"I'm very thankful for the agreement on grain, it has helped keep consumption in Venezuela stable," Maduro said. (Reuters)
Posted on 08/16/2018 2:57:23 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Trump administration officials have made thinly veiled calls for a military coup that would topple the Venezuelan dictatorship and pave the way for democracy.
But some well-respected academics are warning that a military coup would more likely produce a Russia or China-backed anti-American dictatorship.
Evan Ellis, a Latin America expert with the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, and Brian Fonseca, a professor at Florida International University who has written extensively about the Venezuelan military, are among those who believe that a military coup in Venezuela would probably lead to a pro-Russian or pro-China regime, rather than to a pro-American one.
“The United States has not had ties with the Venezuelan military in nearly two decades, and Russia, China and Cuba have filled that space,” Fonseca told me. “The Russians and the Chinese have replaced the United States as a key partner to the Venezuelan military.”
Venezuelan military officers have been attending Russian and Chinese military schools for years, and Venezuela is the biggest buyer of Russian and Chinese military equipment. In addition, there are large numbers of Cuban advisers across the Venezuelan security apparatus, he said.
Both experts, with whom I talked separately in recent days, agree that it will be hard for Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro to cling to power for much longer, and that Venezuela’s sham May 20 election will not help him revert his economic and political troubles.
Venezuela’s economy has collapsed, and inflation is expected to reach 13,000 percent — the highest in the world — this year, according to International Monetary Fund estimates. The humanitarian crisis is worsening by the day, to the point that the minimum salary has fallen to $3.6 dollars a month — barely enough to buy two cans of tuna.
Oil production, which accounts for 90 percent of Venezuela’s income, has plummeted from 3.5 billion barrels twenty years ago to less than 1.5 billion barrels today. Five of the six oil refineries on Venezuelan territory are nearly paralyzed, and Venezuela’s creditors are starting to go after the country’s assets.
Amid this rapid descent into chaos, Russia and China — which have major oil investments in Venezuela - may have decided it’s time to change management to protect their interests, Ellis and Fonseca say.
The Trump Administration’s not-so-veiled calls for a coup in Venezuela could be an additional factor prompting Russia or China to step in. White House Senior Director for Latin America, Juan Cruz, recently called on the Venezuelan military “to respect the oath they took to perform their functions” and defend the Venezuelan constitution, rather than the Maduro dictatorship.
Fonseca told me that “Russia or China could sense that the United States is edging closer and closer to action in Venezuela, and that if a pro-U.S. regime comes to power, that could dilute their respective interests in Venezuela.”
Ellis, of the U.S. Army War College, says that a Russia and China-backed coup could help both countries get additional rights to exploit Venezuela’s oil fields. In exchange, China and Russia may offer new grace periods on Venezuela’s debts and technical assistance to revamp the country’s oil production.
“The Chinese and Russians would be running the oil fields, paying off the corrupt Venezuelan elites, and paying enough rent to keep the Venezuelan military happy, while extracting oil for their own strategic benefit,” Ellis told me. “That would assure them the continuation of a friendly regime in close proximity to U.S. shores.”
Ellis said that “the Russians and the Chinese would be running the country. And, as long as there were no Russian or Chinese military bases, there would be those in Washington who would say that it wouldn’t be a problem.” He added, “That would be a big mistake.”
My opinion: As Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis continues to worsen, nobody can rule out a new popular uprising or a military rebellion.
But after listening to Ellis and Fonseca, I’m not willing to bet that a military coup would necessarily bring about a restoration of democracy and a more U.S.-friendly government. It could could also produce a more efficiently-run Russian or Chinese economic protectorate.
Time to dust-off the Monroe Doctrine.
"I'm very thankful for the agreement on grain, it has helped keep consumption in Venezuela stable," Maduro said. (Reuters)
My guess is it’s only upper level officers and commissar types who have enjoyed the hospitality of Russian, Cuban, and Chinese training while the rank and file are getting sick and tired of being ordered around by foreigners. That’s only a guess, mind you, but when the feces hit the fan I wouldn’t necessarily want to be a foreign officer surrounded by troops whose families back home are starving to death.
Yeah we should be scared. This article offers nothing but worries.
Russians are allover Venezuela. But held in restrictive compounds according to friends.
Could get a bit sporty
Translation: we want your oil.
Oh look.
More NWO neocon garbage looking desperately for a way (any way) to get the Trump administration (can we please find a way) to get us into another war.
Yawn.
This is total fantasy.
“But some well-respected academics are warning that a military coup would more likely produce a Russia or China-backed anti-American dictatorship.”
We already have that, so there is no downside, eh?
This is a big worry but a US coup in Ukraine shouldn't bother Russia a bit; that's just plain illogical and irrational.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady does excellent reporting on VZ.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-cuba-runs-venezuela-1500240243
By Mary Anastasia O’Grady
July 16, 2017 5:24 p.m. ET
“Yet like the rest of the opposition’s strategy—which aims at dislodging the dictatorship with peaceful acts of civil disobedience—it’s not likely to work. That’s because Cubans, not Venezuelans, control the levers of power.
Havana doesn’t care about Venezuelan poverty or famine or whether the regime is unpopular. It has spent a half-century sowing its ideological “revolution” in South America. It needs Venezuela as a corridor to run Colombian cocaine to the U.S. and to Africa to supply Europe. It also relies heavily on cut-rate Venezuelan petroleum.
To keep its hold on Venezuela, Cuba has embedded a Soviet-style security apparatus. In a July 13 column, titled “Cubazuela” for the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba website, Roberto Álvarez Quiñones reported that in Venezuela today there are almost 50 high-ranking Cuban military officers, 4,500 Cuban soldiers in nine battalions, and “34,000 doctors and health professionals with orders to defend the tyranny with arms.” Cuba’s interior ministry provides Mr. Maduro’s personal security. “Thousands of other Cubans hold key positions of the State, Government, military and repressive Venezuelan forces, in particular intelligence and counterintelligence services.”
Every Venezuelan armed-forces commander has at least one Cuban minder, if not more, a source close to the military told me. Soldiers complain that if they so much as mention regime shortcomings over a beer at a bar, their superiors know about it the next day. “
A military coup would be the stupidest thing the US could do right now. Let it play out, thoroughly document who in the regime is doing what, and go for a Nuremberg-style trial when it all falls apart. Cuban Intelligence is the most underrated inte l operation in the world. Play our cards right and we’ll get to take the best shot we’ve had at them in decades.
Dust off Pinochet too.
It takes a strongman to build a free republic.
Monroe-beat me to it. They voted for it. Let them pay the price. Any Venezuelan ballplayers stepping up?
Clearly, however, it's going to require a substantial foreign investment from somewhere to get Venezuela on the road to recovery. What that will require is a new regime with credibility enough to attract not just Chinese and Russian money, but money from investors all over the world, including non-oil companies the Chavez/Maduro machine have already ripped off; this will require confidence that they aren't going to get ripped off again. Anything short of that won't do, and there are roads to build and electrical grids to rebuild and hydroelectric generators to repair, none of which the Russians and Chinese are going to bring to the table.
Moreover, pre-empting existing creditors within the oil market may have long-lasting effects on China's and Russia's participation in it. For example, China at the table with, say, BP, negotiating a trade deal and BP says yeah, by the way, we're going to need a little premium on top of that price to replace our assets that you have - take it or leave it. And the other oil companies all say the same thing. It isn't an embargo, but it is business.
A democracy is just tyranny by popular vote.
Once upon a time, the CIA would have already orchestrated a coup in Venezuela. But today, the CIA is too busy orchestrating a coup in the U.S.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Venezuelas-Oil-Meltdown-Defies-Belief.html
You’re right about foreign investors. I’m thinking France’s Total. They are one of the few oil majors that have the scale and resources to turn things around, and so far they’ve stuck it out.
It is ALREADY an anti-American, communist dictatorship, with Soviet and Red Chinese assistance and influence.
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