“Experts still say that Maduro’s threats are more talk than action,” as a recent article in Semafor put it.
In other words, “experts still say” what many experts were saying just before at least three previous cross-border aggressions: Russia’s attack on Ukraine last year; Iraq’s seizure of Kuwait in 1990; and Argentina’s invasion of the British-run Falkland Islands in 1982.
Each time, much conventional wisdom assumed the authoritarian in charge — Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein or Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, respectively — would be crazy to act on his threats.
“I never, never expected the Argentines to invade the Falklands head-on,” British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher later admitted. “It was such a stupid thing to do … such a stupid thing even to contemplate doing.”
Just for the sake of argument, then, let’s consider the reasons Maduro, a radical leftist, might not be bluffing. It’s a surprisingly long list.
It starts with the isomorphism between the territorial claims that led Putin, Saddam and Galtieri to act in the past — and Maduro to fulminate now. Venezuela’s claim (that Essequibo was wrongfully awarded to Guyana’s colonial precursor, Britain, in a rigged 1899 arbitration) has lain dormant for years, but predates the Maduro regime. It is widely supported even by many of the regime’s opponents.
It resembles Putin’s insistence that Ukraine was always Russian until severed by the West after the Cold War; Saddam’s assertion that Kuwait was Iraq’s “Province 19” until the British carved it out; and the Argentine generals’ view that Britain usurped the Falklands in the early 19th century.
Like taking Kuwait, seizing most of Guyana (pop. 800,000) could be a low-risk, high-reward proposition in the eyes of a would-be aggressor. The discovery of vast offshore petroleum reserves in the waters off Essequibo eight years ago have turned Guyana into the world’s fastest-growing economy. Yet only 4,150 troops defend the whole country.
The strongest analogy to a prospective Venezuelan move on Guyana, though, is Argentina’s attempted takeover of the lightly populated South Atlantic archipelago known throughout Latin America as Las Malvinas. Not only did Buenos Aires launch that war on April 2, 1982, to undo the British Empire’s supposed perfidy; it also did so to aid the short-term political interests of what was then an unpopular dictatorship.
Crowds went from chanting “elections now” to cheering Galtieri’s challenge to the Thatcher government: “If they want to come, let them come, we will give them battle!”
Maduro, too, faces tremendous pressure — internal and external — for free elections, from which the Essequibo issue provides a distraction.
On Dec. 3 he mounted a Putin-style “referendum,” in which the few voters who turned out supposedly overwhelmingly ratified Essequibo’s status as a Venezuelan state — and, crucially, rejected the International Court of Justice’s ongoing jurisdiction over the issue. The regime has unveiled new maps and talked of granting oil exploration licenses.
“We’ve taken a new step toward a new stage of history,” Maduro, sounding like Galtieri, said in a post-referendum speech. “How much they’ve underestimated us. How much they’ve underestimated me.”
A final precedent: South America’s few interstate wars usually involve disputed boundaries across the continent’s mountain ranges, deserts — or rainforest. In 1995, Ecuador clashed with Peru over its claim — represented for years on official Ecuadorian maps — to a stretch of the Peruvian Amazon. The monthlong war led to international arbitration and a territorial settlement.
The relevant question, then, seems to be whether Maduro thinks he can achieve his domestic political goals through threats alone, or whether, like Galtieri, he thinks success depends on actually attacking.
One benefit of armed conflict, from the dictator’s vantage point, is that it could justify canceling elections, which Maduro has promised for next year — but correctly fears losing. Even the incompetent Venezuelan armed forces might make Guyana surrender by bombing its small capital city, Georgetown, or shelling offshore oil platforms.
As for the international community, Venezuela can probably count on support or at least neutrality from its allies Cuba, Iran and Russia. The Latin American and Caribbean response to Venezuela’s campaign has generally been negative. But Caracas can score propaganda points on Thursday, when Maduro meets with Guyanese President Irfaan Ali in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, an opportunity to further the Venezuelan narrative of a “dispute” that “both sides” must resolve.
The Biden administration has admonished Maduro and signaled support for Guyanese defense. One might think the lessons of Kuwait and the Falklands, both of which ended in disaster for the invader, would lend some credence to U.S. deterrence.
More recent events, however, suggest that a U.S.-led coalition’s commitment to Kyiv could flag before Putin is defeated in Ukraine; he’s already held Crimea almost a decade. Today’s Western powers might lack the same resolve that went into their risky and bloody rescues of the Falklands and Kuwait in what feels like a bygone era.
To be sure, a U.S.-led “liberate Guyana” mission would probably succeed, but it wouldn’t be simple and no one can predict what will happen politically and diplomatically when the inevitable cry of “no blood for oil” — ExxonMobil is the largest operator of Guyana’s offshore rigs — goes up.
For the record: Venezuela probably will stop short of war this time, basically for the reasons the experts cite. But if it doesn’t, it wouldn’t be the first time governments — both those who would redraw borders by force, and those who would prevent them — have guessed wrong about each other’s true intentions.
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