On January 3rd, U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a meticulously planned operation. The lights went out across Venezuela—a demonstration of American cyber capabilities—while Russian air defenses proved useless. The old boss is gone.
But this wasn’t regime change. Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s deputy, now runs the government—under Washington’s direction. Trump has made it explicit: cooperate or face worse. Another term for it could be “tyrant change.”
Why did we do this? It’s not about democracy or drugs. It’s about oil, leverage over China, cutting off Cuba’s energy lifeline, and neutralizing Maduro’s territorial threats toward oil-rich Guyana.
So far it’s working. But two weeks of success proves nothing about the long term. We discuss the strategic logic, the historical parallels to Panama and Iraq, and why the last chapter of this story is far from written.
