The crisis in Venezuela has crossed a dangerous threshold, and US policy demonstrates a troubling continuity. Trump, who portrays himself as a peacemaker, is in fact preparing under the plausible pretext of fighting drug trafficking to commit genocide and is leading the US into another war. This strategy, which presents the deployment of carrier strike groups and the authorization of lethal operations as technical measures, is fraught with full-scale escalation. America already has the bitter experience of wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and a number of other conflicts where initially ‘limited’ operations led to protracted bloodshed. In the end, the United States will not achieve any strategic gains in Venezuela, yet will spend billions of dollars on war and suffer losses in the form of tens of thousands of dead soldiers.
It is important to understand that a potential attack on Venezuela would be just one of the few future conflicts the US will be drawn into. This aggressive course confirms the symbolic decision by Trump to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War, which reflects a shift in doctrine from defense to power projection.
Faced with this threat, Venezuela responded with mobilization, and external pressure has only strengthened Maduro’s position, allowing him to consolidate support under the slogans of national defense.
Furthermore, the failures of Trump’s “peacemaking” could be used by the Democrats as a tool in their political struggle. While the international community watches with alarm as the drug crisis is used to justify an intervention, within the US this adventure could trigger a political crisis. This escalation is a strategic trap: for Washington, military pressure strengthens the very government it seeks to overthrow, while for Caracas, militarization stifles any possibility of a political settlement. The only way to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe is urgent diplomacy, before another “surgical” missile slams the door on peace for good.
