With 15,000 troops and an armada of military vessels arrayed in the Caribbean and a new terrorist designation lodged last week, the United States may be on the brink of launching strikes against Venezuela to overthrow the regime of President Nicolás Maduro. Covert action to that end may already have begun, based on comments by President Donald Trump and news reports last month. There continues to be important analysis on the shaky legal basis for such military action, including even the current show and threat of force. The International Crisis Group and others have laid out the potential dangers and risks for any military operation. In Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downes and Lindsey O’Rourke explain why there is good reason to doubt attempts at regime change will succeed. As they point out, such operations fail more often than not.
But what if the United States does succeed in ousting Maduro? There are many possible scenarios for what comes next if Maduro flees, is overthrown, or otherwise loses power. All of them are complicated and dangerous. This line in the New York Times’ recent reporting was not a good sign: “[U.S.] Aides say that far more planning has gone into striking at the Maduro government than on what it would take to govern Venezuela should the operations succeed.” And Politico reported the distinctly vague comment from one U.S. official: “We have the concepts of a plan.”
The failure to prepare for and pivot to effective stabilization in the aftermath of military operations haunted U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam. Failed efforts at stabilization after a major political transition have proven costly in Haiti, Libya, South Sudan, and many other contexts. U.S. special inspectors general monitoring reconstruction efforts have widely documented these challenges, and they were reaffirmed in the Stabilization Assistance Review completed under the previous Trump administration. These reviews found U.S. efforts were consistently limited by lack of strategic clarity, poor interagency coordination, and failure to apply evidence-based lessons systematically — all issues that will be made worse by the recent dismantling of agencies and bureaus tasked with these roles. It appears the U.S. government may be headed toward repeating the same mistakes.
Key Questions
Based on our study of past efforts to stabilize conflict environments, we would raise four questions that U.S. policymakers and planners should be considering – and perhaps that journalists should be asking — regarding future stabilization in Venezuela.
First, which Venezuelan leaders have both the ability and legitimacy to govern, and how could that be bolstered or undermined by external support? In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States supported leaders who ultimately lacked legitimacy in the eyes of local populations. Leaders like Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan proved unable to cultivate domestic legitimacy, rein in corruption, and overcome deep-seated ethnic, tribal, or regional divisions. Association with an external invading force – especially one perceived as an occupying force – reduces the specific type of legitimacy (indigenous, earned through resistance) that may be more likely to enable post-conflict authority. Moreover, any leverage that may come with associating with that external force usually evaporates once commitment and resources fade.
Venezuela is certainly different from those contexts in many respects. Nobel Prize winner María Corina Machado and other opposition leaders in Venezuela, though not always unified, have built legitimacy through years of democratic resistance and personal sacrifice. According to some polling, they have the support of the majority of the population. Venezuela as a State does not suffer from the same kind of identity-based divisions as an Afghanistan or Iraq.
But assuming that Machado would be a focal point of transitional politics, she will face a bleak negotiating position the moment U.S. forces enter Venezuelan territory. Chavista remnants, those loyal to Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez, will frame her as a collaborator. Moderate military officers who might have defected will dig in to defend sovereignty. Regional allies like Brazil and Colombia who quietly support Machado may publicly distance themselves, for fear of domestic and regional backlash in supporting a U.S. invasion in a region with a long history of U.S. incursions on sovereignty. She could quickly lose leverage with the very domestic actors she would need to negotiate a transition (e.g., security forces, mid-level bureaucrats, regional governors).
Second, who are the potential “spoilers” who would resist political change in Venezuela, and what options exist for mitigating their influence while ensuring justice for past crimes? Recent transition cases in Burma, Libya, Sudan and elsewhere show how domestic spoilers can co-opt and undermine democratic transitions to protect their political power and/or economic advantages. Rifts often form among previously-unified opposition leaders once regimes fall. Spoilers can mobilize armed groups – both former State armed forces and non-State groups – to undermine transitions.
There are certainly many in Venezuela who could fear losing in a transition scenario and could mobilize to fight against a new government. In many ways, Venezuela’s entire economy is built around Maduro’s patronage networks. The military asserts control over key sectors of the economy, and security elite benefit from their positions. Maduro’s government has enabled criminal enterprises, armed groups, and corrupt elites to expand lucrative, illegal gold mining in the country’s south. Even today’s opposition has many factions and differing levels of involvement in the current system. How would a transition government approach this entrenched “chavismo” political economy? The dilemma is choosing between dismantling these spoiler networks and risking economic collapse, or preserving them and empowering the same corrupt actors. The sequencing of these decisions matters enormously: how to approach the military, when to address patronage networks, how to secure resource zones.
Third, what is a viable strategy for providing security and enforcing rule of law in key parts of the country, a critical factor to enable stabilization? The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction determined that stabilization programming was most effective in localities where there was some basic, consistent provision of security. Further, stabilization requires a commitment by those providing security to be responsive to and build trust with local communities. This is challenging in environments where security forces have previously engaged in predatory behavior and lack the trust of local populations. In some cases, United Nations or other kinds of multinational peacekeeping forces have played an important role in bridging a transitional security process.
Even if Venezuelan military forces were to mostly shift their support to new leaders, they and aligned armed civilian groups known as “colectivos” have a long track record of abuses against local populations, especially perceived regime opponents and civil society. Security vacuums could provide openings for several existing or new armed groups to try to gain ground, particularly in a country already awash in firearms among its general citizenry. Defectors and Maduro-loyalists in the military would likely mobilize to maintain leverage or orchestrate their own path to power. A significant security sector reform process would be needed, with clear incentives and leverage, to fundamentally change the current security landscape in Venezuela; a process that would likely drag on for years.
Fourth, what options exist for aligning influential regional and neighboring States toward a common vision of stabilization? In many ways, external actors can become the biggest spoilers to stabilization if they have competing agendas and seek to influence a transition accordingly. Libya again provides an instructive example, with multiple countries backing alternative factions, even 14 years after Moammar Gadhafi. In the case of Afghanistan, the inability of the United States to address Pakistani support for the Taliban ultimately undermined stabilization. Similarly, Iran played an outsized role in shaping dynamics in Iraq after the United States overthrew Saddam Hussein.
It is likely that a post-Maduro Venezuela would be undermined by competing external influences, especially if divisions persist within the country. A U.S. invasion of Venezuela is likely to spark significant pushback from countries in Latin America, especially given historical grievances. The countries of Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico are especially critical in shaping future transition dynamics in Venezuela. They share borders or maritime zones with Venezuela, will absorb migration flows, and have the capacity to either support or undermine a transitional government. Without their active cooperation, stabilization fails. The diplomacy, incentives, and collaboration required to secure their support will be significant.
The current regional dynamics are not favorable for this kind of collaboration. Colombia faces the immediate consequences of Venezuelan instability, and President Gustavo Petro has already butted heads with the Trump administration. A U.S. invasion creates the exact outcome Bogotá fears most: millions more Venezuelans crossing their borders and an unstable environment that likely will increase attempts by criminal and armed group to exploit the vacuum. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is attempting to position himself as the hemispheric power broker on Venezuela, investing political capital in regional mediation efforts. A U.S. invasion sidelines Brazil’s diplomatic approach and forces Lula to choose between supporting American unilateralism or defending Brazilian regional leadership. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum will face domestic opposition to any perceived support for U.S. military intervention in Latin America. For each of the actors in the region, the political cost of cooperation currently exceeds any benefit from Washington; this will need to change for any U.S. stabilization effort to succeed.
Immediate National Security and Strategic Implications
Of course, there is a broader question that hangs over this whole discussion: whether Trump would even care about or commit to stabilization. He is clearly averse to “forever wars,” and has already shown in other contexts, namely in the Middle East, a willingness to pursue limited military strikes and then let others deal with the fallout. Trump could claim success in disrupting drug networks through military action, declare victory, and pull out at will. Yet, in the case of a Venezuela campaign that topples Maduro, walking away from an unstable situation would have immediate national security and strategic implications.
For one, any number of scenarios involving a post-Maduro civil conflict or contested transition would likely have significant humanitarian consequences and drive more migration in an already volatile region. Venezuela has already generated nearly 7.9 million refugees, the second-largest displacement crisis globally. Military operations and violent power struggles would trigger massive new flows into Colombia, Brazil, and northward toward the U.S. border. The bitter irony is that military action ostensibly aimed at contributing to border security could generate the largest migration surge in hemispheric history.
Moreover, U.S. military action against Venezuela that fails to stabilize the country could have ripple effects on geo-political instability across the hemisphere. Even if the United States is successful at achieving some stability in Venezuela, South American countries may be spurred to increase engagement with U.S. competitors and adversaries such as China and Russia to defend themselves out of fear of U.S. intervention in their territory, too. U.S. military action might accelerate defensive hedging through deeper security partnerships with exactly the kinds of actors the United States is trying to counter.
Stabilizing a country after externally backed regime change is extremely hard and rarely straightforward, as the United States has learned at great cost time and again. There are many scenarios for a post-Maduro Venezuela that in fact do not make American ”safer,” “stronger,” and “more prosperous,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s stated core goals. As the Trump administration continues to position for possible military strikes, even amid hints about possible talks, it would be wise to devote substantially more consideration, planning, and preparation to the governance and stability challenges that loom on the immediate horizon.
