The recent kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was not a “counter-narcotics” initiative: it was the culmination of a long-running hybrid warfare strategy aimed at regime change in Caracas.
US strategic planners are pursuing regime change while seeking to avoid the political costs of open war. Instead of relying on direct military occupation, they prefer to blend methods such as economic strangulation, lawfare, diplomatic isolation, covert action, and media management into what is known as hybrid warfare — a strategy designed to achieve regime change while preserving the appearance of legality and restraint.
The attempt to oust Venezuela’s government is not itself new. Ever since the Bolivarian Revolution came to power in 1999 with the election of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela has been subjected to hybrid forms of destabilization. The “War on Drugs” and casting of Maduro as a narco-terrorism chief has, however, gained a central role as a pretext for a long-yearned-for power-grab in Caracas.
WikiLeaks cables show that regime change has long been US strategy. A 2006 US Embassy document set out a strategy to “strengthen democratic institutions, penetrate and divide Chavismo, and build independent society”. The legal groundwork for escalation was established in 2015 when Barack Obama’s administration declared Venezuela a “national security threat,” allowing more coercive pressure.
Since at least 2002, the United States has worked to cultivate an opposition-aligned “civil society.” By working with Venezuelan opposition groups behind the scenes and by financing a dense ecosystem of NGOs through agencies such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, Washington has worked to reengineer Venezuela’s political terrain and bring about a government favorable to US interests. What is labeled “democracy promotion” serves a core function of hybrid warfare: it provides plausible deniability for a real project of foreign…
Auteur: Oliver Dodd
