SSI Live 119 – On Venezuela

MAJ Brennan Deveraux and Dr. R. Evan Ellis

 

This episode discusses Latin American reactions to the recent US operation in Venezuela, noting that some governments expressed criticism but with notable restraint due to domestic political and economic considerations. Dr. R. Evan Ellis explains that the operation exposed the ineffectiveness of Russian and Chinese air defense systems in Venezuela, which may influence future military procurement and perceptions of US capabilities in the region. The conversation also explores how China, Russia, Iran, and other extra hemispheric actors may recalibrate their engagement in Latin America in response to renewed U.S. focus and pressure.

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John Deni
Hello and welcome to SSI Live. You’ve long known the Strategic Studies Institute, or SSI, at the US Army War College, as the go-to location for issues related to national security and military strategy, with an emphasis on geostrategic analysis. SSI conducts strategic research and analysis to support the US Army War College curricula; assist and inform Army, DoD, and US government leadership; and serve as a bridge to the wider strategic community. Now, we are bringing you access to SSI analyses, scholars, and guests, through this, the SSI Live podcast series. Thanks for joining us.

Stephanie Crider
I’m in the studio with Dr. R. Evan Ellis and our guest host, Major Brennan Deveraux.
Ellis is a research professor of Latin American studies at the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), with a focus on the region’s relationships with China and other non-Western hemisphere actors as well as transnational organized crime and populism in the region.
Deveraux is a US Army strategist serving as a national security researcher at the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute. He has three defense-related master’s degrees and focuses his research on military innovation, emerging technology management, and the characteristics of future warfare.

Brennan Deveraux
Okay, great. I’m looking forward to this conversation. Evan, a lot going on. The region, in Latin America, really interesting right now, not only with a resurgent US focus as we look at strategy, but everyone is tracking the operation in Venezuela.
And I don’t think we need to really go through the events and the lead up to and the why, I think that conversation has been had. But I’d like to pick your brain today because I don’t think we get many opportunities to really sit down with an expert on the region and talk about some of the broader implications, if that works for you.

R. Evan Ellis
Absolutely. It’s great to talk with you, Brennan.

Deveraux
So first, let’s just start with some general impressions then. How are other Latin American countries responding to the actions in Venezuela?

Ellis
It’s really a range of responses, many of which are what you would predict. So, you have Lula in Brazil, the president there who has indicated that this is unacceptable; he’s expressed reservations but with some degree of caution, understanding that he has elections coming up this October and thus doesn’t want to put himself too far on the left of the spectrum as the principal opponent to the US in the region. You have, predictably, Gustavo Petro, the current leftist president of Colombia, who has indicated this was a barbaric act. Indeed, under his instruction, Colombia called a special session of the UN Security Council to talk about this.
Indeed, some of that rhetoric got him on the radar screen with President Trump, who had suggested that maybe Petro, with his own lack of control over drug production in his country, could be the next, which precipitated Petro kind of backpedaling a little bit and turning down some of the tone. You have others in the region who have bet strongly on the United States, who have been extremely supportive.
I’ll just mention a handful. You have the Luis Abinader government in the Dominican Republic, who again provided access to important US air bases in his country that played a role in those operations again has been very supportive. You had the Kamla Persad-Bissessar government, the new UNM government in Trinidad and Tobago, which, again, went on a bit of a ledge to support the US in the lead up to the operation, and I say is now looking pretty good.
And then, of course, you have the traditional US allies in various parts of South America. So, Javier Milei in his government in Argentina, the Ecuadorian government of Daniel Noboa just to name a few, who will, again, have been relatively supportive. And so, again, those you’d expect to be critical have been critical, but I would say tempered in their criticism.
Another I would mention is the left-oriented Claudia Sheinbaum government in Mexico, who again have indicated that this was problematic. But again, Sheinbaum, understanding that they’re in a critical renegotiation of the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement and about 90 percent of Mexican exports depend on access to the US market, Sheinbaum has been tempered in taking criticism of what the US has done too far.

Deveraux
That’s a lot. And what it tells me is you are an expert in the region, and I know, I know this. I read a lot of your work, and you’ve been studying this region for a long time. I think what would really help for our listeners—did any of these reactions stand out to you? Was any of these unexpected? You talked Brazil. I know Brazil kind of sits the fence sometimes, but did anything really kind of catch you off guard by a country? Maybe someone not speaking out or speaking out overly aggressively? The Colombia, for example, was an obvious reaction. Is there any of that on the other side of that spectrum?

Ellis
I think to a degree, the restraint of those who you’d expect to be critical has been instructive. And so, again, the degree to which Lula in Brazil seems to be trying to avoid becoming, you know, too shrill or leading too much. The anti-US pushback in the region, I think, was a calculated decision or, you know, to a certain degree, the degree to which Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico was very measured in her response, understanding that in ideological terms, this is something that goes against everything that she and Mexico stands for.
It’s instructive, if nothing else, the concerns and the desires for different reasons of different what you’d call left-oriented governments in the region to try to avoid conflicts with Washington for domestic political reasons, as well as to avoid, you know, being kind of on Washington’s target screen.

Deveraux
And that’s the two-level game we talk about a lot, right? It’s one thing to have a loud, boisterous opinion about something as it relates to your country, but you then have to turn internally and see what the country says, too. Then finding that balance is a unique skill set that politicians have.
So, I will shift us to the actual operation itself, not its conduct, but one of the things I heard you say, the operation in Venezuela highlighted the ineffectiveness of Russian- and Chinese-supplied air defense systems. And you’re not the only person to say it. I saw that in a couple of articles. I’m sure this is going to be a major topic for military analysts. More broadly, you know, what is the role of air defense? Is it penetrable? I know we do the big scary anti-access aerial-denial (A2/AD) stuff. I’m hoping you can actually talk it more specifically to Latin America.
If we’re looking at these countries that look to China or Russia for exquisite military equipment, or that might have the opportunity to now look to the United States for military equipment. Do you think that this is going to have some sort of shift in future military sales, as we look at the effectiveness of the operation and the ineffectiveness of the systems designed to stop it?

Ellis
I think, in part, there’s a difference between what you see in the media or in the political domain versus what the military decisionmakers who understand the details of these type of operations will decide to do. In general, I think there was a lot of media expectation that the Russian S-300, you know, medium-range air defense system, for example, would perform relatively well or at least present a clear threat to the US.
There is some other media references to, for example, the dispersed Igla-S man-portable air defense (MANPAD) that munitions that would create some sort of threat. And in the end, none of those really produced any significant effects whatsoever. But when you looked at the detail, what it was really all about was in part that we, at least what publicly been released, had a pretty sophisticated, you know, layered series of things that we did that had to involve information warfare, space, the electronic warfare space, of course, kinetic strikes against some of these sites. It’s about as much detail as I can get in this program.
I think, for military planners, there was never the expectation that the S-300s would be that effective, maybe a little bit more than they were. It wasn’t sure, you know, whether the Chinese JYL-1 one or JY27-A radars would be effective or really play a role at all. And so, I think it was interesting that they were just completely nonfactors.
Very few people who were actually military professionals thought that people carefully positioned with these MANPADs, you know, the Igla-S would do anything unless they just happened to get a lucky shot off. And so, I think at the end of the day, with respect to Russian equipment, there’s an understanding that already Russian equipment is problematic because the ongoing war in the Ukraine because of the, you know, difficulty in getting spares and, you know, Rosoboronexport, or Rostec’s, kind of poor record in, in doing, you know, maintenance and other things. It’s already been a hard market for the Russians in general. So, I think this will contribute to some degree to that.
I think the Chinese, understandably, this probably took a hit to interest in some of their capabilities. But in general, there’s an understanding that the Chinese equipment is relatively cheap. It has, you know, some good performance in other places. For example, the Chinese J10 fighter, I believe it was, got some attention when it performed relatively well in the recent skirmish between the Indians and the Pakistanis. I believe it was. And so, I think military professionals looking at these systems in a more kind of technical context will, you know, continue to shy away from certain things but will not completely turn away from, you know, cheaper Chinese systems or mid-range Russian systems just because of what happens here. But, you know, it certainly doesn’t help the case for those trying to sell those systems.

Deveraux
And the inverse, it probably helps the case for those trying to sell some of the US systems, right?

Ellis
Absolutely, yes.

Deveraux
I think you bring up a really good point, though. So, I come from a field artillery background, one of the, you know, primary missions we talk about, as an observer, is suppressing those air defense systems and generally trained and accepted that they are defeatable.
I mean, best case scenario, you strike it with artillery round, it’s not going to do much anymore. But you saturate it. You understand it has limited access to things, limited time to execute, those kind of things. And, I think you hit a really interesting point that there is a perception outside of the professionals who are thinking about that, that thing where we talk about China’s A2/AD bubble. “We must operate with inside it.” “We have to penetrate.” I don’t want to get shot down, but it’s not, it’s not a 100 percent impenetrable shield either. And I think when we see images of Israel being able to shoot down hundreds of rockets coming in, so that’s what we think of when we think of this defense system and say, “Why don’t I have that?” But to your point, people are still going to buy equipment, and sometimes the cheapest equipment is the equipment that you can field at the time.
So, I’m going to shift us a little bit to some of those actors outside of just selling equipment. You’ve talked a lot about the impact that what you call these extra-hemispheric actors have in the region—the Russia, the China, the Iran, potential non-state actors as well. Any thoughts on how the recent US attention in Latin America, so, both highlighted in policy as we look at the National Security Strategy (NSS) as well as direct action, whether that’s moving vessels, and/or in the very visible Venezuela operation, are going to shift some of the desire of the regional nations—so putting it to the regional nations lens to look to these external influences, whether that’s for regime security, further economic partnership, you know, or just as a potential partner of choice?

Ellis
Absolutely. And I think it’s important to recognize that this will probably, you know, increase the hesitation by many to engage with China in certain areas known to be of concern with the United States. And that would probably include military-to-military cooperation, space cooperation, and maybe cooperation in some certain, you know, digital or other strategic sectors.
But I would go back to even the first Trump administration and the very clear pushback that you saw in the 2017 National Security Strategy. And certainly, with President Trump returning to power now and the new National Security Strategy highlighting our emphasis on the Western Hemisphere and the explicit intention to push back against extra-hemispheric actors, broadly understood to mean China, especially in the military space.
You know, Latin American nations can say they have been advised. And it’s interesting, in my own travels around the region, even last year, it was striking to see how certain partners that, for example, the Argentines who used to train Chinese, PLA (People’s Liberations Army) officials in their own national defense institutions have subtly stopped doing that, even though they send and continue to send people to their Chinese counterpart institutions in places like Nanjing for the command and general staff college, or, for example, the way in which Colombia or others, or even Mexico, have been flirting with Chinese liaisons in the space domain, however, again, have become much more cautious about doing so.
My sense is that, you know, certainly the fact that we just demonstrated our willingness to, you know, take out a foreign, you know, leader, Nicolás Maduro, you know, albeit one that we did not recognize as legitimate—and do so with a sophisticated military operation—kind of adds to that sense of, you know, the US, you know, if it sees certain things as problematic in the security domain, may act—maybe in economic fashion, maybe in military fashion.
But my sense is that even understanding that the US will act and, thus, with partners shying away from some of that military space cooperation, digital cooperation, they will still try to make money where they can, even our very pro-US partner Argentina, the Javier Milei, for example, still is selling a lot of soybeans and other agricultural goods to China, as well as allowing multiple Chinese companies in the lithium sector to invest there and exploit that for exportation of lithium to Argentina, just to give a few examples.
There are other actors who, frankly, try not to get, I mentioned Brazil before, too far on the US bad side, but still continue to engage with China, even understanding that is an item of concern. I mean, the Brazilians literally have named three out of their four attachés in China at the general officer (GO) level. You know, so even a colonel—that says you’re serious when you’re naming three GOs out of, you know, four attaché, it says that you mean it.
And, you know, the Brazilians, just about two years ago, hosted 13 Chinese GOs in their own national defense institutions. They had the Chinese into an exercise, Operation Formosa, that they… and so there are a lot of actors that may shy away from doing too many explicitly military or strategic things to the Chinese, but there are some actors in the region, Brazil, I think, explicitly, that will not be entirely deterred.
And, you know, that’s the message also that they want to send that they’re not going to stop doing these things with China just because they know it bothers Washington.

Deveraux
I think that’s okay. It’s okay to do something with China. So I, I would go back to a paradigm that I struggled to break out of, and I only did a couple years ago. And I think that it’s indoctrinated, not, I know that word has a connotation but really ingrained in American culture—and definitely in the military—when we look at a “us versus them” or “it’s us or them” kind of mentality and, and it comes out of the Cold War. You know, you’re either with the United States or you’re with the Soviet Union, you’re with the West or you’re not.
But that’s not reality, especially as we shift away from our backyard into China’s backyard. Right? Some of those nations aren’t going to have a choice not to deal with China, who’s right there economically. And I’d be curious, as we’re looking at those countries, and you already gave examples of, you know, some of the operations, some of the actions that these nations are doing with China, I’d be curious on kind of that lens, if they feel that there’s any sort of pressure to say, “I can’t do this because it looks like I’m against the US or against China,” or does China offer them the, “Hey, you can work with both of us. You don’t have to choose,” kind of mentality? Which is a real shift, I think, for how we approach the problem.

Ellis
It’s a great question, Brennan. And I think clearly there is an understanding of the pressure from the US, especially when there’s cooperation in the military and in other domains. I think, again, you know, some of those often-explicit threats, and again, it’s in our new National Security Strategy. And so, I think from the US, the message is very clear.
Now, on the Chinese side, it’s interesting to see that they’re playing a very different game. As a matter of fact, just three days after we published our NSS, the Chinese have published their third white paper toward Latin America. They’d released one in 2008, one in 2016, and, you know, this most recent one in which they basically said that they intend to continue full speed ahead, not only in economic initiatives, but also in areas such as governance, working, you know, not just on the bilateral level, but in the multilateral level through things like CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), where the US is not present; working with congresspeople; working with politicians; also working in space and technology (SNT) collaboration and artificial intelligence; working in the security domain in areas like cybersecurity, which will cause a great deal of concern to the US; as well as other areas like money laundering and counter-narcotics; and, indeed, also talking about people-to-people exchanges. And so, the Chinese regularly bring over to the PRC (People’s Republic of China) everyone from, you know, police officials to military officers to judges to journalists to think tank personnel, and they basically indicated that they’re going to double down on some of these things, something that raises some pretty significant, you know, espionage concerns and in others.
Now, the Chinese in places like Venezuela, notably, have kind of rolled with the punches here. They made some comments about that, you know, that this was unacceptable. And, it’s interesting to see that the Chinese have tried to score points for themselves by discomfort about what the US is doing in their messaging to other countries and in the international domain.
But, what they don’t seem to be doing is showing either, you know, through their actions in Venezuela or elsewhere that they, you know, have their backs. I mean, the Chinese were nowhere to be seen in terms of any type of actual, you know, defense or role in the defense of Venezuela when the US came in. The Chinese have not been, at least, you know, publicly, you know, pushing back against, you know, what the US came out with in the NSS, you know, saying, you know, “You can work with us, we’ll protect you against the gringo” and, you know, pressure.
Again, they’re trying to score points on this, you know, speaking out against the, so to speak, US bullying. I would say they’re trying economically to take advantage of concerns about the United States. And so, this week, actually, Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister is actually in China, I believe, meeting and talking with the Chinese.
Brazil has increased its sales of soy and meat and other products. And other countries are silently doing the same thing. China is kind of quietly taking advantage of this, but it is not overtly pushing back and trying to get countries to say, “Yeah, you push back against the United States, we’ve got your back.” You don’t see any of that from the Chinese.

Deveraux
It’s interesting. And China often has a pretty good narrative for this cooperation with countries, like in Latin America, like in Africa and some parts of Asia would be BRICs, the Global South, kind of an underlying narrative that not necessarily an “us versus them” mentality of the Cold War, but a “I’m one of you. We’re not the country that’s coming in and taking your resources.” And then they might come in and take your resources. But “we’re not the country that has historically done this to you. In fact, we’ve been a victim of this and moved to prosperity.” I’d be curious on your thoughts on that and how that kind of plays into, you know, what you just talked about.

Ellis
It’s a great point. It’s quite ironic because the same China that is imposing territorial claims on its neighbors almost up to their borders in the South China Sea with its famous, you know, 9- now 10-dash line, almost destroys Philippine Coast Guard and fishing vessels with water cannons, and other things that regularly, you know, contests US and other actors doing legitimate freedom-of-navigation [operations] FONOPs in that area that, you know, builds militarized islands, you know, in that area, China that has regularly, you know, ignored, you know, United Nations law on this, the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) stipulations on those things now talks about, you know, the US, you know, bullying in its near abroad. And so, there is a certain amount of duality to what the Chinese are trying to do.
But beyond that, you know, my sense is that China tries to respond obliquely. It is not investing in the explicit defense of partners, especially those that it knows are going to lose. For example, and you alluded to some of this, China, through its Global Governance Initiative, that it first rolled out with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization but now has applied to Latin America in its white paper.
It’s basically saying, you know, we don’t think that anyone should impose rules upon the other, that there’s no, you know, right or wrong, etc., etc. The same thing with its Global Civilization Initiative. You of course, just mentioned the Global Development Initiative, in which China fundamentally says, “You know, we developing countries need to stick together to help each other work together. We understand each other and in ways that those developed nations like the United States and Europe,” they don’t exactly say that, but they imply that. “And thus, we China, you know, want to support you by essentially, you know, penetrating in, you know, in developing your market in areas like artificial intelligence, where we want to set standards that benefit our companies, where we want to come in and work with you on, on space, with the lure of taking some of your personnel to space. But in consideration, getting access to your Western hemisphere space facilities, etc., etc.”
And so, the Chinese are a very kind of sophisticated that in the name of things that sound good, like development, they are moving in and using that as an excuse to try to position themselves in these technology areas or other things that explicitly cause problems strategically for the United States in these sectors.

Deveraux
And back to that two-level game. They also probably sound really good to a domestic audience. “Look how we can advance. Look how we can be developed. Look how we can take advantage of this opportunity from an investment.” That’s really interesting.
Let’s flip the kind of focus. So, instead of the Latin American countries and their perspective, let’s go to those extra-hemispheric actors. What do we think about the motivation of China to come in and secure its strategic investments? Or, you know, we talk about an opportunistic non-state actor to disrupt US efforts to really, you know, secure the region. Does recent activity or US policy change how they might be looking at their approach to Latin America, even if the Latin American countries themselves might have shifted their, kind of, desire to have them in there?

Ellis
The first part of the question about, you know, China’s securing its strategic investments is interesting. In the short-term, they have certainly, again, rolled with the punches on Venezuela. For example, the embargoed oil, which was Chinese oil with their tanker The Centuries. There are some reports that maybe the fourth or fifth tankers that the US more recently has seized may have had some Chinese ownership tied to it. In addition to that, you see that the Chinese, again, you know, making some, you know, complaints. I mean, clearly some of that 50 million barrels of embargoed oil that is being put under US supervision and sold and put into account for the Venezuelans, apparently some of that was originally supposed to go to China. And I believe that some of the, the smaller what often are called “teapot refiners” in China that had been taking surreptitious deliver on this oil and paying for it in cryptocurrencies.
The Chinese government seems to have largely kind of sold those, you know, Chinese companies, you know, down the river. But even while it kind of rolls with the punches about what Washington is doing in Venezuela, it is good in the fine print of its contracts, whether it’s in the hotel sector, construction sector, or elsewhere, to make sure that it gets paid even when it’s things may not provide any net value.
I remember it had a disastrous performance on the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric dam in Ecuador, but it was actually able to renegotiate that, saying basically, “Okay, we’ll give you some money and take responsibility for some of the bad work that we’ve done.” But oh, by the way, we’re also going to give you a, I believe it was $400 million line of credit. So, we’ll actually get more work out of this and more control of the facility for ourselves.
And so, the Chinese have a very good way of working through lawfare or subsequent negotiations of winning, even when they run into problems. And, I think you see this across the region, again, with also the relationships that they build with many government personnel. Sometimes, places like Nicaragua, where there are non-transparent contracts in the mining sector, in others, construction contracts, the Chinese get very, very generous rates of interest, very, very generous, arrangements on fees, indemnification things so that the less transparent, the more kind of anti-US and isolated the country, the more that whatever happens with the Chinese, they win.
Now, with respect to the second part of your question, whether there are impacts on the way that, you know, China or other extra hemispheric actors approach Latin America, I would say there’s different approaches from different actors. So, on the one hand, I think China’s kind of reeling in Venezuela in trying to figure out how to maneuver with whoever is the current government, to continue to make money there.
I remember during my time when I was at the State Department back in 2019–2020, that, you know, even while China was complaining that our pressure against Nicolás Maduro was bad at the time, they are also secretly negotiating with Juan Guaidó, the de jure president, so that whoever won, they would have a stake in the game. And, I suspect that they’re kind of quietly trying to make that adjustment in Venezuela right now.
I haven’t seen a broader effort to change their policies in other parts of Latin America, but I am sure that they’re reassessing some of the risks, trying to figure out where the US could act next. You know, could their positions in Cuba be at risk? Could their positions in Nicaragua, you know, be at risk if the US continues with action there? Now, with respect to, you know, Russia and of course, Russia’s has been a loser on the embargoed oil of its own, although it does have close ties to, you know, Delcy Rodriguez, Cuba as well has ties to some of the other actors working with Delcy.
And so, I suspect, although I don’t have firsthand knowledge about this, that Russia and Cuba are playing a delicate game of trying to figure out how to work with different power brokers to keep from being completely thrown under the bus.
I suspect that the actor that will wind up on the short end of the stick here—because they are weakened and they have limited options—is Iran and Hezbollah. Hezbollah, of course, their leadership being weakened after the Israeli strikes against their leadership in Lebanon last year. And of course, strikes against Iran itself. And now, US pressure and the virtual risk of a collapse of the Iranian regime. And so, to the extent that Iran, really beyond the oil sector and some arms, wasn’t really a key stakeholder for Delcy Rodriguez, nor are they much of an opposition, either Iran or Hezbollah, to help much. I suspect that of all the actors that to comply with US pressure that are greatest at risk of being thrown under the bus, with the least they can do about it, Iran and Hezbollah, if there is follow through by the US administration, is probably the most vulnerable at this point.

Deveraux
Let’s keep going with Iran and potentially a North Korea, or any really country like that. I’m sorry to ask you to step outside of the Latin America bubble, but what might they be thinking as we’re looking at, you know, an action that removes an adversarial, you know, regime from its country efficiently, quickly, quietly. And we see tension in Iran right now. We always, I mean, give me three or four months, we’ll see some tension in North Korea. Does this kind of change some conversations over there? Any thoughts? I know we’re outside of Latin America.

Ellis
I think it certainly does change some. So, the Iran case is particularly interesting because we can remember that just days before the decisive US action to capture Nicolás Maduro and bring him to justice in the United States, President Trump had made a threat against the Iranian regime, who in confronting, you know, protests of really unprecedented size, was looking towards using violence and, indeed, has subsequently used significant violence. I think there’s an estimate that maybe as many as 2,000 protesters in Iran have already been killed. But, you know, the question of, you know, did US willingness to act in Venezuela and previous US action, you know, the B-2 strikes against the Fordo complex and the other nuclear complexes in Iran, did that increase the credibility of the US threat and perhaps limit Iran’s repression against the protesters?
It would appear in that case, not so much. Although it may have caused some hesitation. Now, in other areas, you know, always hard to know what Kim Jong-Un is thinking in North Korea. I think as we look at other parts of the world, you know, certainly, I think the US has shown that its capabilities and its ability to use them in surprising ways might exceed what was previously calculated just by counting up the numbers of systems.
What he’s done in Venezuela, I’m sure also, as you know, China thinks about what the US might do with respect to Taiwan, or what, you know, potentially, you know, Russian and Putin think about, you know, what the US might do in in Europe, although that’s a harder issue. What’s happened in Venezuela, I think colors the interpretation of previously made or indirect threats in all other parts of the world.

Deveraux
So, if we could shift it off of what the US did, there was some commentary that came out right after the operation about what this actually means for what another country could do, the precedent’s set. Any thoughts on what a China is thinking about with relation to Taiwan or a Russia with Ukraine? Although I don’t think Russia has the capability to go in and snatch up President Zelensky at the moment. But thoughts on that as maybe a precedent or just in general what adversaries might be thinking about?

Ellis
That’s a great question. So, there’s the question of, you know, whether there is a quid pro quo and spheres of influence versus the ability to actually, kind of, copy the technical example. I would say more the quid pro quo than the ability to copy.
I think it’s a relatively unique situation that the US has done. You know, certainly China has long said even going back to the first, you know, Trump administration. “Well, sure, we’re willing to respect what you do in your near abroad if you respect, you know, our management of our own near abroad,” that, by the way, happens to include this, you know, pesky semi-autonomous, province of Taiwan and maybe other actors like the Japanese in the Philippines. “So, you know, we’ll respect you if you respect us.” And so those types of quid pro quos maybe get rehashed, but I’m not sure, you know, how much actual impact that they have.
With respect to the copy ability of it. I think a couple of unique considerations in Venezuela. Number one, you know, you have a situation where you know, however much the military leadership has, you know, stuck with Maduro because they don’t want to return to democratic accountability. That does not mean that they do not despise him, nor does it mean that the population, you know, does not understand that he is not legitimate. And so, I think, especially when you had the authorization publicly of, you know, CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) engagement and, you know, you sprinkle in there, you know, was a $50 million, you know, reward you had just for Nicolás Maduro, unprecedented.
So, you know, money plus a lot of people who are just dying to get rid of Maduro anyway and who don’t believe in his project. I think you get a lot of people willing to talk and cooperate in a lot of different ways. And so, I think it was no great surprise that we knew, you know, exactly where Maduro was, even, you know, according to some public accounts, you know, like what his dogs like to eat and things like that.
So, the question is obviously that, you know, with a country like Ukraine, with Russia, who has fought a bitter battle, I think you would be hard pressed to find, you know, 10 Ukrainians who would be interested in selling out Zelensky to help out the Russians. So, a little bit of a different context there. And frankly, if you look at the intelligence planning and you look at the amount of coordination in the systems that the US used to go in with precision.
And, oh, by the way, if you look at the geography of it, given that, you know, we had forces, you know, right there, you know, literally just miles off of the Venezuelan coast and supporting facilities in the continental United States are, again, you know, an hour or so, depending on the place, you know, flight away. And so, the ability to put lots of different types of forces, you know, on both in terms of, you know, intelligence, surveillance, the forces generating kinetic effects, etc., it was a lot easier versus, again, if you think about, you know, Russia flying halfway across Ukraine.
Now, arguably there could be a temptation of the Chinese, the PLA thinking, “Well, you know, why couldn’t we just, you know, grab William Lai? We probably have Taiwanese that we could, you know, in the name of being co-Chinese, with sprinkling a little money around your willingness, you know, to cooperate.”
Although my sense is that the, and of course, the geographic distances are similar, although my sense is that the level of sophistication of Taiwanese defenses, the level of patriotism that the Taiwanese feel, and in probably the differences in really what the high-end, best-of-the-best special operators in the US can do versus maybe where their Chinese counterparts are.
I don’t think the Chinese are quite there yet, nor are they willing necessarily to risk that, which involves, you know, not just taking the leader out and trying to bully the rest of the country but somehow, you know, hoping that, you know, once you take out one leader that, well, what do you do then?
And I think, you know, one of the big differences, even if the PRC could grab President Lai, is there’s an understanding of that’s not going to get you to, you know, Taiwan’s surrender. You know, you’re going to need an option for the PRC, much more boots on the ground rather than you just grabbing the leader.

Deveraux
And I think that’s a great point.
And I struggled when I saw that—the article—and then I saw some commentary on it as well. There is an idea that maybe you could try to do something. I don’t know their technical capabilities. I don’t know if they could manage it. Political objectives are inherently different. Right? And in all those situations, the Russian political objective against Ukraine doesn’t disappear just because you got the leader. Taiwan doesn’t necessarily just capitulate because you got their leader. It’s a different dynamic of what it is you’re trying to do.
I know we could talk a lot, and now we’re borderline getting into some speculation as we look at the future. And I know I’m asking a lot of you there. I want to thank you for the time. This has been great. I know that there’s a lot to look forward to coming out of the implications and coming out of your region, which is an exciting time for those who study Latin America. So, this has been great.

Ellis
Brennan, it’s always a pleasure to do this. And, and again, I think those of us who followed the region for quite some time, one of the things that’s refreshing is the perception that there is this understanding that there is no region in the world that most directly impacts US physical security, nor economic security, than the region which is adjacent physically to us. And so, the idea of getting some more focus on the region, some more military thinking, some more strategic thinking, I think these are welcome changes, but stay tuned for the ride, because I think we are only at the beginning.

Deveraux
Great. Thanks, Evan.

Ellis
Thank you, Brennan.

Deni
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