“Guerra contra a Venezuela,” by Valério Arcary, first appeared on Opera Mundi on January 6, 2026.
“Delcy Rodríguez is not wrong in declaring that her government remains open to engaging in negotiations with the United States and that it is even willing to seek agreements providing the US a majority stake in Venezuela’s oil production. No one with a modicum of common sense would rush into a war they have zero chance to win, at least in conventional terms, and so at a devastating cost. Such economic concessions are a plausible calculation in the face of the ongoing threat of an invasion that would leave the country in ruins. Venezuela’s fate depends on the social strength of internal political mobilization and the international solidarity against Trump. In this context, it is more than legitimate to do everything possible to buy time and win over the consciousness of the masses, both inside and outside of the country, for the just cause of Venezuela’s sovereignty and of Nicolás Maduro’s and Cilia Flores’ release.”
— Valério Arcary
A word to the wise is enough.
Popular proverb
What happened in Caracas last January 3 marks a before and after, a defining epoch-making shift in the post-Cold War world order. The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, did not even ask the US Congress for authorization to intervene militarily in Venezuela. The bombing of military and civil facilities in Venezuela’s capital and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady and Congresswoman Cilia Flores are, strictly speaking, a unilateral and unprovoked aggression. This was therefore an illegal attack, shielded by untenable allegations— such as the existence of a so-called Cartel de los Soles of which Maduro would have been the leader, a claim that now the US admits is nothing more than a fabrication — aimed at justifying the perpetration of an act of State terrorism by the world’s greatest power against a sovereign country. The kidnapping of Maduro on charges of drug trafficking is a despicable maneuver for the sole purpose of masquerading an ongoing war that in fact had already begun with a military blockade in Venezuelan territorial waters, the sinking of dozens of boats with a toll of more than one hundred people dead, and the seizure of three oil tankers, culminating in the commando operation that resulted in Maduro’s kidnapping during the bombing of Caracas, without any formal declaration of war, which in turn constitutes an act of atrocious duplicity. However, the plan behind the aggression is of public knowledge, and thus what we have been witnessing before and after January 3 in and around Venezuela is clearly the build-up towards an open war and not a simple series of “law enforcement operations.”
The goal of the US offensive is to reduce Venezuela to the status of a protectorate. For the United States, Venezuela’s sovereignty is a moot point when it comes to using American might and power to decide who should govern the South American country. An imperialist aggression of this magnitude on Latin American soil had not taken place since 1989, during George H. W. Bush presidency, when Panama was invaded and Manuel Noriega was arrested on charges similar to those leveled against Maduro. The military “extraction” of Maduro, a euphemism for his kidnapping, has been only a first brazen step in the US offensive against Venezuela. The threat of new attacks is real and imminent. The United States’ strategy envisages new bombings to force the overthrow of the current Venezuelan government should Delcy Rodríguez fail to submit to Washington’s dictates. Trump has already declared his willingness to even occupy the country and impose a post-Chavista puppet regime, in line with his agenda of recolonization through the appropriation of oil reserves by US companies to prevent China from accessing Venezuelan oil, chief among other considerations. The confirmation in Caracas of Washington’s military superiority was a brutal show of force in full view of Moscow and, above all, of Beijing: from the bombings in Iran, to the delivery of advanced offensive weapons to Zelensky’s government in Ukraine, to the absolute and unconditional support for Netanyahu’s genocidal war in Gaza, US imperialism has set out to demonstrate that it is the only power capable of exercising its unrestrained might on a global scale.
Venezuela has been attacked for three equally vital reasons: 1) because it possesses immense natural resources of crucial strategic value, notably oil, which is now in greater demand due to the immense needs generated by new AI infrastructures; 2) because, since the Cuban Revolution, Venezuela has been the Latin American country that has gone furthest in asserting itself as an independent State in a most vulnerable geopolitical position; c) because at the same time Venezuela is the weakest link in Latin America, due to its internal social and political divisions and its international isolation, as well as to its dependence, for its own survival, from China, Russia, and Iran. The way Washington presents things lacks any credibility. It is not true that Venezuela is a narco-State. The supply routes for the US drug market do not originate in Venezuela, but cross the Pacific Ocean mainly from Mexico and Colombia. It is not true that this is a political, economic, diplomatic, and military offensive by the United States exclusively in defense of democracy in Venezuela. Trump maintains close relations with monstrous tyrannies such as Saudi Arabia’s. Who could even consider that a puppet government imposed by Trump in Venezuela would be any more legitimate than the current one? All the pretexts used by the United States to attack Venezuela are preposterous, dishonest, false, and fraudulent.
The aggression against Venezuela is not only an unspeakable political crime, but also proof of Washington’s clear intent to use force whenever it deems it appropriate — as when it threatens Colombia and Cuba, although the danger of an attack on a scale similar to what happened in Caracas against those two countries does not seem immediate — for the assault on Venezuela is only the beginning of a long-term offensive across the entire continent. It would be unforgivable not to conclude that any Latin American government that comes to contradict the interests of the United States will be threatened by Washington’s willingness to exercise what it considers its right to exert is dominion over the Western Hemisphere, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego in Patagonia, including now Greenland. The new US national security doctrine, or “Donroe”, is illustrative of this new approach. Washington’s repositioning responds to the need to regain its economic and political dominance in the face of China’s growing economic power, military strength and political and diplomatic clout. In light of this reorientation of US foreign policy, the position that Brazil occupies and the role it may play today in Latin America becomes even more important — one is tempted to say even a decisive one.
Following China’s rise to world power status, however, US supremacy is no longer what it was thirty years ago. And yet it is necessary to assess the current conjuncture with rigorous realism. Any underestimation of US power would have devastating, if not irreversibly adverse, consequences for a long time to come. The outcome of the anti-imperialist struggle in solidarity with Venezuela will depend, first and foremost, on Venezuela’s own people’s capacity to fight back, but also on international solidarity playing a key role, starting with the irreplaceability of a vigorous movement of political and civil resistance within the United States. Latin American neo-fascism will no doubt align itself with Trump. Brazil will not be immune, even in the short-term, to the consequences of this confrontation. State terrorism is a very powerful weapon of intimidation. Fear is a very powerful emotion. Those who did not see the warning signs after the interference in the Argentine elections, when Trump resorted to the most blatant and explicit forms of blackmail to favor Milei, should now see the red light. In Colombia this coming May and Brazil this coming October, inevitable attempts at manipulating election results will surely rely on the most sordid tactics, including the spread of all kinds of lies and distortions on the mainstream press and on social media alike. Lula’s government does not need to agree with Maduro to recognize that he is a political prisoner and demand his release. No one has to be a die-hard Chavista to unconditionally defend Venezuela’s sovereignty. Anyone on the Brazilian left who fails to do so will see themselves plunged into disgrace, shame, and infamy.
We are facing a new, dramatically dangerous situation. The Venezuelan government remains for now firmly in control of all the levers of State power, including the military and the security apparatuses, however weakened they may have been by the US aggression. Defeats leave wounds and undermine morale, but it is important to extract from them the necessary lessons. Losing a battle does not mean losing the war, and this war has only just begun. The decisive battles lie ahead, not behind us. Fatalism is a bad advisor. Defeatism is an accomplice to demoralization. It is not only the most advanced weapons and those who wield them that determine the outcome of imperialist wars, but also the force of mobilization fueled by anti-imperialist consciousness. Those who dismiss the Venezuelan regime’s internal social and political base are mistaken. It is true that living conditions have extremely deteriorated in Venezuela as a result of an imperialist siege that has lasted for decades, and that there is understandable exhaustion among the masses due to the sacrifices imposed by the daily struggle for survival. It is also true that there have been, to varying degrees, instances of more than just petty corruption in the upper echelons of Chavismo, some of which have been documented and publicly exposed, such as the illicit enrichment of two PDVSA presidents, Rafael Ramírez (2004-2014) and Talik El Aissami (2020-2023). But it was not because Chavismo was moving along the path of an anti-capitalist rupture, first, or, more recently, of a neo-capitalist, populist pro-market reorientation that imperialism attacked Venezuela, but because Venezuela advanced further than any other Latin American country in the struggle for independence. The devaluation of the significance of the struggle for national liberation in a dependent, semi-colonial nation, however atypical because of its unlimited oil wealth, is a serious programmatic error.
In this context, the conspiracy theories that have proliferated on social media, even within left-wing or left-leaning circles, are deceitful and harmful. Why was the US attack so successful? For three fundamental reasons: 1) the enormous technological and military superiority of the United States; 2) the element of surprise; 3) but also, to a certain extent, the role played by betrayal in the success of such an attack. The cyberattack neutralized the anti-aircraft defenses, while the commando operation had too much information about Fort Tiúna. Clearly, there was CIA infiltration on the ground, and there are always those who can be bribed into treason. US espionage networks are present throughout the world, including in Brazil. And yet the imaginary “conspiracy theories” — paranoid thinking incompatible with any objective analysis, let alone a Marxist one — according to which the American military aggression could have been so successful in such an expeditious way only thanks to the complicity of senior officials of the Venezuelan government, if not of the entire government currently in place, are false and misleading. Obviously, much remains to be learned about the collapse of Venezuelan defenses in the early hours of January 3. But while conspiracy theories may be fascinating, they are a precursor to disinformation, confusion, and demoralization.
What will be Trump’s impending course of action? At this point, no one can know for sure. It will probably consist of continuing to brandish “terminal” threats, such as when Trump hints that Delcy Rodríguez could meet a fate worse than Maduro’s, i.e., being the victim of a targeted killing, alternating with negotiation offers. Negotiations on what terms? The conditions remain unclear. Economic strangulation is a powerful weapon, but will it be enough? Washington has already surprised a faction of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie abroad — mostly in Florida and Madrid — by summarily dismissing any role in Venezuela’s reins of power for María Corina Machado, which implies a tacit recognition that Machado does not enjoy sufficient internal support. In the absence of an internal bourgeois opposition with a minimum of social and political base and credibility — which, on the other hand, is tantamount to a shameful admission that Maduro did not lose the 2024 elections — Trump’s bet seems to rest on fueling internal divisions within the ranks of Chavismo. Chavismo has always been more of a populist and military movement than a party-centered political platform, and as such it is far from monolithic. But a pure and simple unconditional surrender by the Venezuelan government would be an inconceivable act of collective demoralization and, ultimately, a political suicide. Once a negotiated transition is ruled out, Trump would have no option but to use force. The US Navy would have roughly through the end of the summer in the northern hemisphere to remain stationed in the Caribbean before the hurricane season begins. As of the moment of the writing, an “apocalyptic” military solution does not seem likely. A large-scale invasion cannot be ruled out, but it seems equally improbable for two reasons: 1) the catastrophic outcome of the US withdrawal from Iraq and, above all, from Afghanistan; 2) unlike a commando operation, a full-scale military invasion would require the deployment of tens of thousands of soldiers in a large country with inhospitable terrain, such as the Andes mountain range and the Amazon rainforest, where resistance to military occupation could be maintained indefinitely. In other words, the cost would be so high that even in the event of a military victory, sooner or later such victory would prove to be Pyrrhic.
What options does Caracas have left? The government reacted to the attack by seeking internal cohesion around the inauguration of Delcy Rodríguez as acting President, thereby refusing to acknowledge the vacancy of the office. The key issue in this legal-political formula is not to call elections. This is a preventive and prudent decision in view of the possibility that Trump will launch an “elections now” campaign. It is in Venezuela’s interest to buy as much time as possible. Besides, it would be reckless to want to hold free elections in a country surrounded and besieged by the world’s largest military machine. Delcy Rodríguez is not wrong in declaring that her government remains open to engaging in negotiations with the United States and it is even willing to seek agreements providing the US a majority stake in Venezuela’s oil production. No one with a modicum of common sense would rush into a war they have zero chance to win, at least in conventional terms, and so at a devastating cost. Such economic concessions are a plausible calculation in the face of the ongoing threat of an invasion that would leave the country in ruins. Venezuela’s fate depends on the social strength of internal political mobilization and the international solidarity against Trump. In this context, it is more than legitimate to do everything possible to buy time and win over the consciousness of the masses, both inside and outside of the country, for the just cause of Venezuela’s sovereignty and of Nicolás Maduro’s and Cilia Flores’ release.
What role will China and Russia play? The reaction of Beijing and Moscow remains opaque, but neither Xi Jinping, nor much less Putin, will consider direct military intervention, even if only as a deterrent, for such a course of action could trigger a Third World War. However, in the arena of class struggle or inter-State conflict, the stakes are never all or nothing. There are countless possibilities for mediation. China and Russia should do much more than simply issuing statements of condemnation and solidarity. Venezuela is surrounded and urgently needs economic and political support. There are many feasible and effective initiatives that could be launched. An international meeting of all countries condemning the US intervention would signal that the government of Delcy Rodríguez has not been abandoned to its fate. The defense of Venezuela’s sovereignty will have to be articulated at different levels of partnership and alliance, from the broadest to the most restricted. The banners of “No to War” and “Respect for Venezuela’s Sovereignty” must preside over the minimum program. On another level of solidarity, though, it will also be necessary to advocate for the release of Maduro and Cilia Flores. On a third level, economic support for the government of Delcy Rodríguez will be vital. Brazil’s responsibility in this regard is immense. The immediate integration of Venezuela into the BRICS would be an extremely positive first step in that direction. A Lula’s visit to Caracas would be a courageous gesture of solidarity and a show of independence in the face of Washington’s dictates.
Featured image: Venezuelans march outside the National Assembly as Delcy Rodriguez is sworn in as the country’s interim president on January 5, 2026. (REUTERS/Maxwell Briceno)
Translated from the Portuguese by Rolando Prats.
