna be enough to take the regime down.

  5. People treat special forces like they’re space marines.

    No a dozen guys are not going to infiltrate a hostile country and take out the leadership unless the state and defence department is going to be okay with a dozen seals getting their heads chopped off on CNN

  6. The US history in Iraq is something to remember. The military victory came easy but the peace never came. Never saw any of those promised oil revenues either.

  7. I’m wondering if maybe they (Trump admin) thought the military buildup in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean would either result in Maduro fleeing or lead to some sort of coup against him removing him from power. And now that hasn’t happened they are left with the TACO outcome (another one of Trump’s fake “deals”) or actually attacking Venezuela. Personally I don’t see airstrikes and CIA black ops as being enough to get rid of Maduro, and I don’t think Trump will do a full on invasion.

  8. There is opposition. But I doubt they will opt for a civil war. There would be US armed mercenaries though

  9. You cannot successfully overthrow a foreign government without sufficient support from inside institutions if you do you end up with a puppet government which is too difficult to prop up, this is what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan to a slightly lesser extent Vietnam.

    South Korea was successful because there was enough domestic support for the government there in the face of communism; Chile was successful because it was CIA supported not lead remember Allende never had a plurality of support.

    The US will be able to support the overthrow of Maduro but not lead it.

  10. Every single place Maduro is expected to be could be destroyed from the air. Anyone who supports him could also be hit from the air. Afaik, there is no air defense. 
    The problem is collateral damage. 
    If the usa goes in to get him on the ground, that’s where the problems start.

  11. Depends how you define “take Maduro out”.

    If you mean kill him? Not SUPER hard. Find where he is and bomb it to shit.

    If you mean regime change? Much more complicated.

  12. Oh, they’ll eventually be able to kill the guy. Whether they can actually plant the sort of puppet they need to start looting then oil reserves is another matter. 

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