2025 U.S. - Venezuela conflict

[brihard]

Authoritarianism is domestic. Military adventurism and wars of conquest are not domestic.
The badge of tyrant might fit for one who is authoritarian at home and an imperialist conqueror abroad.

Fair, but in this instance it’s indicative of the same attitude towards abusing the federal capacity for unilateral use of coercive force.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Fair, but in this instance it’s indicative of the same attitude towards abusing the federal capacity for unilateral use of coercive force.

And they might be in trouble....

‘At What Point Does This Cross a Line Into International Criminality?’​

An expert on international law weighs in on the legality and global implications of the Trump administration’s drug boat killings.

According to Philippe Sands, who frequently argues before international tribunals, the administration’s actions are “contrary to the basic precepts of international law.” The question, of course, is what that means as a practical matter and whether foreign governments — including the countries whose citizens have been killed in the attacks — might try to do anything about it.

As it happens, Sands recently published a well-reviewed book, 38 Londres Street, about efforts by foreign countries to bring the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to justice.

In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, he discussed the lessons from the Pinochet case, the relevance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Trump immunity decision and the potential mechanisms for international legal accountability. Prosecuting a senior U.S. official, let alone a president, in a foreign court would be immensely difficult politically — but it may not be impossible.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/11/01/trump-boat-strikes-international-law-interview-00632077

 

[brihard]

And they might be in trouble....

‘At What Point Does This Cross a Line Into International Criminality?’​

An expert on international law weighs in on the legality and global implications of the Trump administration’s drug boat killings.

According to Philippe Sands, who frequently argues before international tribunals, the administration’s actions are “contrary to the basic precepts of international law.” The question, of course, is what that means as a practical matter and whether foreign governments — including the countries whose citizens have been killed in the attacks — might try to do anything about it.

As it happens, Sands recently published a well-reviewed book, 38 Londres Street, about efforts by foreign countries to bring the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to justice.

In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, he discussed the lessons from the Pinochet case, the relevance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Trump immunity decision and the potential mechanisms for international legal accountability. Prosecuting a senior U.S. official, let alone a president, in a foreign court would be immensely difficult politically — but it may not be impossible.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/11/01/trump-boat-strikes-international-law-interview-00632077

The Pinochet case was interesting. Going from memory here, so pardon the lack of precision, but the UK Law Lords ruled that as a former head of state, he no longer enjoyed absolute immunity from arrest in a foreign country, for egregious crimes committed when he was a head of state. For comparison, a serving head of state is held by customary international law to generally be immune from foreign arrest or prosecution due to state immunity- but for some of the worst ‘universal jurisdiction’ crimes like torture or genocide there’s been a tendency in recent decades away from that immunity being truly absolute. The Law Lords’ decision in Pinochet is some of the only case law on this and is quite persuasive in suggesting “you don’t get to do this shit anymore”. This would be part of the logic were, say, Putin’s plane to land in an emergency in Poland. State immunity for official actions when the head of state/head of government has historically followed to living person in perpetuity after their time in office, but that’s fading.

The whole question of ICC jurisdiction and all that is of course a separate matter. Realistically, for political reasons alone, the president of the U.S. enjoys effective impunity (as opposed to immunity). Nobody’s gonna pick that fight.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

You have 6 major port cities, capital city and whole bunch of smaller fishing villages/ports on a roughly 1500km coastline. Taking one major port (Maiqueta) and the government buildings in Caracas is about the best you are going to get. Toppling the government is going to be easy (If they have not already abandoned the coast, in which case it just got harder. But now you need to deal with the gangs and that means shooting a whole bunch of young males dead. It will consume all of their current resources just to achieve occupying portions of those two cities and the main airport.
Unless a sizable chunk of the military is willing to swear allegiance to the new government, you have a real mess on your hands. If they can get the new government landed and the above military support, then the US is going to have to support them getting the basic infrastructure back up and running, that will help them hold the port, airport and Capital, but give time for the old regime loyalists to ferment old wounds of the rural people being "forgotten", all while preventing said government from helping the rural poor.

 

[brihard]

You have 6 major port cities, capital city and whole bunch of smaller fishing villages/ports on a roughly 1500km coastline. Taking one major port (Maiqueta) and the government buildings in Caracas is about the best you are going to get. Toppling the government is going to be easy (If they have not already abandoned the coast, in which case it just got harder. But now you need to deal with the gangs and that means shooting a whole bunch of young males dead. It will consume all of their current resources just to achieve occupying portions of those two cities and the main airport.
Unless a sizable chunk of the military is willing to swear allegiance to the new government, you have a real mess on your hands. If they can get the new government landed and the above military support, then the US is going to have to support them getting the basic infrastructure back up and running, that will help them hold the port, airport and Capital, but give time for the old regime loyalists to ferment old wounds of the rural people being "forgotten", all while preventing said government from helping the rural poor.

If Venezuela isn’t completely stupid, they’ll have been watching Ukraine and stockpiling the sorts of drones used in strikes on lightly armoured vehicles and troops on foot. Americans will have a very low tolerance for dead U.S. soldiers on the news. An active resistance in Venezuela could be nasty.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Obviously other pst US administrations have done heinous and self-serving things in the past. Now that we’re agreed on that-

As I said there is no legitimate justification for a military assault on Venezuela. It would be a war crime. There’s no amount of your usual hand-wringing justification and minimization of the current administration’s excesses that changes that. The US appears poised to launch a war of aggression. Nobody should be playing apologist for that. Hopefully, against what appear increasingly long odds, they walk back from that.

I'd prefer to see them walk back, too.

But US invasion/intervention events in Caribbean countries are practically an American sport, and an invasion of Venezuela would put this administration right squarely in the (mostly) Republican tradition.

 

[Altair]

If Venezuela isn’t completely stupid, they’ll have been watching Ukraine and stockpiling the sorts of drones used in strikes on lightly armoured vehicles and troops on foot. Americans will have a very low tolerance for dead U.S. soldiers on the news. An active resistance in Venezuela could be nasty.

The Americans only have 10k troops in region? That would be fine if they were facing down Greneda in 83, but Venezuela has 400k?

I would be surprised to see boots on the ground.

 

[brihard]

The Americans only have 10k troops in region? That would be fine if they were facing down Greneda in 83, but Venezuela has 400k?

I would be surprised to see boots on the ground.

If they intend to achieve regime change there will need to be some limited boots on the ground… And if they take an airhead, a LOT more can be moved in quickly.

 

[Lumber]

If they intend to achieve regime change there will need to be some limited boots on the ground… And if they take an airhead, a LOT more can be moved in quickly.

I imagine a conflict in Venezuela would be, logistically speaking, much simpler than a war in ME. You could be fighting in Caracas in the morning and be sipping Mai Tais in Miami by mid-afternoon.