Posted on 01/03/2026 9:53:08 PM PST by SeekAndFind
As the U.S. military escalates its posture around Venezuela—with naval deployments in the Caribbean, B-52 overflights, lethal strikes on alleged drug boats, and confirmed CIA covert operations—advocates of regime change are reviving a dangerous analogy. Many have pointed to the United States’ 1989 invasion of Panama and toppling of dictator Manuel Noriega as proof that swift, surgical operations can get the job done.
In private conversations with several current and former U.S. officials, they have nodded toward this parallel. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who just last month was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has appealed to the United States for help fighting what she calls Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s “war.” When asked about striking Venezuelan territory, U.S. President Donald Trump has refused to rule it out, saying, “Well, you’re going to find out.”
The comparison between Panama in 1989 and Venezuela in 2025 is seductive. It is also fundamentally flawed. The two cases are different on nearly every structural and operational level. Mistaking the U.S. history in Panama for a template for U.S. action in Venezuela today could lead to a prolonged counterinsurgency.
The United States didn’t invade Panama in 1989. It attacked it from the inside. At the time, nearly 13,000 U.S. troops were permanently stationed in the country—a vestige of the U.S. role in overseeing the Panama Canal. When President George H.W. Bush gave the order to commence Operation Just Cause on Dec. 17, 1989, it required deploying 14,000 additional troops by air. But nearly half the invasion force was already on the ground, pre-positioned and intimately familiar with their targets.
Noriega had once been a U.S. intelligence asset, but he became increasingly hostile to U.S. interests throughout the 1980s.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
For months before Bush’s orders to invade, U.S. forces conducted exercises through Operation Sand Flea—rehearsals disguised as force protection drills—that reduced the Panamanian Defense Forces’ (PDF) readiness to respond to U.S. troop movements. As the U.S. Army official history records, “exercises were run with such frequency that the enemy became desensitized to rapid movements of troops.”
By December 1989, U.S. intelligence knew Noriega’s command nodes as well as PDF unit dispositions and key officers. Operation Just Cause called for simultaneous strikes on two dozen PDF targets to sever their command-and-control capabilities before they could organize resistance. At around 1 a.m. on Dec. 20, it worked. Major combat operations concluded within five days, and Noriega surrendered on Jan. 3, 1990. By Jan. 12, the operation was over.
Venezuela is a completely different story. The United States has no forward presence, no in-country basing, no treaty rights, and no comparable intelligence infrastructure. Recent U.S. moves—helicopters near Trinidad and Tobago, warships in international waters, bomber patrols—may signal Washington’s resolve. But they don’t help project power into a country that lacks an existing U.S. foothold.
Here are the Logistical Comparisons according to this article:
Even though the United States had every advantage in Operation Just Cause, it wasn’t a bloodless endeavor. The PDF fought harder than expected: On just the first day of the operation, an estimated 19 U.S. troops were killed and 99 wounded. Panamanian casualties included 300 to 500 civilian deaths.
Conflict in Venezuela would be much deadlier—in part due to geography. Panama is much smaller than Venezuela, at just 75,000 square kilometers. Venezuela is 12 times larger—and twice the size of Iraq, which consumed U.S. forces in counterinsurgency for nearly a decade. Moreover, where Panama is a narrow isthmus, Venezuela encompasses vast savannas, the Andes Mountains, the Amazon rainforest, and multiple major urban centers. This diverse terrain would complicate military operations at every level.
Manpower poses another problem: Unlike the PDF, Venezuelan forces and their allies can’t be decapitated in a weekend. In December 1989, the Panamanian military numbered 12,800 personnel—but only 4,000 were combat-ready. The PDF was a personalistic apparatus built around Noriega and his small circle of allies. Control was centralized in Panama City. When U.S. forces struck, they destroyed the PDF’s command spine in three hours. The PDF’s centralized structure meant the United States could neutralize it before it could mount guerrilla insurgency.
Venezuela’s security architecture, by contrast, is layered and resilient. The country’s military, the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, numbers between 130,000 and 160,000 active personnel. The Maduro regime also has cultivated parallel structures designed to prevent rapid military collapse. The Bolivarian Militia, comprised of reservists, claims more than 1.6 million members.
And pro-government paramilitaries known as colectivos number approximately 100,000. They are decentralized and ideologically committed to Maduro’s party and operate with substantial autonomy in urban neighborhoods as rapid-response enforcers deployed against the opposition.
All of this is regards to tactical differences.
The relevant comparison is to the legal differences.
Was the invasion of Panama a just war? Of Venezuela?
That the tactical dispositions are different is a given. They always are. But was intervention justified?
This article is complete hogwash being promulgated by deep state propaganda groups...
In comparison, the current invasion of Venezuela and the capture of its drug-lord President Nicolas Maduro was brilliantly planned and swiftly surgical in execution--a matter of hours.
One more feather in President Trump's well-feathered hat.
"This was one of the most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history.”--President Donald J. Trump
-PJ
Well, yet another article that HASN’T AGED WELL.
We’re just on Day Two. The tactical differences are still relevant.
The main thing we all learned is Russian air defense crap is crap, that’s for sure. Don’t give me this ‘export stuff is worse’.
Would could take out Xi, Putin, Kim, and a lot in this time soon. Wish we did.
Trump’s lead the way on how to deal with evil dictators.
How about Kosovo? We invaded and bombed a sovereign country for weeks. They never attacked us. The was no congressional authorization. We then arrested the president of that country and put him on trial.
Venezuela real power holders did not disappear with the capture of Nicolás Maduro. Speaking with Steve Bannon, Oscar Ramirez explained that while Maduro’s removal is historic, the regime itself remains intact through two men who still control the military, justice system, and cartel networks inside the country.
WATCH THE CLIP BELOW:
https://warroom.org/venezuela-real-power-holders-cabello-padrino/
RT 3 m 40 s
/
Remember Pres Trump saying something about a second wave? .I trust what Oscar is saying.
The job is not finished.
This is why Chucky and shifty and co. are going to try and block Trump from unraveling the global election fraud .
Telling, isn’t it?
Ruiz-Hernandez needs to recuse himself from this “comparison.”
RE: in comparison, the current invasion of Venezuela and the capture of its drug-lord President Nicolas Maduro was brilliantly planned and swiftly surgical in execution—a matter of hours.
It isn’t over by a long shot. The question in Venezuela is WHO CONTROLS THE MILITARY, and WILL THEY SUPPORT WHOEVER replaces Maduro?
Let’s hope and pray there isn’t a bloody insurgency like we had in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was deposed.
There are more than 100 years of precedent for similar US interventions in this hemisphere. Cuba in the Spanish American War, US intervention in Panama to build the canal, US intervention in Haiti and US intervention in Granada just to name a few.
RE: Ruiz-Hernandez needs to recuse himself from this “comparison.”
Please elaborate and tell us where he missed.
RE: There are more than 100 years of precedent for similar US interventions in this hemisphere. Cuba in the Spanish American War, US intervention in Panama to build the canal, US intervention in Haiti and US intervention in Granada just to name a few.
Don’t forget the colonization of the Philippines.
The question to ask is how many of our soldiers were killed in these interventions and are we willing to risk these deaths today?
RE: Would could take out Xi, Putin, Kim, and a lot in this time soon. Wish we did.
Don’t forget these countries have nukes and ICBMs.
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