Venezuela Regime Change: The Military and Political Risks

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Removing a head of state by force does not automatically replace the government beneath him. In the early morning hours of January 3, 2026, more than 200 U.S. special operations forces surged through Caracas in Operation Absolute Resolve to capture Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. A foreign transfer of custody returned both to the United States to face federal narcoterrorism, cocaine importation, weapons, and torture charges.

All U.S. ground forces withdrew after the raid, leaving Maduro’s officials and vice president in charge of Venezuela. Rather than installing the Venezuelan opposition, the Trump administration chose to work through acting President Delcy Rodríguez. By October 2026, the United States was backing reconciliation talks in Caracas for a transition while routing oil and gold payments through Treasury deposit funds under sanctions waivers.

What the January 2026 Raid Changed and Left

Satellite imagery analyzed by CSIS scholars Ryan C. Berg, Mark F. Cancian, and colleagues shows that U.S. forces hit four sites: Fort Tiuna, La Carlota Air Base, La Guaira Port, and El Higuerote Airport. Strikes hit air defenses and radars to open a helicopter corridor into Fort Tiuna, where Maduro was known to have several bunkers, and no U.S. personnel died.

Unlike the 1991 and 2003 air wars in Iraq, U.S. forces spared electrical and transportation networks, navy ships at La Guaira, and air force headquarters buildings at La Carlota. Berg, Cancian, and their co-authors write that this narrow target set “may reflect a sincere desire to reduce casualties” and that the administration “could have already decided to work through the existing Venezuelan structure” because the military would be needed to keep order.

On October 8, 2026, the Department of Justice unsealed a superseding indictment in the Southern District of New York against Maduro and Flores. It added a torture conspiracy count carrying a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison alongside narcoterrorism, cocaine importation, and machinegun counts that each carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.

In a January 5, 2026 commentary, CSIS senior adviser Mark F. Cancian noted that widespread expectations before January 3 assumed Washington would install the opposition. In the July 28, 2024 election, poll watchers collected voting machine tally sheets (actas) from 80 percent of precincts showing Edmundo González Urrutia won 67 percent of the vote. Venezuela’s election council declared Maduro the winner without releasing results from over 30,000 precincts, which The Carter Center called “a serious breach of electoral principles.”

Even after opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize, President Trump said at his January 3 press conference that he had not been in contact with the opposition. Calling Machado “a very nice woman,” he argued that “she doesn’t have the respect” inside Venezuela to lead. Trump instead spoke with acting President Delcy Rodríguez and said she is “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”

Military Risks and Naval Deployment Costs

Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) scholar Shannon K. O’Neil writes that parallels to the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama are of limited use. Panama was smaller than South Carolina, had under 2.5 million people, and hosted a U.S. military presence at the canal. Venezuela is twice the size of California, has rugged terrain, and is home to over 28 million people.

O’Neil notes in her CFR analysis of post-Maduro Venezuela that Venezuelan military leaders are monitored by Cuban intelligence officers. Regular troops coexist with a secret police force, armed militias called colectivos, and Colombian guerrilla groups such as the ELN. O’Neil adds that Edmundo González and María Corina Machado are out of the country, and even if they return, they will struggle to gain control of the streets without ample armed support.

On March 18, 2026, Rodríguez appointed Gen. Gustavo González López as defense minister to replace Gen. Vladimir Padrino López, who had led the Defense Ministry since 2014. Since January 6, González López had led the presidential honor guard and the military counterintelligence agency, and he faced U.S. sanctions over cracking down on 2014 street protests.

In a January 15, 2026 study, CSIS authors Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park estimate that the Caribbean force surge, including the Gerald R. Ford carrier group that arrived in December, costs $31 million per day. About $28 million per day was already in the Defense Department budget, while higher-intensity operations add about 10 percent, or $3 million per day, in unbudgeted costs.

To cover those extra costs without cutting other programs, Cancian and Park write that funding might come from Section 20011 of the FY 2026 reconciliation law (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act), which provided $1 billion “to support border operations, including deployment of military personnel.” Although lawmakers likely had the Southwest border in mind, they note that the wording might be expanded to cover Caribbean counterdrug operations. Keeping a carrier group in the Caribbean also limits naval forces available for the Middle East or the Indo-Pacific.

How Oil Control and Sanctions Shape Leverage

On February 18, 2026, President Trump extended the Venezuela national emergency first declared in Executive Order 13692 in March 2015 over human rights abuses, arbitrary arrests, and corruption. Along with tariff pressure on foreign buyers of Venezuelan crude, a January 2026 executive order shields funds from the sale of natural resources from, or the sale of diluents to, the Venezuelan government in U.S. Treasury deposit funds controlled by the Secretary of State.

Under seven Treasury general licenses issued between March and May 2026 and published in September, U.S. firms can again trade Venezuelan oil, supply gold-mining gear, process state bank transfers, and advise on potential debt restructuring. The oil and gold supply waivers require contracts with Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA) or state gold miner Minerven to use U.S. law. Payments to blocked persons, excluding local taxes, permits, or fees, must enter the Foreign Government Deposit Funds or another Treasury-instructed account, and deals cannot involve Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, or China.

In a September 1, 2026 Atlantic Council analysis, David L. Goldwyn and Andrea Clabough wrote that Washington and Caracas announced a purportedly “historic” bilateral oil deal that will allegedly include seventeen major Venezuelan oil fields. Under the basic framework alleged in reports, a private company led by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt will get a 100-year concession over those fields, which hold an estimated 65 billion barrels in reserves, or over 7 percent of global proven reserves.

Under that reported framework described by Goldwyn and Clabough, the Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Capital takes 55 percent of output, including an equity stake and a right to buy oil at cost for the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. President Trump called that oil supply a “Gift from Venezuela to the People of the United States.” Goldwyn and Clabough ask whether selling oil “at cost” meets the royalty rules in Venezuela’s new Organic Hydrocarbons Law enacted earlier in 2026.

Political Risks of Working Through Chavismo

CSIS senior adviser Mark F. Cancian warns that leaving Maduro loyalists in place without a military or civilian group on the ground risks failure. Instead of complying, regime insiders can delay, evade, and subvert U.S. guidance to keep power, which could push the United States into future air and missile strikes.

In the same January 5 commentary, Cancian wrote that Venezuelan oil output dropped from 3.5 million barrels a day in 1997 to 1.1 million barrels a day in 2025. He argued that oil companies will not invest billions of dollars to rebuild shattered infrastructure until political stability returns.

In a March 2026 report for the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), Venezuela Program Director Laura Cristina Dib noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced, without further details, a three-phase plan of stabilization, recovery, and transition. Dib wrote that Caracas’s shift after restoring diplomatic ties on March 5 is a survival strategy under the threat of force, as human rights groups documented at least 659 prisoner releases between January 8 and March 8, 2026.

However, Dib warned in her WOLA transition report that Maduro’s exit did not dismantle the repressive apparatus. She wrote that the Amnesty Law approved on February 19 does not recognize victims of repression or hold the state accountable, leaves enforcement to the same courts that carried out repression, and risks a “reconfigured authoritarianism.”

After its first official visit to Venezuela since 2008 and a Caracas meeting with interim President Rodríguez, Human Rights Watch reported in September 2026 that officials had freed hundreds of political prisoners and unblocked some media websites. Deputy Executive Director Federico Borello said Rodríguez “has overseen a pause to the most overt forms of repression in Venezuela,” while stressing the need for deeper reform. Citing the Venezuelan group Foro Penal, Human Rights Watch reported that “at least 344 political prisoners remain behind bars” and many others remain under house arrest.

On October 9, 2026, the U.S. Embassy in Caracas reported progress after two rounds of talks in August and September between 2015 National Assembly members led by Dinorah Figuera and interim officials led by Jorge Rodríguez. After those talks, the 2026 National Assembly published a law to pick 32 new Supreme Court judges by December. Officials also unblocked more than 70 internet domains and freed more than 1,000 political prisoners ahead of a third round starting October 14.

How Congress Tested War Powers

The War Powers Resolution’s 48-hour reporting rule applies when a president sends U.S. forces into hostilities, into foreign territory equipped for combat, or in numbers that greatly enlarge combat forces already abroad, without a declaration of war. Within 48 hours, the president must report in writing to House and Senate leaders on the mission’s circumstances, legal authority, and estimated scope.

The War Powers Resolution’s sixty-day termination rule requires ending that use of force within sixty days unless Congress declares war, passes a specific authorization, extends the deadline by law, or cannot meet due to an armed attack on the United States. The president can add up to thirty days by certifying in writing that military necessity requires continued operations for a safe withdrawal.

As Cancian notes in his review of the raid, the Trump administration did not provide the prior notification or post-operation reports required by the War Powers Act. Instead, the administration cited the president’s Article II commander-in-chief power and framed the raid as a law-enforcement effort. Secretary Rubio said on January 3 that “at its core, this was an arrest of two indicted fugitives of American justice.”

Ahead of the Senate vote, the administration released a redacted 22-page Justice Department memo signed by Assistant Attorney General Elliot Gaiser: “We were assured that there is no contingency plan to engage in any substantial and sustained operation that would amount to a constitutional war.”

Senate Republicans then voted to dismiss a war powers resolution limiting further attacks on Venezuela after Senators Josh Hawley and Todd Young flipped their votes, and Vice President JD Vance broke a 50-50 tie. Hawley said Rubio told him “point blank, we’re not going to do ground troops,” while Rubio sent Young a letter promising to “seek congressional authorization in advance (circumstances permitting)” before major military operations in Venezuela.