January 14, 2026
The lightning strike of January 3 that extracted President Maduro from Venezuela should be evaluated from several angles.
First, and very obviously, it was a brilliantly executed military and intelligence operation. Americans can be proud of the extraordinary military proficiency combined with astonishingly good intelligence, at least some of it clearly obtained from Venezuelans in both high and low positions.
Second, however, this success was inherently limited and even dangerous. The decision to launch was based on a narrow and militarized focus. Though many Venezuelans backed it willingly or because they were suborned, the basic fact is that the repressive system continues under a new façade. The removal of its most visible individual cog unsettles relations among the regime’s ruling gangs. A stable transition cannot begin without some form of accommodation between the population at large and those with guns. At a minimum, this will require the uniformed military and police to cease supporting the informal civilian colectivos that are the first line of repression. Until that happens, the result will be the same as after the 2024 election victory of the opposition: life will worsen.
World history has not been kind to democratic exiles, and few of the millions of Venezuelans who fled the country will return unless political and economic conditions markedly improve. Even just expanding Venezuela’s oil output will require investment guarantees, restoring technical capacity wiped out by emigration, and redeveloping markets for heavy oil in a world market already showing signs of glut. The strike, in short, has turned Venezuela into an unstable quagmire sitting on a sea of dirty oil that cannot be produced without long-term stability. If conditions in Venezuela had been considered less subjectively, this operation would not have been undertaken.
Third, the operation has seriously damaged the United States in the hemisphere and the world in ways unrecoverable in the short term. The undisguised departure from the principles of the international order built by the generation that won World War Two is a destabilizing shock that weakens the United States everywhere. And it comes, ironically, at a moment when the United States has weakened the economic and diplomatic institutions, both domestic (AID and State) and international (consider the January 7 withdrawal from 66 international organizations and treaties), now needed to help stabilize Venezuela and restore its hollowed out institutions.
Finally, the strike was so high risk that it could induce unwarranted confidence in those who ordered it. Yet even the domestic political returns are dubious. Miami does not represent most American Latins, who are overwhelmingly of Mexican descent. And our belligerent imperial unilateralism leaves us bereft of allies with which to face the quagmire. What lies ahead is either escalation or coverup, with precious little benefit for Venezuela or the United States but much turmoil for the neighborhood.