Phil Gunson
Caracas, Venezuela’s neglected but beautiful capital, sits behind a forested, over 9,000-foot tall mountain that obscures the city’s proximity to the sea. From the summit, on a clear day, the Caribbean looks close enough to touch. Out there, over the horizon, like a scattering of toys in a bathtub, floats a good portion of the U.S. Fourth Fleet, packing enough lethal hardware in Tomahawk missiles alone to level large parts of the city. B-52H strategic bombers and supersonic F-35 stealth fighters have prowled the edge of the country’s territorial waters.
There are also signs of President Nicolás Maduro’s response to the American military buildup. Along the highway that winds up to the capital from the coast, the Venezuelan military has placed concrete tank traps beside the tarmac, presumably at the ready in case the amphibious assault group onboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima should attempt a landing.
Perhaps it’s the mountain that stands in the way of the American military swarm, or maybe it’s their feeling that there’s so little to be done about it, but caraqueños are, for now, going about their normal business. If the traffic is less snarled than it once was, if the restaurants aren’t as full, it has less to do with the specter of war than with Venezuela’s hyperinflation and a repressive security apparatus. Even down at the coast, the American military menace is treated mostly with typical Venezuelan ribaldry, rather than dread. “Have you heard?” people ask each other, jokingly. “The Marines have arrived!”
For all the deadly weapons floating off the coast, it seems increasingly clear that all the Trump administration’s push for regime change in Venezuela has done so far is create a potentially disastrous political trap. If the administration fails to oust Mr. Maduro, as is its apparent goal, that will almost certainly grant the dictator a political victory and deal a lasting blow to the Venezuelan opposition. If it succeeds, and Mr. Maduro finally falls, it may plunge the nation, already in crisis, into a potentially violent breakdown. No matter what happens, everyone loses.
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