WIREDGOV

Venezuela needs fundamental change to its economic structures to prevent the abduction of Nicolas Maduro from eventually leading to increased corruption and systemic violence.

Is the Trump Administration’s intervention in Venezuela an exercise in full-scale regime change, partial regime decapitation, or merely a police action? What are the likely pitfalls of each approach? Is the security situation on the ground in Venezuela likely to deteriorate and which social or economic structures might form a locus of resistance? These exact questions were debated on 8 January by Dr Jonathan Eyal, Arthur Snell, Jane Kinninmont and this author during our recent RUSI/Disorder live Podcast – listen here.

We concluded that neither President Trump nor Secretary Rubio appear to have concrete thoughts on an end game. Nonetheless, early signs indicate a mixed approach – partial decapitation of the old leadership, paradoxically leaving Maduro’s interior minister Diosdado Cabello in place – combined with a high degree of continuity of existing regime structures, with the primary economic changes limited to preferential access to oil assets for American firms. In line with this approach, President Trump’s press statements have thrown Venezuela’s internationally-acclaimed opposition figures under the bus, especially the Nobel Prize Laureate and Magnitsky Award winner Maria Corina Machado. Despite this, she is trying everything to court his favour, going even as far as giving her Nobel Laureate medal to Trump.

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