Oil, Power, and Politics in Trump's War Against Maduro

Linkage to Exxon’s oil concessions in Guyana confirms that energy & strategic interests, not democracy or law, are driving the escalation.

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(“They suffocate you; they squeeze your neck and tell you to surrender. And if you don’t surrender, they squeeze more and more… But our necks are made of steel”- Nicolas Maduro)

For decades Washington has sought regime change in Venezuela through a mixture of covert operations, overt sanctions, psychological warfare, proxy mercenary attempts, and diplomatic isolation campaigns, and the current escalation fits neatly within this established historical record. Declassified intelligence from April 2002 confirmed that dissident military factions were preparing to overthrow Hugo Chávez, a fact acknowledged by United States intelligence assessments that circulated before the coup which briefly removed him from power, exposing Washington’s foreknowledge even as officials denied responsibility afterwards. Subsequent investigations revealed that organisations involved in the coup had received funding through the National Endowment for Democracy, which is formally presented as an independent body but operates with State Department oversight, confirming direct U.S. material involvement in Venezuelan destabilisation at the very moment when democratic continuity was under physical threat.

After Chávez returned to power with mass civilian mobilisation, Washington shifted to sanctions and diplomatic delegitimisation, applying steady pressure through financial restrictions and indictments against Venezuelan officials, claiming to target corruption and narcotics while in practice dismantling economic stability. Independent research by Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs concluded that sanctions imposed since 2017 produced measurable humanitarian consequences, including increases in mortality linked to shortages of medicine and critical supplies, demonstrating that these measures were far from targeted and had destructive impact on ordinary Venezuelans. At the same time, the United States cultivated alternative centres of authority by recognising Juan Guaidó in 2019, bypassing Venezuela’s constitutional process, despite weak domestic legitimacy for his claims, and effectively attempting to create a parallel state through foreign recognition alone.

Washington’s recognition of Guaidó was coupled with the “maximum pressure” doctrine, which sought to tighten sanctions while encouraging military defections, yet major policy think tanks like the Atlantic Council and the Brookings Institution have since judged that strategy ineffective because it neither destabilised the Chavista leadership nor improved living conditions for Venezuelans. The effect, as these same institutions admit, was to push Venezuela closer to Russia, China, and Iran, which provided diplomatic cover, financial assistance, and security partnerships that entrenched rather than eroded Maduro’s hold on power. Even during this period, the United States tolerated or indirectly supported covert paramilitary ventures such as the failed “Operation Gideon” in 2020, a mercenary landing by U.S. private contractors captured almost immediately by Venezuelan authorities, which demonstrated the recklessness and weakness of outsourcing regime change to unaccountable paramilitary actors.

By 2025 the global context shifted dramatically with Russia and Ukraine entering new rounds of peace talks after years of attritional conflict, reducing Washington’s preoccupation with Eastern Europe and opening bandwidth for renewed pressure in Latin America. Within weeks of these talks, U.S. officials escalated actions against Caracas, beginning with the State Department’s 7 August announcement of a reward of up to fifty million dollars for information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, doubling a previous bounty and signalling an aggressive turn in Washington’s legal warfare approach. This was rapidly followed by a significant U.S. military deployment in the southern Caribbean Sea, where approximately four thousand marines and sailors were dispatched under the formal cover of anti-narcotics operations, despite the units involved being amphibious assault formations with little connection to drug interdiction.

The forces deployed include the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, which are trained and equipped for high-intensity expeditionary combat, not for routine law enforcement tasks, underlining the political nature of the deployment rather than the stated mission. U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, repeated allegations of a so-called Cartel de los Soles operating under Maduro’s control, yet years of investigations have failed to provide court-tested evidence of this organisation’s existence as a coherent cartel structure. The timing of this escalation therefore suggests political calculation connected both to the changing strategic map after the Russia-Ukraine negotiations and to immediate energy-security interests in neighbouring Guyana, where Exxon Mobil operates in the disputed Essequibo region with direct U.S. backing.

President Maduro responded with a massive mobilisation of the Bolivarian Militia, ordering more than four million members to integrate into territorial defence structures and to stand ready to repel any incursion. The Bolivarian Militia has deep institutional roots, having been formalised in 2009 as an auxiliary force linked to the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, with both territorial militias organised by geography and combat corps embedded in workplaces and institutions. Over five million Venezuelans are now enrolled in this militia system, conducting more than six hundred thousand patrols and serving as a backbone of Venezuela’s strategy of “war of all the people,” which is explicitly framed by military commanders as a doctrine of popular resistance to foreign invasion. The militia is heavily armed with a mix of FN FAL rifles, AK-103 rifles produced locally under Russian license, East German AKM derivatives, heavy machine guns, recoilless rifles, and mortars, while rural units also employ Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifles and machetes as symbolic and practical weapons of resistance.

Maduro declared that Venezuela had broken with military dependence on Washington, echoing Chávez’s position after the 2002 coup, and declared that the nation’s sovereignty would be defended at all costs. Senior commanders such as Maj. Gen. Javier Marcano Tabata have described the militia as a strategic vision rooted in the philosophy of a people’s war, insisting that the armed forces exist to defend sovereignty, not to project power abroad. Brigadier General Joel Sanchez emphasised that Venezuela wants respect for its right to pursue social and political development without external interference, rejecting claims that Caracas threatens neighbouring states. In this sense, the mobilisation of the militia represents both practical preparation for territorial defence and political signalling that the country will resist externally imposed regime change by mobilising society as a whole.

At the same time, reports surfaced from Russian military analysis channels suggesting that Moscow may deliver up to two thousand Geran-2 drones to Venezuela, a quantity that could significantly alter the regional balance of military deterrence. These drones, based on Iranian Shahed designs, have been used extensively in Ukraine, where they have demonstrated resilience against advanced Western air defence systems when deployed in large numbers. Analysts noted that a Venezuelan Geran fleet could theoretically threaten U.S. military bases across the Caribbean, including Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico, and logistics hubs in the Virgin Islands and Colombia, while launches from western Venezuela or offshore barges could even reach Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida under certain conditions.

The prospect of thousands of drones swarming U.S. bases would require enormous additional defensive deployments, stretching Washington’s already overextended naval and air assets which are also engaged in the Indo-Pacific and Middle East. Even if interception is technically feasible, the cost-benefit balance would shift against Washington, as Caracas could impose disproportionate defensive burdens at relatively low cost. The suggestion of drone transfers is therefore less about immediate warfighting capacity and more about signalling with Russia reminding Washington that Latin America remains open to counter-balancing deployments, and Venezuela signalling that it has options to raise costs if threatened.

The United States meanwhile continues to escalate pressure through legal, economic, and military means. The designation of Maduro’s government as a “narco-state” and the declaration of Venezuelan entities as foreign terrorist organisations follow a well-worn pattern of fabricating pretexts to justify military aggression, a pattern described openly by Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino López. The bounty on Maduro, the movement of naval assets, and the deployment of thousands of marines under narcotics cover collectively point towards preparations for intensified coercion rather than genuine counternarcotics work. Washington’s repeated claims about Maduro’s ties to criminal cartels are not supported by evidence presented in any international court, while independent Mexican officials have publicly rejected allegations that Caracas is allied with the Sinaloa cartel.

Within Venezuela, the militia and the wider Bolivarian Armed Forces stress the principle of perfect popular, military, and police fusion, describing themselves as an unbreakable shield of sovereignty and dignity. Statements from militia commanders make clear that they interpret U.S. accusations as a cover for aggression and that they are preparing for scenarios of invasion or subversion, recalling earlier mercenary plots like Operation Gideon. Regional governments such as Cuba, Nicaragua, and Mexico have denounced the U.S. escalation as a threat to hemispheric peace, and demonstrations inside Venezuela have mobilised tens of thousands of citizens under anti-imperialist slogans to reject Washington’s threats.

Seen in historical context, the current escalation represents a continuation of Washington’s pursuit of regime change in Venezuela through a blend of sanctions, legal indictments, military deployments, and information warfare. The timing of the recent escalation, coming immediately after Russia-Ukraine peace talks, suggests a deliberate recalibration: as Washington seeks to free resources from Europe, it shifts towards renewed confrontation in its declared hemisphere of influence, targeting a country that controls the largest proven oil reserves in the world and sits adjacent to Exxon’s operations in disputed Guyanese waters. The fact that U.S. officials openly link Venezuelan actions to threats against Exxon’s operations in Essequibo confirms that energy security and corporate interests remain central drivers of this policy, not merely abstract concerns about democracy or narcotics trafficking.

Washington’s strategy has not achieved its stated aims over two decades, and by the admission of its own analysts, has often backfired by pushing Caracas deeper into the orbit of Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran. The reliance on fabricated narratives such as the Cartel de los Soles, or the inflation of threats from Venezuela to U.S. security, reflects a longstanding pattern of pretexts preceding aggression, which Latin America has experienced in numerous prior interventions. The mobilisation of the Bolivarian Militia, the potential introduction of Russian drone systems, and the explicit linkage of Venezuelan security to regional sovereignty mean that any U.S. escalation would carry far greater risks than in previous decades.

The evidence shows a steady trajectory that Washington has attempted to remove Venezuela’s government since 2002 through direct coup backing, sanctions that damage the civilian population, recognition of parallel authorities, mercenary plots, and now open military deployments in the Caribbean. Each stage has failed to achieve regime change, yet each has produced severe humanitarian and security consequences. With peace talks underway in Europe, the United States appears ready to turn its attention back to Latin America, applying maximum pressure under the guise of counternarcotics while positioning itself to secure oil and geopolitical leverage. Venezuela, for its part, has responded with full mobilisation of its population through the militia, open defiance of fabricated charges, and strategic partnership with Russia to balance U.S. power projection.

The outcome will depend on the hard realities of military deterrence, economic resilience, and political legitimacy. The past twenty years of U.S. policy show that destabilisation without negotiation entrenches adversarial alignment rather than producing change, while generating civilian suffering and regional instability. The latest deployments and threats are consistent with this history, and the linkage to Exxon’s oil concessions in Guyana confirms that energy and strategic interests, not democracy or law, are driving the escalation.

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Global geopolitics