Venezuela Regime Change: The Military and Political Risks

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In November 2025, the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group deployed to the Caribbean basin under “Operation Southern Spear,” representing the most substantial projection of U.S. military power in the Western Hemisphere since the 1989 Panama invasion.

This escalation occurs against the backdrop of Venezuela’s disputed July 2024 presidential election, where Nicolás Maduro claimed a third term despite credible evidence of a landslide opposition victory by Edmundo González Urrutia.

The proposition of toppling the Maduro regime by force involves extraordinary complexity. Unlike localized late-20th-century interventions, a kinetic engagement in Venezuela would unfold in a fractured battlespace characterized by robust asymmetric defenses, active interference from Russia, China, and Iran, and a fragile regional diplomatic architecture led by leftist governments in Brazil and Colombia.

While the conventional military defeat of Venezuelan armed forces is achievable, the subsequent stabilization phase presents high risks of protracted insurgency, regional contagion, and catastrophic state collapse.

In This Article

• Maduro’s regime is deeply entrenched through loyal military elites, intelligence services, and armed colectivos.
• Venezuela’s defenses are degraded but still capable of inflicting costs in any U.S. intervention.
• The population and infrastructure are extremely fragile; conflict could trigger rapid humanitarian collapse.
• Regional governments oppose U.S. military action and fear massive refugee flows.
• Russia, Iran, and China have stakes in Venezuela, increasing escalation risks.
• U.S. options—blockade, airstrikes, invasion—all carry significant political, military, and humanitarian downsides.
• The hardest challenge is post-Maduro stabilization: no unified opposition exists to govern the country.

So What?

• Removing Maduro might be militarily feasible, but stabilizing Venezuela afterward could be far harder.
• Any intervention risks humanitarian disaster, regional backlash, and entanglement with other major powers.
• The likely outcome: high costs for the U.S. with limited strategic benefit.

The Path to Crisis

The 2024 Election Failure

The current crisis traces its origins to the July 28, 2024, presidential election. The contest was widely viewed as a pivotal opportunity for negotiated transition. However, the National Electoral Council, operating under strict executive control, certified Maduro’s re-election despite independent precinct-level tally sheets indicating González Urrutia had secured approximately 67% of the vote.

This electoral fraud was not merely tactical maneuvering but strategic consolidation of the “civic-military” alliance underpinning the regime. Following the election, the regime initiated a “brutal crackdown,” detaining over 2,000 individuals, including opposition figures, journalists, and human rights defenders. By Maduro’s inauguration for a third term on January 10, 2025, avenues for peaceful, electoral resolution had effectively closed.

The U.S., under both the Biden and Trump administrations, recognized Edmundo González as the “rightful president.” However, unlike the 2019 crisis involving Juan Guaidó, the 2025 landscape lacks the same broad international coalition. The failure of the “interim government” model (2019-2022) to effect change has led to fatigue and skepticism regarding parallel institutions.

The “Narco-Terrorist” Designation

A decisive shift occurred in late 2025 with the U.S. government’s designation of the Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). This designation is legally and operationally significant. By formally identifying the nexus of high-ranking Venezuelan military and government officials, including Maduro himself, as a terrorist entity, Washington reclassified the conflict from a diplomatic dispute to a national security threat involving transnational terrorism.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement provided the domestic legal architecture for military action. Under U.S. law, FTO designations unlock financial tools and military authorities that don’t apply to standard criminal enterprises. The designation alleges the Cartel de los Soles works “by and with” other designated groups like Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel to traffic drugs and export violence.

This narrative frames the Venezuelan state not just as a rogue regime, but as a forward operating base for “narco-terrorism” within the Western Hemisphere, justifying a response under homeland defense rather than purely foreign policy.

Operation Southern Spear

The immediate operational manifestation is “Operation Southern Spear,” announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. This operation ostensibly aims to “remove narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere.” However, the scale of deployment—involving 12,000 sailors and Marines, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and extensive air assets—suggests objectives that far exceed counter-narcotics interdiction.

The operation has already transitioned into kinetic engagements, with reports of airstrikes on over 20 vessels and the deaths of at least 83 alleged traffickers. This high operational tempo serves dual purposes: degrading the regime’s financial logistics while probing Venezuelan defenses, effectively shaping the battlefield for potential escalation.

Diplomatic Deadlock

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis have largely atrophied. The Barbados Agreements, intended to pave the way for free elections, were systematically dismantled by the regime’s disqualification of opposition candidates, including 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado.

President Trump has maintained a rhetoric of “maximum pressure” refusing to rule out military options while simultaneously floating the possibility of “talks.” This oscillation between bellicosity and transactional diplomacy creates a volatile environment.

Maduro’s response has been defiant yet cautious. While mobilizing the military and invoking anti-imperialist rhetoric, he has also signaled openness to direct dialogue, likely seeking to buy time or negotiate survival guarantees. However, with U.S. indictments and FTO designations hanging over the entire high command, the regime leadership perceives any loss of power as a prelude to imprisonment.

Military Capabilities and Asymmetric Threats

The conventional military balance overwhelmingly favors the United States. The Venezuelan National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB) are a hollowed-out institution, plagued by a decade of economic crisis, corruption, and politicization. However, a linear comparison of tanks and aircraft fails to capture the true nature of the threat.

Conventional Decay and Air Defenses

The FANB has suffered from chronic underinvestment in maintenance and logistics. Reports indicate that a significant percentage of naval vessels and aircraft are non-mission capable. The exodus of skilled personnel, mirrored in the broader migration crisis, has stripped the military of technical expertise. The command structure is bloated with political appointees chosen for loyalty rather than competence.

Despite this decay, Venezuela possesses the most formidable Integrated Air Defense System (IADS) in South America. This system, built primarily on Russian technology, presents a credible Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) challenge.

Strategic layer: The backbone is the S-300VM (Antey-2500). These mobile, long-range surface-to-air missile systems can engage aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles at ranges up to 200 kilometers. Their mobility makes them difficult to suppress without persistent, real-time intelligence and surveillance.

Tactical layer: Supporting the S-300VM are medium-range Buk-M2E systems and short-range S-125 Pechora-2M batteries. These systems provide overlapping fields of fire, protecting key infrastructure such as the Guri Dam, oil refineries, and command centers in Caracas.

Point defense: The regime has distributed thousands of Igla-S Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) to conventional units and potentially to irregular forces. These pose a significant threat to low-flying helicopters and close air support aircraft operating in urban or mountainous terrain.

To operate freely in Venezuelan airspace, U.S. forces would need to execute a complex Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) campaign. While feasible, such a campaign carries risks of collateral damage, pilot loss, and escalation. The presence of Russian military advisors servicing these systems adds geopolitical risk: striking a battery manned by Russian personnel could trigger a crisis far beyond the Caribbean.

The Colectivos: Urban Paramilitaries

The most dangerous threat to any intervention force is not the uniformed military, but the colectivos. These armed, pro-government groups have evolved from neighborhood community organizations into a paramilitary enforcement arm of the state.

Colectivos are deeply embedded in the social fabric of the barrios (shantytowns) of Caracas and other major cities. They function as a shadow state, controlling territory, distributing food (via the CLAP system), and policing the population. Estimates suggest their numbers could range between 100,000 and 150,000 armed irregulars. Unlike conventional forces, they don’t operate from barracks that can be bombed. They live among the civilian population, using schools, community centers, and private homes as bases of operation.

The regime’s defense strategy, articulated in “Plan Sucre,” envisions a “war of the whole people.” In this doctrine, conventional forces delay the invader while irregular forces wage a protracted war of attrition in the cities.

Colectivos would likely use dense urban terrain to ambush U.S. patrols, utilizing their intimate knowledge of the barrios to strike and vanish. They would force U.S. troops into restrictive rules of engagement by operating in close proximity to civilians. These groups have a history of using lethal violence against protesters and would likely execute a campaign of terror against opposition sympathizers to prevent a popular uprising from aiding the intervention.

The Bolivarian Militia

Maduro has claimed the activation of over 4 million members of the Bolivarian Militia. While this figure is widely regarded as exaggerated propaganda, with effective combat strength likely closer to 340,000, the sheer volume of small arms distributed to this force creates a dangerous variable.

The Militia is composed largely of older civilians and public sector workers who are poorly trained and equipped. They are unlikely to stand and fight in conventional engagements. However, their ubiquity and access to weapons (including the aforementioned MANPADS) complicate the security environment. They can be used to swarm logistics convoys, guard checkpoints, and provide intelligence to more capable units.

Colombian Guerrillas

The conflict landscape is further complicated by the presence of Colombian guerrilla groups. The National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) operate with relative impunity in Venezuelan border states. These groups have a symbiotic relationship with the Maduro regime, providing security in exchange for safe haven and access to illicit economies (gold mining, drug trafficking).

In the event of regime collapse, these battle-hardened groups would not simply surrender. They would likely retreat into the jungle and mountainous border regions to wage an insurgency. Their expertise in ambushes, IEDs, and kidnapping would pose a severe long-term threat to any stabilization force.

The Governance Vacuum

The most daunting challenge of forced regime change in Venezuela is not removing Maduro, but the immediate and profound governance vacuum that would follow. The political landscape in late 2025 is fractured, institutions are hollowed out, and mechanisms for peaceful power transfer are nonexistent.

The Amnesty Problem

The stability of any post-Maduro government depends entirely on the disposition of the armed forces. However, the regime has spent two decades constructing a sophisticated “coup-proofing” architecture designed to prevent exactly the kind of defection the opposition hopes for.

Shared criminal liability: The U.S. designation of the Cartel de los Soles as an FTO has effectively fused the fate of the military high command with that of the regime. Officers like General Padrino López know that the fall of Maduro likely means their own extradition to the United States. This creates a powerful incentive to fight to the end.

Surveillance and purges: Cuban intelligence officers embedded within the FANB monitor communications and behavior, creating a climate of paranoia where dissent is detected and punished ruthlessly.

Economic co-optation: The military has been given control over key sectors of the economy, including oil services, mining, and food distribution. A transition threatens these lucrative revenue streams.

The opposition, led by Machado and González, has proposed amnesty laws to encourage defections. However, these offers lack credibility in the eyes of the generals. Without a guarantee of safety that includes protection from U.S. prosecution—a concession that is politically difficult for Washington to grant given the “narco-terrorist” narrative—the amnesty strategy is unlikely to fracture military cohesion.

Opposition Fragmentation

While the opposition showed unity during the 2024 election, the subsequent year of repression has taken a toll.

Leadership dispersion: Key leaders are either in exile, in hiding, or imprisoned. Edmundo González operates from abroad, while Machado remains in Venezuela but under constant threat. This physical separation hinders the rapid coordination needed to assume control of the state bureaucracy in a chaotic collapse scenario.

Governance vacuum: The state apparatus has been purged of technocrats and filled with loyalists. A transition government would face a dearth of qualified personnel to run ministries, manage the power grid, or oversee the oil industry.

Internal divisions: The “Unitary Platform” is a coalition of convenience. Ideological differences between hardliners who favor a “break” with the past and moderates who favor cohabitation with chavismo would likely resurface immediately after Maduro’s fall, complicating decision-making.

Service Collapse

In the immediate aftermath of a conflict, the state’s ability to deliver services would likely collapse.

Food distribution: The CLAP system, which feeds millions, is run by the very colectivos and party structures that would be targeted in a conflict. Its disruption would lead to immediate hunger in the barrios.

Public order: The police forces are deeply corrupt and politicized. In a power vacuum, criminal gangs—already powerful in Venezuela—would likely expand their territory, leading to looting and violence that an invading force would be ill-equipped to police.

Regional Spillover

The regional context for intervention in 2025 is fundamentally different from 2019. The “Pink Tide” of leftist governments in South America has created a diplomatic firewall against U.S. military action.

Brazil and Colombia

Venezuela’s two neighbors are critical to any successful intervention strategy, yet both are currently opposed to the use of force.

Colombia (Gustavo Petro): President Petro has re-established ties with Maduro and views U.S. sanctions as a driver of the migration crisis. Colombia hosts nearly 3 million Venezuelan refugees. Petro fears that a war would push waves of new refugees and armed combatants across the border, destabilizing his own “Total Peace” agenda with the ELN. Intelligence cooperation has frayed, and it’s unlikely Colombia would allow its territory to be used as a staging ground for U.S. ground forces.

Brazil (Lula da Silva): President Lula has taken a strong stance against U.S. interventionism, framing it as a violation of sovereignty. Brazil has warned that an attack would “inflame South America” and radicalize politics across the continent. Brazil would likely lead diplomatic condemnation of the U.S. in forums like the OAS and UN, isolating Washington politically.

The Migration Crisis

The most immediate and devastating regional consequence would be a surge in migration.

Current baseline: Approximately 8 million Venezuelans have already fled the country.

Conflict scenario: Modeling based on the displacement effects of the Iraq War suggests that a protracted conflict in Venezuela could displace an additional 4 million people over 3-5 years.

Regional saturation: Countries like Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador are already at their breaking point regarding social services for migrants. A new wave of millions would likely trigger social unrest, xenophobia, and political instability in these host nations.

U.S. border impact: A significant portion of these new migrants would likely head north, creating a massive surge at the U.S.-Mexico border. This would create a domestic political crisis for the Trump administration, directly contradicting its immigration enforcement priorities.

Great Power Interference

Venezuela has become a key theater in the global competition between the United States and its strategic rivals. Russia, China, and Iran view the survival of the Maduro regime as a geopolitical asset and a means to challenge U.S. hegemony.

Russia’s Role

Russia’s strategic objective is to impose costs on the U.S. and distract it from other theaters like Ukraine.

Military support: Moscow has supplied the advanced air defense systems that make a U.S. air campaign risky. Reports indicate the recent delivery of additional hardware and the presence of Russian military advisors and technicians.

Tripwire force: The presence of Russian personnel creates a dangerous tripwire. A U.S. strike that kills Russian advisors could trigger a severe escalation in U.S.-Russia tensions, potentially leading to asymmetric retaliation in other theaters.

Information warfare: Russia would likely deploy its sophisticated disinformation capabilities to frame the U.S. intervention as an imperialist oil grab, undermining international support.

Iran’s Forward Base

Iran utilizes Venezuela as a platform to project power into the Western Hemisphere and evade sanctions.

Drone capabilities: Intelligence indicates Venezuela has requested and received Iranian drone technology, including models with a 1,000 km range. These assets could be used to harass U.S. naval forces or threaten energy infrastructure in neighboring countries.

Asymmetric networks: The presence of Hezbollah-linked networks on Margarita Island provides Iran with covert infrastructure for illicit finance and potentially for terrorist operations against U.S. interests in the region.

China’s Economic Shield

China is Venezuela’s primary creditor and oil customer. While less militarily involved than Russia, Beijing provides the economic shield that allows the regime to survive sanctions.

Sanctions evasion: China imports Venezuelan oil through “teapot” refineries and dark fleet tankers, bypassing U.S. sanctions and providing the regime with critical cash flow.

Diplomatic cover: China would likely use its veto power in the UN Security Council to block any authorization for the use of force, framing the conflict as a violation of international law.

Economic Impact

The economic fallout of a conflict would be felt globally, particularly in energy markets.

Oil Supply Disruption

Venezuela possesses the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Although production has declined to around 1 million barrels per day (bpd), it remains a critical supplier of heavy crude.

Price shock: A naval blockade or conflict that halts exports would remove this supply from the market. This could trigger a short-term spike in Brent crude prices of 10-20%.

Refining impact: U.S. Gulf Coast refineries are configured to process heavy sour crude, of which Venezuela is a prime supplier. Losing this supply would force refiners to source more expensive alternatives from the Middle East or Canada, increasing the “crack spread” and raising gasoline prices for U.S. consumers.

Infrastructure destruction: Kinetic strikes run the risk of damaging essential oil infrastructure, such as the José Terminal or the upgrader complexes. Given the state of disrepair, any battle damage could take years and billions of dollars to fix.

The Chevron Factor

Chevron is the only major U.S. oil company still operating in Venezuela, under a specialized license designed to keep Venezuelan oil flowing to the U.S. and prevent total reliance on Chinese markets.

A conflict would force Chevron to halt operations immediately. In a scenario of imminent attack, the Maduro regime might seize Chevron’s assets or sabotage them as a “scorched earth” tactic, leading to billions in losses.

Reconstruction Costs

The Venezuelan economy has contracted by over 75% since 2014. The infrastructure—power, water, transport—is in a state of collapse. A conflict would cause further physical destruction.

Stabilizing Venezuela would require a massive infusion of capital, estimated in the hundreds of billions. The U.S. would likely be expected to lead this effort. Given domestic fiscal constraints, securing this funding would be politically contentious.

Any new government would inherit a mountain of sovereign debt, much of it owed to China and Russia. Unwinding these obligations while rebuilding the country would be a diplomatic and financial minefield.

Humanitarian Consequences

The humanitarian situation in Venezuela is arguably the worst in the Western Hemisphere outside of Haiti. A military intervention would likely tip this fragility into catastrophic collapse.

Food Security

The vast majority of poor Venezuelans depend on the CLAP system for survival. This system distributes boxes of basic foodstuffs (pasta, rice, oil) to registered families.

The CLAP logistics chain is state-run. A decapitation of the regime would paralyze this system instantly. Without immediate replacement, millions would face acute hunger within weeks. The colectivos who often distribute these boxes would likely hoard supplies or use food as a weapon to maintain control in their territories.

Healthcare Collapse

The healthcare system is already functionally collapsed, lacking medicines, water, and electricity.

Hospitals are utterly unprepared to handle combat casualties. Disruption of water and sanitation systems during combat—especially if the power grid is targeted—could lead to outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases. The breakdown of vaccination programs has already led to the resurgence of measles and diphtheria; a war would accelerate these trends.

Strategic Scenarios

Based on current force posture and political rhetoric, three scenarios present the most likely pathways for U.S. action.

Naval Blockade

Concept: The U.S. uses the Gerald R. Ford strike group to impose a naval quarantine, intercepting fuel imports and oil exports. This would be justified under the FTO designation as interdicting “terrorist financing.”

Strategic logic: Strangles the regime financially without placing U.S. troops on the ground. Mirrors the Cuban Missile Crisis “quarantine” approach.

Risks: It is an act of war. It would spike global oil prices and likely fail to dislodge the regime in the short term, as they would prioritize resources for the military while the population starves. It would alienate allies who view it as illegal extraterritorial enforcement.

Probability: High. It aligns with the “maximum pressure” philosophy and limits U.S. casualties.

Precision Air Campaign

Concept: A sustained air campaign targeting regime leadership, command-and-control bunkers, and Cartel de los Soles infrastructure.

Strategic logic: Aims to shatter the regime’s cohesion and force a surrender or internal coup by removing the top leadership.

Risks: High risk of intelligence failure (leaders moving to bunkers). Venezuelan air defenses pose a real threat to U.S. aircraft. Civilian casualties in urban strikes would be high, granting the regime a propaganda victory. If leadership survives, they could rally nationalist support.

Probability: Moderate. Likely an escalation option if the blockade is challenged or U.S. assets are attacked.

Full-Scale Invasion

Concept: An amphibious and airborne invasion to seize Caracas, defeat the FANB, and install a transitional government.

Strategic logic: The only way to guarantee Maduro’s removal and the dismantling of the colectivo structure.

Risks: Catastrophic. Estimates suggest 50,000-100,000 troops would be needed for stabilization. It would trigger a protracted urban insurgency and likely a regional war involving Colombian armed groups. The U.S. would be responsible for governing a failed state for years.

Probability: Low. The political appetite in the U.S. for a new large-scale ground war is minimal.

The False Panama Analogy

Proponents of intervention often cite the 1989 Panama invasion as a model. This is a dangerous fallacy.

Scale: Venezuela is ten times larger in population and territory than Panama.

Terrain: Panama is a narrow strip of land; Venezuela has vast strategic depth (jungle, mountains, plains).

Adversary: Noriega’s PDF was a small, isolated force. The FANB and its paramilitary allies are a massive, ideologically indoctrinated, and heavily armed hybrid force supported by great powers.

The attempt to topple the Maduro regime by force in late 2025 represents a strategic gamble of the highest order. While the United States possesses the military capability to destroy the Venezuelan state’s conventional defenses, the political objective—a stable, democratic, and pro-American Venezuela—remains elusive.

The convergence of a highly armed and indoctrinated urban paramilitary force, a military elite with no viable exit ramp, and active support from external adversaries creates conditions for a “quagmire” scenario. A conflict would likely result in the collapse of the Venezuelan state, triggering a humanitarian catastrophe that would destabilize the entire South American continent through migration and cross-border violence.

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