I don’t want to downplay the fuckery that this is and how awful things are getting for Venezuelans but it feels like this is an indication of where the US economy is at, since this is the classic playbook for distraction from economic woes and to do yet-another wealth transfer from the public purse to the M-I complex while driving up the price of oil at least temporarily and gaining access to vast mineral wealth in the longer term.
I’m reading it as a troubling development for the geopolitical situation around the world because the messier the US economy gets, the more it will spill out onto other countries. I was hoping for the US to get another bloody nose, for all the obvious reasons but also because it might make them think twice about starting shit on with Iran again.
But that’s very idealistic of me. After all, you cannot reason with a rabid dog - there’s only one way of dealing with it.
In my mind the largest question is whether the US is going to commit to full occupation, which is unpopular with even the right wing, unless it’s framed as an explicitly colonial project (which is far more costly to maintain), or is the US going to use limited shows of force targeted to eliminate the top layers of the PSUV and keep the base happy by jingling the MIC keys in front of them, later trusting the gusanos to be good compradores once they seize power.
Both are distractions from the impending doom of the AI bubble and economic catastrophe, but they serve different goals with different levels of investment. If the US squeezes outside its borders, it would have to relax inside with the same resources, leaving itself open to disruption at home. But it also needs the immediate kind of resource transfers that only colonial occupation could bring to keep propping up the US economy and defer the other economic shoe from dropping for long enough that it is someone else’s problem.
It is also a troubling geopolitical development in the sense that now the threat of forced removal of a Latin American head of state is on the table, its governments will have to fall in line. This will inevitably mean that American capital will tighten its grip on latam and make the economies of the region even more interconnected and dependent. Worsening the effects of any nosebleeds the US will have.
Agreed on all points. You laid it all out really well here.
My guess is a puppet comprador government for Venezuela if things go to plan for the US, with all the major oil contracts going to US companies (or a privatization and American buy up of the Venezuelan nationalized oil industry, more than likely.)
This is very much in line with what the US has been signalling with foreign policy it has been withdrawing from its NATO commitments and where it has indicated that it will be less involved in the world, strongly implying a return to the Monroe Doctrine era. But there are so many moving parts and they are all moving so quickly that it’s hard to get a good read on what will happen next.
I would expect that the US won’t want to get bogged down in Venezuela, militarily or through administration, because Iran is the next target.
Exactly.
I don’t want to downplay the fuckery that this is and how awful things are getting for Venezuelans but it feels like this is an indication of where the US economy is at, since this is the classic playbook for distraction from economic woes and to do yet-another wealth transfer from the public purse to the M-I complex while driving up the price of oil at least temporarily and gaining access to vast mineral wealth in the longer term.
I’m reading it as a troubling development for the geopolitical situation around the world because the messier the US economy gets, the more it will spill out onto other countries. I was hoping for the US to get another bloody nose, for all the obvious reasons but also because it might make them think twice about starting shit on with Iran again.
But that’s very idealistic of me. After all, you cannot reason with a rabid dog - there’s only one way of dealing with it.
In my mind the largest question is whether the US is going to commit to full occupation, which is unpopular with even the right wing, unless it’s framed as an explicitly colonial project (which is far more costly to maintain), or is the US going to use limited shows of force targeted to eliminate the top layers of the PSUV and keep the base happy by jingling the MIC keys in front of them, later trusting the gusanos to be good compradores once they seize power.
Both are distractions from the impending doom of the AI bubble and economic catastrophe, but they serve different goals with different levels of investment. If the US squeezes outside its borders, it would have to relax inside with the same resources, leaving itself open to disruption at home. But it also needs the immediate kind of resource transfers that only colonial occupation could bring to keep propping up the US economy and defer the other economic shoe from dropping for long enough that it is someone else’s problem.
It is also a troubling geopolitical development in the sense that now the threat of forced removal of a Latin American head of state is on the table, its governments will have to fall in line. This will inevitably mean that American capital will tighten its grip on latam and make the economies of the region even more interconnected and dependent. Worsening the effects of any nosebleeds the US will have.
Agreed on all points. You laid it all out really well here.
My guess is a puppet comprador government for Venezuela if things go to plan for the US, with all the major oil contracts going to US companies (or a privatization and American buy up of the Venezuelan nationalized oil industry, more than likely.)
This is very much in line with what the US has been signalling with foreign policy it has been withdrawing from its NATO commitments and where it has indicated that it will be less involved in the world, strongly implying a return to the Monroe Doctrine era. But there are so many moving parts and they are all moving so quickly that it’s hard to get a good read on what will happen next.
I would expect that the US won’t want to get bogged down in Venezuela, militarily or through administration, because Iran is the next target.