First thoughts on Maduro's abduction

Welp. That escalated quickly. First thoughts:

1. Trump has a number of reasons to want to depose Maduro. He believes that this will strengthen his hand in the midterm elections, and it likely will among Latino communities, in particular in Florida, but probably not much anywhere else. It will appease Marco Rubio, who has long pushed for regime change in Venezuela. It also gives him sway with the US oil industry, who – as Trump has already stated – will be “very strongly involved” in the exploitation of Venezuela’s immense hydrocarbon resources going forward. That will translate into campaign contributions, and potentially also direct emoluments for Trump and his family.

2. It immediately struck me that Maduro’s abduction appears at first glance to have followed, operationally, a similar pattern to the extrajudicial killing of Osama bin Laden under Obama: a small number of helicopters coming in, flying low over the area of operation under cover of night. There were however significant differences: it was reportedly conducted by Delta Force, which is formally 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta, Command Applications Group, while bin Laden’s killing was conducted by Delta Force and the US Navy’s DEVGRU (known commonly as Seal Team 6). Videos show Maduro’s abduction being conducted with Chinooks (MH-47) and Blackhawks (MH-60) flying in close formation, while bin Laden’s killing used “modified” Blackhawk helicopters (MH-60), but supposedly had Chinooks in the rear for backup support and didn’t get used. The operation in Pakistan happened without the knowledge of the Pakistani government, and apparently without any specific response from them. The operation in Venezuela was preceeded with attacks on a military airfield (La Carlota) and a military base (Fuerte Tiuna), presumably to prevent rapid response to the incursion. There are undoubtedly a lot of other operational differences, but at this point this type of operation may have to be understood as a somewhat standardized playbook.

3. The attacks on the military bases may also have been targeting air defences. The weapons used are not currently publicly known, but it wouldn’t be surprising if they were TLAM fired from US Navy destroyers situated in the Caribbean, focused on surface-to-air missile sites and AAA implacements. You also see from the videos what the US refers to as Concurrent SEAD, or Concurrent Supression of Enemy Air Defences operations – a Wild Weasel type operation, probably conducted by EA-18G Growlers. It would stand to reason that these would come from the USS Gerald R Ford, which has been operating in the Caribbean recently. There are other options, of course. Normally you’d have SEAD happen ahead of the attack, but there’s indications there wasn’t enough time to do that.

4. The geopolitical implications of this abduction are somewhat terrifying. The French foreign minister has already denounced the attack on the basis of it violating international law. Abductions of heads of state are rare, for very good reason – once it’s normalized, then any number of actions can be justified. Russia has tried to kidnap or kill Zelenskyy several times unsuccessfully, but what happens if China decides to abduct or assasinate Lai Ching-te? Or if India decides that the’d like to see Shehbaz Sharif behind bars (like his predecessor, I guess)? The only close example I can think of is the US rendition of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from Haiti to the Central African Republic in 2004, which he has called an abduction, but I’m not sure if it’s generally been seen as such. Beyond that I can’t think of any recent examples of this kind of thing. Older examples are mostly from the late 19th century, aside from a few around World War 2. In short: This simply is not done, because it would open the door to so much chaos in international relations. An enormous amount of diplomacy hinges on the ability to trust that diplomats, heads of state, and others in their respective entourages are safe from this kind of shenanigans.

5. Domestically in Venezuela, this is probably going to play well. The opposition to Maduro appears to have been quite closely involved, and from Venezuelan asylum seekers I’ve seen commentary from today there appears to be a collective sigh of relief. It’s clear that the situation in Venezuela has been dire for a long time, for a whole host of reasons too varied and complex to get into here. Currently the Vice President of Venezuela claims to be in control, but the Bolivarian National Guard, which is supposedly loyal to Maduro, isn’t necessarily going to agree with her. What happens in the next days is an interesting open question. William Spaniel points out that what the US just did, in terms of regime change, is the “easy part”, and that as Bush found out in Iraq, the hard part is actually following the initial action up with sustainable political change. Ideally this could be left to the opposition. It’s worrying though that Trump has said that the US will “run” Venezuela until a “safe transition can take place” – that could mean anything. It could also be fine, if the opposition is ready to conduct this. Spaniel also points out that unlike Iraq, the public in Venezuela is used to democratic elections, even if they’re not particularly used to the results of the elections bearing any relation to the votes that were cast.

6. While the outcome for the Venezuelan public in the short term might be good, the prospect of US hegemony over Venezuela’s oil wealth spells further economic trouble for the country in the medium term. There’s a large amount of silver lining though: this reduces the likelihood of Venezuelan action against Guyana over the Essequibo region, it reduces (albeit only slightly) likelihood of the US continuing to conduct arbitrary war crimes in the form of attacks on unarmed boats in the Caribbean, and it paves the way for stabilization in the region more generally – something I cannot imagine the government of Colombia not being quite happy with.

7. Regardless of the potential positive outcomes, the geopolitical shenanigans alone are really bad news. Trump just crossed a line, probably without having the slightest understanding of why that line should not be crossed, and it may lead to a lot of Very Bad Things being justified by any number of governments around the world for any number of reasons. Being frustrated with your neighbor just became a much bigger liability than it was a few days ago. I expect there to be political condemnations of this action, but I also expect those condemnations to come in lukewarm and weak willed, since most of the West is all too eager to pussyfoot around Trump and the US in general, and nobody else would be taken seriously anyway.

8. Honestly, the charges against Maduro (and his wife!) are ridiculous. I cannot imagine that there’s a good case to be made in any court for him having violated US laws regarding firearms possession, while being a president of an entirely different country. But as a friend pointed out, there’s no guarantee that his trial will be particularly speedy, and this may annoy Trump a fair bit.

9. The effects of this on Russia and China cannot be understated, but need further analysis. I can imagine both Putin and Xi being somewhat pissed about this. This reduces the number of avenues for China to get oil, which may slow down any actions in Taiwan, and it may also cause Russia trouble in exporting. This will be fascinating to observe in the next few days.

10. What a ridiculous attempt at distracting from the Epstein files. I doubt it will work.

This is a pretty quick hot take, so apologies if there are shortcomings or omissions that might become relevant later. Also, the operational analysis is largely based off readings from news media, seeing a bunch of videos and such on social media, and knowing a thing or two about how these kind of operations have been done in the past. Do not take this as expert analysis.