Nothing military is going to happen. It is illegal and politically outrageous so there will be lots of protests but militarily, there is no risk whatsoever. And politically it is not unusual for the US to do things like this. And the operation was so fast and so clean with Maduro and his wife taken alive, that the political consequences are likely far less.
Maduro no longer has the support of the Venezuelan people and he remained president only through a rigged election.
Trump has just announced that the US will be running an interim government in Venezuela and that it will be modernizing the Venezuelan oil industry and he says that the Venezuelan vice president has agreed to this arrangement in a long conversation with Marco Rubio.
The Venezuelan people will benefit financially from this because Venezuela has huge oil reserves which it’s not been able to exploit under Maduro.
If this is correct then we can expect a largely peaceful transition. The others in Venezuela who are on Maduro’s side would worry that the same thing would happen to them as happened to Maduro.
The military operation is over and only lasted 90 minutes. Russia and China did not get involved and will not get involved. Trump has abducted Maduro and his wife and they will face trial in New York. Although they were abducted rather than extradited, by Supreme Court precedent they can still be tried under US law.
There was nothing the Venezuelan military could do. Nor could China or Russia and they are just making political protests as predicted.
Remember the US has done very many military strikes. This one is illegal in international law, and politically outrageous but militarily, there is no risk whatsoever.
It is
- ILLEGAL in international law to abduct anyone from another country except under the legal process of extradition
However it is
- LEGAL in US law to try someone who has been forcefully abducted from another country so he will be tried in the US under US law.
It will help with political reaction that it was over so fast and that Maduro and his wife were captured alive.
The Panama abduction in 1989 took over a month. This took 90 minutes.
It also helps for the political repercussions that Maduro has lost the support of his people and remains in power as a result of a rigged election.
US did the same in 1999, captured the de facto ruler of Panama General Manuel Noriega - for a similar reason - took over a month - this took a single day
The US did the same in Panama in 1999. Invaded and captured the de facto ruler of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, who was wanted by U.S. authorities for racketeering and drug trafficking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama
Back then it took over a month.
This time it took a single day. It shows how militarily advanced the US is today compared to any South American country.
It helps that the US captured Maduro rather than killed him. Few in South America are on his side. But the idea that the US can just decide to kill a political leadaer it doesn’t like is very controversial. It is also illegal under the international law of armed conduct.
Capturing a leader is also illegal under the UN charter but it may help politically that he wasn’t killed.
For decades the US has felt free to do military strikes on other countries without asking for permission first. Example
the strike to kill General Soliemani in Iraq.
The drone strike to kill the leader of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
The Navy Seals operation to kill his predecessor, Osama bin Laden.
Strike on the chemical weapons factory in Syria
Strike on the nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran
I don’t think the US has ever been at war with a country that can hit the US since the war with Mexico
The US has been involved in many wars globally. Often China and Russia have political sympathies with the fighters on the other side. But they don’t go attacking the US because that would be madness. It NEVER HAPPENS.
Russia or China could have sent ships but no air support and without air support, ships are very vulnerable.
So the conflict is local between US and Venezuela with the Venezuelans having support of a few Wagner type mercenaries that Russia would deny have any connection with Russia if they got in trouble.
This is from various experts
QUOTE STARTS
James Story, the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela from 2018 to 2023.
“I don’t believe the relationship is all that deep, nor strategic,” Story said.
“Russia views Venezuela as an economy of force mission,” he added, using a term that refers to allocating the fewest resources needed to achieve a specific military goal. “It’s an opportunistic relationship that bedevils the United States in some ways. It distracts us from other issues, and they can do it rather cheaply.”
When Russia sent advisers to Venezuela in 2019, their presence projected solidarity and may have complicated any American consideration of military intervention at the time, said Vladimir Rouvinski, director of the Laboratory of Politics and International Relations at Icesi University in Cali, Colombia.
Today, Rouvinski sees parallels between Russia’s predicament in Venezuela and its recent loss of another key ally.
“The same [thing] happened, of course, for Assad in Syria,” he told The Moscow Times. “If Moscow were unable to save the Maduro regime, it would be déjà vu.”
“The major risk at this point is the collapse of what Moscow was trying to construct for many years here in Latin America, namely its status as one of the centers of global power, which is capable of global protection,” he explained.
With its military stretched by the war in Ukraine, Russia lacks the flexibility it once had to project influence abroad. And while some form of assistance to Venezuela remains possible, Rouvinski said it would likely be more symbolic than substantive.
“I don’t think that Russia is willing to go very far” to protect the Maduro government, he said. “Russia is not prepared and is not capable, realistically, to have this kind of engagement.”
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/11/13/moscow-risks-losing-a-key-ally-in-latin-america-as-trump-ramps-up-pressure-on-venezuelas-maduro-a91121
So the issue rather is political. The US has been involved in regime change in the past and the countries in South Americ don’t like it.
They are very sensitive to US attempts at regime change. Even though hardly any countries support Maduro outside of Venezuela, they would be intimidated and it would cause major issues in relations between the US and South American countries generally if the US did a forceful regime change.
It could make it hard for the US to accomplish other things through dialogue with South American countries.
By major issues I just mean similar to issues that arose when the US has done this in the past.
However it does reduce the issues significantly that the US did it so quickly, in a single day, and didn’t kill Maduro.
Legal situation - the US Supreme Court found in US v. Alvarez-Machain that even someone abducted without doing it under an extradition treaty can still be tried under US law
Although the operation isn’t legal under international law, he can be tried under US law by the Supreme Court case US v. Alvarez-Machain which found that even if someone is abducted without doing it under an extradiction treaty he can still be tried under US law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Alvarez-Machain
Also Congress was briefed about the operation in advance.
This is Lindsay Graham
QUOTE STARTS
MARGARET BRENNAN: You don’t need an aircraft carrier to hit drug boats are land strikes planned?
SEN. GRAHAM: Yeah, I think that’s a real possibility. I think President Trump’s made a decision that Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, is an indicted drug, drug trafficker, that it’s time for him to go, that Venezuela and Colombia have been safe havens for narco-terrorists for too long, and President Trump told me yesterday that he plans to brief members of Congress when he gets back from Asia about future potential military operations against Venezuela and Colombia. So there will be a congressional briefing about a potential expanding from the sea to the land. I support that idea, but I think he has all the authority he needs.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lindsey-graham-south-carolina-republican-face-the-nation-transcript-10-26-2025/
So this is not going to lead to legal issues within the US, at least seems unlikely. The ramifications will be political. Don’t expect any US Supreme Court case over it.
Venezuela has no military allies and is in no defensive alliance - nobody will come to their aid militarily and Maduro is not supported by the majority of Venezuelans - it was a rigged election
The US is so vastly superior to the Venezuelan armed forces - it CAN’T last for years, or even weeks. It WOULD stay in Venezuela.
It’s neighbours don’t support Maduro anyway - they want his government overturned as much as the US especially after the rigged elections.
His own people don’t support him.
US is so vastly superior technologically that it’'s single destroyer there plus the F-35s from Puerto Rico are already more than a match for the entire Venezuelan military. The aircraft carrier is overkill even for land strikes.
Example of Panama invasion - lasted only a little over a month - mid Dec 19u89 to late Jan 1990
As an example the US invasion of Panama lasted from mid December 1989 to late January 1990
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama
It only took a day for Panama. Many in Caracas (capital of Venezuela) would want to oust Maduro.
Vast superiority of US militarily over Central and Southern America - far more than a match for all their militaries combined
Venezuela or Columba have nothing that could hit the US.
Never going to happen but just hypothetically to show how superior the US is militarily - the US is more than a match for all the combined armies of Southern and Central Americas. I don’t think any country in those regions can even fire a missile at the US except short range missiles from Mexico or the Carribean in theory or firing at US bases in the rest of South America..
Trump is very risk averse when it comes to US soldiers and civilians. So he wouldn’t really do something that has a risk to the US.
The military strikes likely had some civilian casualties - but expect them to be low - the devastation of Gaza Strip and Donbas are the result of slow intense bombing campaigns for months or years of very small areas
The bombing of Venezuela is far too short to cause much damage - some civilians likely killed but not like the devastation of Gaza Strip and Donbas are very unusual for modern warfare, result of slow intense bombing campaigns for months or years of very small areas
Gaza Strip filled the news but it is a very extreme situation of a country that continually bombed a very small neighbour that has no air defences and no ability to strike back at Israel except crude occasional untargeted rockets - and has done it for over a year. I don’t think this has happened before in human history.
Then in Ukraine - the Russians are advancing by very slowly shelling cities one street at a time leading to a similar level of destruction but with less civilian casualties (apart from in spring 2022 where there were similar levels of civilian casualties in Mariupol)
Those ruins that fill the news will all be rebuilt when the wars end.
he US is more than a match for all the combined armies of Southern and Central Americas. I don’t think any country in those regions could even fire a missile at the US except short range missiles from Mexico or the Carribean in theory or firing at US bases in the rest of South America..
Trump is very risk averse when it comes to US soldiers and civilians. So he wouldn’t really do something that has a risk to the US.
Nothing Russia or China will or can do militarily - only political support
There is nothing Russia or China will do or can do militarily.. Russia did nothing even to support the enclave of Armenia in Azerbaijan when Azerbaijan forced them out, despite a promise to the Armenians to protect them.
The Russians and Chinese can’t even get their fighter jets to Venezuela. It’s over 10,000 km away from the nearest military base in Russia and even further to the nearest Chinese base in Djibouti.
They will make political protests but they won’t do anything military.
In 1999, the US took them over a month. This time it took them a single day.
Which shows how vastly superior the US military is over the Venezuelan military,
Russia and China don’t have any ships anywhere near or airbases or sea bases. In both cases the nearest air base is over 10,000 km away. For China it’s Djibouti, a small base for helicopters etc. For Russia it’s Engels base in Russia.
- Nearest Chinese airbase to Venezuela (very small) in Djibouti
- Distance measurement: 11,120.69 km from Djibouti to Venezuela
- Nearest Russian airbase is about the same distance
- Russia has no aircraft carriers
- Chinese aircraft carriers have never got further than Southern Indonesia
- US has many aircraft carriers at sea at any time and hundreds of bases all around the world.
And look at:
- when Israel attacked Iran. Russia and China were nowhere to be seen.
- when rebels in open topped trucks overthrew the Assad regime. The Russian soldiers focused on getting out of Syria as fast as possible taking as much of their equipment with them as they could.
- when Azerbaijan attacked the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaian - Russia had promised to protect the Armenians but just retreated even though a few thousand soldiers should have been enough to stop them - it was too caught up with the Ukraine war to help
There is no way Russia will get involved.
Venezuela is on its own. It has a few Russian mercenaries but Russia will disown them. Russia did send a military transport plane there - but it could only have sent a hundred or so mercenaries or a small amount of equipment and no way they would send actual soldiers.
There is nothing Venezuela can do to the US - it is a very unequal fight - the one destroyer that was there already was more than a match for the entire Venezuelan military.
All the countries in South and Central America are in a nuclear weapons free zone and Venezuela was one of the founding members of the treaty to prohibit all nukes - which Maduro signed and his government ratified
Venezuela is
- in a nuclear weapons free zone.
The entire south of America up to Mexico is a nuclear weapons free zone. Venezuela was one of the founding members of the Treaty of Tlatelolco in 1967 and all the countries in the region have joined it.,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tlatelolco#List_of_parties
Venezuela is also
- one of the founding members to ratify the treaty to eliminate all nukes
So there is no possibility of any nukes involved. Russia wouldn’t give them and Venezuela would refuse them.
Does not mean that the US will attack Greenland (impossible because it is in NATO) or Panama (unlikely as the objective is much less clear and he has never seriously prepared for it
Greenland is impossible because it is in NATO and it would be against the NATO treaty to attack NATO and a US general would have to refuse.
It is possible to attack Panama just as he did for Venezuela but a much less clear objective there to somehow regain control of the :Suez canal because Trump’s only objection there is to the charges for ships passing through the canal. He has never seriously prepared for unlike the Venezuelan case which has been on the go for months now.
Trump demanded that Panama reduce the fees for US ships passing through the canal or to return it to US control.
He hasn’t talked about that for a fair while.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98l9wj67jgo
Turns out it was a war over the oil reserves - the US will be helping Venezuela to extract its vast oil reserves
[CORRECTION]
MGA Venezuela does have the largest oil reserves in the world but it hardly exports any of it. It just stays in the ground.
How much oil does Venezuela have?
Estimated at 303 billion barrels (Bbbl) as of 2023, Venezuela is home to the largest known reserves of oil.
Saudi Arabia ranks second with 267.2 Bbbl, followed by Iran at 208.6 Bbbl and Canada at 163.6 Bbbl. Together, these four countries account for more than half of global oil reserves.
The United States, by comparison, holds about 55 Bbbl, placing it ninth globally. This means that Venezuela’s reserves are more than five times larger than those of the US.
…
How much oil does Venezuela export?
According to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Venezuela exported just $4.05bn worth of crude oil in 2023. This is far below other major exporters, including Saudi Arabia ($181bn), the US ($125bn), and Russia ($122bn).
In addition to crude, Venezuela exports smaller volumes of refined petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel, but these remain limited compared with its potential due to ageing refinery infrastructure, technical challenges and sanctions.
…
Why have oil exports dwindled over time?
Venezuela was a founding member of OPEC, joining at its creation on September 14, 1960. OPEC is a group of major oil-exporting countries that work together to manage supply and influence global oil prices.
The country was once a major oil exporter, especially after PDVSA was created in 1976 and foreign oil companies were nationalised. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Venezuela supplied roughly 1.5 to 2 million barrels per day to the United States, making it one of America’s largest foreign oil sources.
However, exports began to decline sharply after Hugo Chavez was elected president in 1998, as he reshaped the country’s oil sector, nationalising assets, restructuring PDVSA, and prioritising domestic and political objectives over traditional export markets. Political instability, mismanagement at PDVSA and underinvestment in infrastructure also led to falling production.
The situation worsened under President Nicolas Maduro, Hugo Chavez’s successor, when the Trump administration imposed US sanctions, first in 2017 and then tightened those in 2019. These measures restricted Venezuela’s ability to sell crude to the US and limited access to international financial markets, further reducing the country’s oil exports.
As a result, exports to the US virtually ceased, and Venezuela shifted much of its oil trade to China, which became its largest buyer, along with other countries such as India and Cuba.
…
[Trump restricted Venezuelan oil exports successfully in his first term, Biden tried to expand them, Trump tried to restrict them with less success so far]
By September 3, 2025, Venezuela’s oil exports surpassed 900,000 bpd, the highest level since November 2024, marking a nine-month high. However, exports remain significantly lower than their pre-sanction levels.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/4/venezuela-has-the-worlds-most-oil-why-doesnt-it-earn-more-from-exports
By comparison Russia exported 7.5 million bpd in September
- Crude exports rise to 5.1 mln bpd, highest since May 2023
- Oil product exports drop to 2.4 mln bpd, lowest since April 2020
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-oil-fuel-export-revenues-fell-again-september-iea-says-2025-10-14/
Aljazeera shows the figures in terms of finance rather than barrels of oil per day and you can see that Venezuela’s figures are minute.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/4/venezuela-has-the-worlds-most-oil-why-doesnt-it-earn-more-from-exports
The bombs in Venezuela are not likely to cause much damage, though civilians have likely been killed - the devastation of Gaza Strip and Donbas are very unusual for modern warfare, result of slow intense bombing campaigns for months or years of very small areas
Gaza Strip filled the news but it is a very extreme situation of a country that continually bombed a very small neighbour that has no air defences and no ability to strike back at Israel except crude occasional untargeted rockets - and has done it for over a year. I don’t think this has happened before in human history.
Then in Ukraine - the Russians are advancing by very slowly shelling cities one street at a time leading to a similar level of destruction but with less civilian casualties (apart from in spring 2022 where there were similar levels of civilian casualties in Mariupol)
Those ruins that fill the news will all be rebuilt when the wars end.
NATO is so vastly superior to Russia it can block instantly - it won’t even try
And there is no risk at all for the USA or other countries of that happening.
NATO is so vastly superior to Russia it could block it instantly.
Admiral Radakin is the only one to explain this clearly, that if Russia was to try to attack NATO then we could stop it immediately because of our vast superiority in the sea and sky.
There is no way that it could be a long multi-year war like in WW2. If say they tied to take the tiny city of Narva in Estonia or to cut through the Suwalki gap, a strip of Lithunaia between Belarus and Kaliningrad - NATO would be there virtually immediately, within minutes. They would have complete air superiority over the contested region, for a small region like that, within minutes.
If it happened at sea they’d have complete superiority in the sea as well within hours.
Also with modern drones - we could easily build ten million drones or more - that’s one every 10 centimetres patrolling the front line. Even a single soldier couldn’t go over the line undetected.
Ukraine’s drones keep getting shot down. But in peace time they wouldn’t be and if any were shot down, the other drones would respond instantly and within minutes the fighter jets would be there in the air.
Ukraine doesn’t have this air or sea superiority. It’s fighter jets are similar in technology to Russia’s and it has only a tenth of the number Rusia has. The ratio is even lower in the sea, 0 large military vessels compared to 20 for Russia yet it has sunk a third of the Rusisan Black Sea fleet. If it had tomahawks it could sink the entire fleet.
Admiral Radakin compared NATO’s superiority in the air over Russia with Israel’s superiority over Iran during that brief 10 day bombing program of Iran when they could do virtually nothing to stop them., The Iranian higher jets could only fly as far away as they could get from the Israeli ones or hide. And that was Israel with its F-16s, 1980s technology
Well NATO’s fifth generation F-35 is as superior to Russia’s current fighter jets (roughly equivalent to the F-16) as the F-16 is to the ancient Iranian higher jets.
See my:
BLOG: No, Putin CAN’T attack NATO
— it is way overmatched in the sea and air
— any attempt would be blocked immediately
You can read it here:
https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/no-putin-cant-attack-nato-it-is-way
NATO is so vastly superior to Russia it can block instantly - it won’t even try
And there is no risk at all for the USA or other countries of that happening.
NATO is so vastly superior to Russia it could block it instantly.
Admiral Radakin is the only one to explain this clearly, that if Russia was to try to attack NATO then we could stop it immediately because of our vast superiority in the sea and sky.
There is no way that it could be a long multi-year war like in WW2. If say they tied to take the tiny city of Narva in Estonia or to cut through the Suwalki gap, a strip of Lithunaia between Belarus and Kaliningrad - NATO would be there virtually immediately, within minutes. They would have complete air superiority over the contested region, for a small region like that, within minutes.
If it happened at sea they’d have complete superiority in the sea as well within hours.
Also with modern drones - we could easily build ten million drones or more - that’s one every 10 centimetres patrolling the front line. Even a single soldier couldn’t go over the line undetected.
Ukraine’s drones keep getting shot down. But in peace time they wouldn’t be and if any were shot down, the other drones would respond instantly and within minutes the fighter jets would be there in the air.
Ukraine doesn’t have this air or sea superiority. It’s fighter jets are similar in technology to Russia’s and it has only a tenth of the number Rusia has. The ratio is even lower in the sea, 0 large military vessels compared to 20 for Russia yet it has sunk a third of the Rusisan Black Sea fleet. If it had tomahawks it could sink the entire fleet.
Admiral Radakin compared NATO’s superiority in the air over Russia with Israel’s superiority over Iran during that brief 10 day bombing program of Iran when they could do virtually nothing to stop them., The Iranian higher jets could only fly as far away as they could get from the Israeli ones or hide. And that was Israel with its F-16s, 1980s technology
Well NATO’s fifth generation F-35 is as superior to Russia’s current fighter jets (roughly equivalent to the F-16) as the F-16 is to the ancient Iranian higher jets.
See my:
BLOG: No, Putin CAN’T attack NATO
— it is way overmatched in the sea and air
— any attempt would be blocked immediately
You can read it here:
https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/no-putin-cant-attack-nato-it-is-way
