Annotations for Speakers: Kurt Weyland

Yeah, thank you for having me. It'll be important to talk about this tragic events in Venezuela.

So if you want to go back to the origins, I think Venezuela had democracy that was oligarchic and ossified and elitist, but that used to have from the late 1950s to the 1990s two party competition and alternation in power. So it was a democracy, but it was ossified and corrupt. So that allowed for the rise of Hugo Chávez, who was military nationalist, who had actually made a coup attempt against that ossified democracy, but to then took the electoral route, and due to vast popular discontent, he was swept into office in the landslide in 1998 and he started as a democratically elected leader, but he is a populist, and populists want power, and they want more power, and they want to stay in power for a long time. And so Hugo Chávez immediately transformed the institutions to concentrate more power to get control of the legislature, soon, pack the courts, push the opposition aside. So what Hugo Chávez did he transfer? He used his democratically elected position to transform Venezuela gradually, slowly, into what we call a soft authoritarian regime. And I say soft because Hugo Chávez was tremendously charismatic. He had an electrifying personality. So Hugo Chávez could do this transformation from democracy into authoritarian rule, but not using very much violence and repression at all. So he was illiberal. He was undemocratic. He used his charisma to essentially establish his political hegemony and cement cement his authoritarian regime. But he was not brutal and repressive. Then what happens is that Chávez dies an early age of cancer, and he had these charismatic leaders are so full of themselves they don't want to nurture rivals. So he had survived himself, typically, by comparing weaklings and sycophants. And when he was about to die, he nominated one of those weaklings and sycophants, Nicholás Maduro, as his successor. So then Maduro comes in, has an authoritarian regime, but doesn't have the charismatic authority and popular support of Hugo Chávez. So soon, Maduro faces opposition challenges. What do you do if you have an authoritarian regime, you don't have a lot of popular support, you use your control of the military and you crack down. And so Maduro cracked down hard in 2014 against opposition protests. He cracked down again in 2017 he cracked down in 2019 so what he did is he transformed Hugo Chávez's soft authoritarian regime into a harsh, repressive dictatorship. By the way, much, much harsher than Victor Orbán's in Hungary. So Orbán still has a soft authoritarian regime. Venezuela has turned into a really repressive dictatorship. So these dictatorships, they don't they don't respect elections. They still hold elections to have a window dressing because they claim to have to be democratic. But they do whatever they can, ban opposition politicians. Make life hard for the opposition, control the airwaves, spent tremendously before the election, so Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro, got himself re-elected in 2018 in a complete sham election that the opposition boycotted, but the opposition has no leverage against him. Protests don't work. International pressure hasn't worked, so the opposition decided this time, when Maduro came up for re-election, to challenge him in the election, thinking that the time was right for a change, because at the same time that Maduro transformed Venezuela into a brutal dictatorship, he has also ruined the economy. I mean rowing, there hasn't been a country suffering so badly outside of war, than Venezuela. Venezuela, in the last 20 years has seen its GDP drop by 75% I'm talking about 75% which is a tremendous collapse, 75% so about three or four years ago, when the economy hit, worked. Autumn, about 80, 90% of the population lived in poverty. 8 million Venezuelans have left the country in despair, and so I mean, has done total mismanagement, but holding this election, the opposition thought they could finally make dent, and opinion polls showed overwhelming support for the opposition, very low support for Maduro. The exit polls show overwhelming support for the opposition, so they clearly, clearly won, but Maduro, for reasons that I can explain later, Maduro just simply claims to have won, sits there, has support from the military, has taken over all the institutions and justice I won, and the opposition can claim whatever they want, the international community can demand whatever they want. I'll just keep governing.

So this is interesting about these authoritarian regimes. When you go back and you mentioned my inter-war book in the inter-war years, authoritarian rulers were happy to call themselves dictators, and they were proud that they are dictators. But after the Second World War, dictatorship hasn't been that cool anymore, and especially after the end of the Cold War, when the United States in the 1990s had tremendous global hegemony and pushed countries to become liberal and democratic. Nowadays, it's not cool anymore not to hold elections. So virtually every country in the world holds elections, and a lot of these elections are complete sham. The incumbent wins by 98% of the vote. But the old elections say, oh, you know, we have a democratic facade. And I think that is especially the case in cases where authoritarian regime emerges fairly gradually from a democracy. I mean, there wasn't a military coup, you know, right now I'm down in Chile, when in Chile there was a military coup. Dictator Pinochet closed elections. I just want to do as a military dictator. But if you are populist leader who transforms his country from a democracy into an authoritarian regime, you don't want to cancel elections and then suddenly become a dictator. You try, and if you're Chávez, you have a lot of popularity, you think you can win all these elections, and you maintain elections. It's not cool not to have elections, especially in the Western Hemisphere, under the nose of the United States, in a region that in 2001 adopted a Democratic Charter that the region committed to democracy. And so you claim against all evidence that this is democratic, and this is democratic, and you all the elections, and then you try to manipulate the stage. You mentioned the banning of the main opposition candidate. You try to manipulate things in all kinds of ways so that somehow or other, you think he might be able to eke out victory. I don't know what Maduro thought, whether he thought somehow his manipulations would allow him to achieve some kind of shame victory, or whether he just thought, it doesn't matter, but not holding elections, it's just not legit anymore.

It's very hard to know. We don't have access to the inner, innner workings of the Maduro regime. We don't know some of these, some of these dictators are really quite united and believe their own propaganda. I mean, what is interesting and what I honestly do not understand, while Maduro outlawed the main opposition candidate and created all kinds of trouble for the opposition, and imprisoned opposition leaders, left and right and all the kind of thing. He allowed opinion polls to go forward, and every single credible opinion poll showed like the vote preference of 70% For the opposition and 25% for Maduro. So if so, I would find it kind of surprising if Maduro didn't know what the population was like. Maybe they thought that by for example, there are rumors that do it on election day, they created trouble for people to vote, especially opposition neighborhoods, you know, long lines and very slow movement, and whereas in their own neighborhoods, you know, so they maybe they thought, in just manipulating the voting process or that they could somehow others manipulate ballot boxes, that they would come up with the result. It's hard to know what exactly is going on, but, but what I frankly, wonder is whether Maduro just thought the result doesn't matter. I mean, he said before the election, the famous quote, I'll win by hook or crook. It doesn't matter. You know, this way or other. And so these dictators, you know, he knew that he had a lot of support from the military, which is absolutely decisive, for reasons that I can explain. And so in some sense, it doesn't matter to him what the election result is. He just sits there, protected by the military, knows he will stay in power. The domestic opposition can shout and yell. The international community can make pressure. He has enough support from China, Russia, Iran, and he'll just sit there. He sits on oil, so he has some economic lifeline and election result in some basic sense, doesn't matter that much to him.

So this is interesting, in any authoritarian regime, ultimately, it comes down to who controls organized coercion. Because if you're under an authoritarian regime, you don't have procedural, institutional legitimacy, and so you need, ultimately, the capacity to rely on coercion if there's problem, if there is protests, you need to have the capacity to clamp down. Now, front line of that is the police and these paramilitaries that they have in these paramilitary gangs that they have in Venezuela. But ultimately, when push comes to shove, it depends on the military. The military is the mainstay of every single authoritarian regime, the Ultima ratio. So and Maduro has that military support for the same reason that Maduro feels compelled to stay in power, which is the following. During his 11 years as a dictator, Maduro has committed a bunch of human rights violations. He has ensured military loyalty by allowing the military to engage in large scale corruption, contraband. The military and Maduro are involved in international drug trafficking. Two of Maduro's nephews were apprehended in 2015 for involvement in drug trafficking. So the whole clique in power, Maduro, his political support, his narrow aids and the military, which is the mainstay, they're all essentially a crime cartel mafia and so the problem is the international community has become legalized. The international community says we don't accept corruption. We don't accept human rights violations anymore. And so the international community has threatened to indict Maduro and a whole bunch of his underlings for their human rights violations, for their corruption, for their involvement in drug trafficking, not only the US, but also the International Criminal Court. And so that whole mafia in power essentially feels compelled to stay in power, because if they were to lose power, they go to jail, to jail. And you see the international presidents. When the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, stepped down in 2022 within three weeks, he was in chains and extradited to the United States. And so that's what Maduro and all the main generals fear. If they lose power, they're going to go to jail forever, and so that's the reason why they cling to power, regardless of what happens. And by Maduro can be assured of military support. They all, you know this saying they all have to hang together so that they don't hang separately.

I think this is one of the most painful dilemmas that the international community is facing, because in many ways, we want to hold these bad guys accountable, you know, and we want to deter bad behavior in the future. But the big paradox that, unfortunately, a lot of the advocates and academics who are in favor of this legalization of International Affairs don't want to face up to the terrible paradox is that the current leaders in power who have already committed all kinds of malfeasance and misdeeds, they now have a big incentive not to give up power and to keep doing the bad things due to that threat of international prosecution. It's a terrible paradox that the international community has a hard time dealing with.

That is the thing, right? I mean, you think France would want to have sit Maduro in some fancy, fancy mansion in the Riviera, you know, sipping Gin Tonic by lying around the pool in France? I mean, you know, this has become impossible. Can you imagine the outcry? Of course, nobody would want the guy. The only places that he could go to would be North Korea, which is not precisely, very attractive. And so that is a terrible dilemma, because you refer, you know, you probably alluded, to the south of France to former dictator of Haiti Duvalier. He went to France. At that time, there was still, you know, Haiti, former French colony. He could go to France. And he left. And so he ended that nightmare in Haiti. But nowadays Maduro go to France. I mean, no way. And so that is the problem we would be the international community would need to designate like St Helena or something at the safe haven dictators and give them beautiful mansions there. But, you see, for my joke, it's not a viable alternative, and it's right, it's not a credible offer. The opposition, knowing of the terrible dilemma, the opposition said, Maduro, you know, if we win, we will negotiate with you and exit. That's not credible, because if they win, and Maduro recognizes the victory is in a very weak position. Is he going to believe that they will give him safe haven, and even if the Venezuelan opposition would want it. How about the US and how about the International Criminal Court? I mean, now in this election controversy, the head of the OAS has requested the of the International Criminal Court to have an order order of imprisonment from Maduro. You can't easily have that go away.

So to talk about the support inside Venezuela, I mean, Hugo Chávez was hugely, hugely popular for all his failings. Hugo Chávez took on an ossified elitist democracy and claimed to do things for poorer people. And given that, Hugo Chávez benefited from the global commodities boom, he rolled over one a bunch of social programs, you know, he tried to advance popular health care, literacy campaigns, all these kinds of things. So some people benefited from Chávez, and Chávez was highly revered, and some of that still persists. But I think the main support for my guru is essentially people who are utterly dependent upon him. Every person who works in the vastly swelled public administration has to promise support to Maduro, otherwise they lose their job. And what Maduro has done, he has devilishly taken advantage of the terrible crisis that he helped to create by using a program of distribution of food packages to the poor who have nothing to eat, and controls that through a surveillance system to essentially say you only eat if you support me. And so when you see now people protesting in favor of Maduro, a lot of those are essentially bought lackeys. And so that is also, you know, there is the regime holds a whole bunch of people hostage, because if you don't vote, and people probably fear if they vote, they have to vote for Maduro, you don't vote, you don't eat. So that's the domestic support. So So is that voluntary? Autonomous? Probably not. I think a lot of that is coerced and dependent internationally. Unfortunately, as I said, I'm down in Chile and I was recently in Brazil, a number of left wingers still have this sort of strange ideological affinity. So the Chilean Communist Party has recognized the Venezuelan election, and Maduro has reelected the Brazilian Workers Party, the Workers Party of President Lula in Brazil, which rose under an authoritarian regime and was very important for Brazil's democratization, the Workers Party of Brazil has recognized Maduro's victory to be out of that kind of misunderstood ideological affinity. So there's this left-wing thing like, Oh yeah, you know, he's kind of bad, but he still is a left winger, and we need to support him, and also driven a little by anti-Americanism. So So you have this strange kind of sort of support for a left winger that leaves democracy out of the picture. And that is really very disturbing.

I unfortunately do not see a breaking point, and I do not see a realistic chance for Maduro leaving office anytime soon. I think the opposition is enormously courageous. I admire the courage of people to not only to go out and campaign and to be opposition candidates, but even to vote for the opposition. I admire their courage in protesting, but I do not think that they have the cloud by far domestically to really do something. And the international community, the international community, of course, is divided, as I mentioned. Maduro, has support from the kind of bad axis of China and Russia and Iran and whatever Western countries, many countries have not recognized the result of the election, and they're pushing for Venezuela to make transparent the voting process and to negotiate and all this kind of thing. And Maduro just doesn't do it, you know. So here, in some sense, surprisingly, a group of left-wing governments in Latin America, led by Luna da Silva, who, as president, although his party recognized the election as President, hasn't done it. Gustavo Pedro of Mexico and of Colombia, sorry, and then AMLO of Mexico, they have all pushed Venezuela to make the Election Results transparent, and Maduro says, yeah, and maybe not, and maybe whatever, and just doesn't do it. And so I think the international community essentially has no leverage. What leverage do you have? I mean, the country, the country's economy, is going terribly, but oil gives it a little bit of a lifeline, and Maduro doesn't care. I mean, what does Maduro care? Sitting in his palace surrounded by military people who are compelled to support him, if 80% of the population starve, I mean, it just doesn't and what can the international community do? The United States has imposed sanctions. Doesn't do any good, because countries like China, Russia, Iran, enable Maduro to evade sanctions to a good extent. The Latin American governments, you know, they make like diplomatic moves, but they're not going to. I mean, what would it take? I mean, honestly, it would take a military invasion of Venezuela. And nobody is prepared to do that well.

So this is a good point, and I think that two reasons that it hasn't happened in Venezuela, um, the first is that Hugo Chávez faced a coup attempt in 2002 and then he got of course scared and what do you do? And he was very close to Fidel Castro of Cuba, and Cuba sent 2,000 intelligence agents that essentially helped Chávez purge the military and install an internal surveillance and control system that was very strong and very effective. And so they essentially the military, I mean Maduro is aware that the only real threat he would face would be from the defection of military. And so they try to prevent it at all cost. Through surveillance, through harsh crack downs, through purges, I mean, there are a lot of stories that military people who showed some sign of disloyalty are being tortured, are being killed. So so coercion has enabled him to keep military loyalty. The second thing is the following. What is the situation in which lower level military people defect? Essentially, if you have sustained mass protests that get suppressed with large-scale violence, and it goes on and on and on. And then at some point or other, members of the military might say, I don't wanna I don't wanna do this anymore. But in some sense, you know, and I don't know how to say that, fortunately or unfortunately, from the perspective of what we are saying, unfortunately, there were large-scale protests in Venezuela for two, three days. Then it died down because the repression was effective. And so two, three days, you know, you crack down. Yes. You you imprison 2,000 people. You kill a bunch of people. It wasn't sustained enough, and it wasn't broad enough. And when you see where the so, like, the recent opposition protest last Saturday was in the eastern part of Caracas, which is a middle class neighborhood. If the protests had led to a mass outpouring of popular protests some some popular neighborhoods like Petare protested, but the whole western part of Caracas is the real stronghold of Chavista support. And there wasn't very much protest going on there if there had been really massive outpouring. If it hadn't only been, know, predominantly educated middle class people, but if there had been, you know, millions of poor Venezuelans just pouring down from the slums and hills and poor neighborhoods of Caracas into the city center, besieging the Presidential Palace. If there have been a real kind of popular assault on the regime and that had gone on and then there had been just killing, killing, killing, killing, then you might have seen defection. But but the regime managed very quickly to contain and suppress the protests and confine them primarily to the middle-class areas, and that is just simply not enough to prompt large-scale military defection.

No. No. You caught me you caught me on a blank. I I I mean, the only thing you can do is try to support the Venezuelan opposition, you know, support the many, many I mean, hundreds of thousands of people who left Venezuela, went to The United States. Somehow or other I mean, I don't even know what we can do to do that. Limit the crackdown that will happen. I mean, what I what I frankly predict, and I'm sorry that I'm not really providing much optimism, but I predict that in a couple of weeks, the regime will imprison the two opposition politicians that led the challenge. And, you know, then the best we can do is some personal exchange or whatever. I mean, I think the perspective is very, very bad negative. I'm sorry that I can't follow your your recommendation to come up with something. The most optimistic thing is that, you know, even Maduro at some point has to die. And, I mean, maybe then that succession issue will provide some hope.

And I do It it's a very I mean, I joked with you before the session. I mean, you talked about your son's poem. I said this will have to be a very sad elegy that you like.

I I think I think that the US has tried a number of things. You know, the Biden administration was involved in a negotiation effort last year and last fall, offering easing of sanctions if the regime actually went ahead with honest elections. And as we see now, it didn't work very well. I I'm sorry that I think kind of approximation doesn't work very much. That regime has negotiated on so many accounts essentially in bad faith using it as a stalling tactic, get over temporary problems, and then just simply cement its hold again. I think the only option is essentially to sanction the hell out of them. And, you know, for from the part of the United States. I I I do not think that the US has a lot of options. I mean, it shows in some sense how weak the United States has become internationally even in its own Western Hemisphere. I mean, when you think that the United States has been unable to forestall Venezuelans descend into authoritarianism, into brutal dictatorship, into total implosion and destruction of the country, that the United States has not had any real leverage over that process in a country so import, you know, even for the oil supply of the US and the world as Venezuela. It shows you when people talk about US or Germany and US predominance and whatever. I mean, the Venezuelan case is a striking example how weak the United States has become even in the Western Hemisphere.

No. I absolutely agree. I think the international community has to face up to that terrible paradox that this legalization of international affairs has this unintended side effect. And I do not know what could be done to, you know I mean, I made the joke about Saint Helena. There would have to be some kinda international safe haven, some way of sort of emergency amnesty, whatever, and it would have to be credible and enforced by the international community, unfortunately, limiting that international regime of prosecuting violators of human rights and other norms in order to I mean, not only induce, but allow them to step down from power. I mean and how to do that? Man, that is a very, very difficult how to build an international regime in a world that is so divided between the democratic forces that are on the defensive now and sort of ascending authoritarian forces of China and Russia and Iran, whatever. I do not know how that could be done, but it's an urgent agenda.

Yeah. Thank you for having me, and I'm sorry that I had to provide such a bleak picture. But, you know, as scholars, we have to face the facts, and, unfortunately, the facts in Venezuela are very dark.

Yes. Happy to be with you. Thank you for inviting me.

Yes, there was really a surprise this intervention and the situation is so fluid that, you know, we have to pay attention every day to what new things are happening. So a lot of interest in that topic.

Absolutely, especially because a lot of the situation in Venezuela and the decision making in the US is quite murky. We don’t really know why Trump did this whole thing. Both sides are playing strange games. We don’t know how the opposition in Venezuela will try to get into the game. So, you know, a lot of moving parts here.

So you see, you see various elements in that statement. I mean, you can read it from a more realist perspective. The United States as, even then most powerful country in the Western Hemisphere is trying to keep competing powers out of the hemisphere. It, it sounds in, as you say, it’s flowery language in some sense, more from an idealist perspective. We, the United States know, thrown off the yoke of colonialism, don’t want the yoke of colonialism, reimposed on our Latin American brothers and sisters. And you know, as you say, I mean, the Spanish and Portuguese would’ve liked to. Repose colonialism and the French and Brits might also have wanted to get into the game. And so the way it reads in some sense is, you know, quite idealistic. We wanna protect the liberty of those countries. And what you see, of course in the subsequent 200 years, a lot of shift be, I mean, in some sense, more with the increase in American power, especially after the Spanish American War, and then the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine where the unit is. States appointed itself as the policeman of the Western hemisphere. You see, in many ways the realist aspect predominate. Then of course, also kind of the economic, we wanna com keep competitors out in a number of crises in the early 20th century, but every once in a while, that idealistic aspect also came to the fore. You know, with. President Wilson in the early 20th century with JFK and the Alliance for Progress for years in the early 1960s with Jimmy Carter. And so you see the, I mean, United States foreign policy has always been shifted between a more realist focus, more that idealism. And I think you see that in the poster of the us vis-a-vis the Western Hemisphere.

I think you see precisely that strange mixture of different facets in that recent Venezuela intervention, and maybe less in the motivations of President Trump, which are hard to figure out because on the one hand this is, You know, if you wish, clear assertion of American predominance in the Western Hemisphere. I’m concerned that the Chinese and the Russians and the Iranis have been messing around there. And this is the, you know, so-called backyard of the United States. So get out in that realist kind of spirit. You, you see President Trump then afterwards highlighting oil, oil, oil, kind of from an economic materialist. We need our fingers unimportant. Element in. Maduro was an awful, repressive, corrupt dictator who had blatantly stolen an election in mid 2024. So while that was probably not the motivation that drove President Trump, Maduro certainly deserved his fate and he was not, I mean he was at Target that similar to Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1989. Clearly, you know, had had committed so many misdeeds that an idealist would be happy that the guy was removed. and what is interesting there is, which is what I really have struggled with thinking about, is. From President Trump’s perspective, I still don’t completely understand why he would’ve done it. He has that, that urge to assert American predominance. But I wonder to what extent this was also driven by the agenda of Marco Rubio and Marco Rubio, of course, has been at the forefront at combating the left axis of evil in Latin America. Know Venezuela, Nicaragua, and. regime change if you wish, democracy promoting agenda. And so I wonder to what extent this was not only Trump asserting predominance in terms of motivation, but also Rubio pushing that regime change agenda partly in light of the upcoming presidential succession in 2028 where he might wanna put his chips into the game. And so I think. I think you might see precisely that strange mix of kind of Trumpian realism and Rubio regime change. You know, maybe not idealism, but you know, clearly trying to get rid of these left dictatorships.

I, I would like to make several points on that. I think the case that is most similar in Early American intervention in Latin America is the case of Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1989, when you also had a ruthless, brutal, corrupt dictator who defied the United States. The United States in that sense did a less surgical strike by actually invading Panama at good cost of civilian lives and taking over the whole country, and then actually instituting democracy afterwards. So the target in Panama in 89 was quite similar. Some, I mean, just awful dictator who clearly deserve to be, put on trial. The Venezuelan case is different because it’s obviously not a full scale invasion, but that very, very surgical strike. but so there is a president in terms of the target, and you see in the avoidance of a full scale invasion, president Trump’s concern about getting dragged into. Regime change, potential trouble and turmoil, domestic conflict that could drag the United States into what the Trumpians would call nation building, Allah, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And so there is, there is a similarity in the target, but there’s also a different approach in doing this in a much more targeted way, which of course has, if you wish the disadvantage that you’ve. You decapitated, autocratic, corrupt, repressive regime, but most of the power structure of the regime is still in place.

So in terms of the domestic power structure, very, very little has changed and you see a very strange, kind of totally unlikely, but ultimately from a pragmatic perspective, logical a. Accommodation between right wing, imperialist Trump, and left wing anti-imperialist stillI Rodriguez, because Trump, to avoid the United States from getting dragged into Venezuela, all Afghanistan and Iraq. In some sense has an interest in maintaining stability, and the established regime is a firmly entrenched that they have a higher chance of maintaining stability than if you had a democratic transition with all the potential trouble in turmoil. So in terms of the domestic power structure, Venezuela very, very little has changed, but I think what will change is the foreign policy orientation of Venezuela. You know, essentially. If the United States takes over oil, then it won’t go to China anymore, and clearly the United States will push for Venezuela to sever its links with Russia, with Iran, and Hezbollah, all these kinds of things. And the United States will. In the kind of semi colonial way, look over the shoulder of Del Rodriguez and make sure that in foreign policy she aligns with the US and not with countries that are enemies of the us. And I think one of the most important reorientations of Venezuelan foreign policy would be, and that speaks again to my point about the, cutting off Cuba from oil and putting, putting an even bigger strangle on. If not suffocate that regime, just push them to the wall and force them to come to an accommodation with the United States. And so I think there will be a significant shift in Venezuela’s international alignments in foreign policy, and from Trump’s perspective, from Trump’s perspective, who doesn’t care about democracy? Who wants to avoid turmoil at all cost. That a of sense. Right. You know, you decapitated the regime you put.

There is certainly a possibility, and there is one reason why I’m surprised that then Donald Trump did this because there is clearly, there is a risk that Venezuela could dissent into internal strife and conflict and that somehow other, that could draw in the United States. And that’s of course what Donald Trump wants to avoid at all costs. So this, this is a possibility, but. I think when you think from the great powers that Trump wants to push out of Venezuela, but I think it’s much more likely not that the Chinese and the Russians, not to speak of Iran, are going to take a stand in or about Venezuela, but that this is the essentially. They will find compensation in their spheres of, in, in interest. And so what you see is that the whole Trumpian approach to international relations is kind of stone age realism. Great powers have their spheres of influence and they can do inside their sphere of influence as they wish. And so I think the. The kind of the, how should I say that? What China and Russia will get out of that is Trump’s acquiescence in them taking more control of their spheres of influence. You know, and I think you see that with Trump’s accommodation of Russia in the Ukraine war. I don’t know what it would exactly mean for China and the South China Sea in vis-a-vis Taiwan, but I think, I think kind of the game among the great powers will be less. That they will, that China and Russia will fight tooth and nail to maintain a stake in the US’ backyard, the western hemisphere, but that they will say, whoa, you did this in your own sphere of influence. Now we have a freer hand in our sphere of influence. I think that’s how that will work. And as regards to domestic power structure in Venezuela, I. I would assume that Trump knows about his own severe a tension deficit disorder, that he couldn’t pay attention to Venezuela very much. But I think he’s probably going to appoint kind of an informal Vice Roy in, in, in Ambassador in Vene in Venezuela. I bet the American Embassy in Venezuela is going to swell to hundreds of people who will keep an eye on things and the the factions. That are more radical and that are more they know, you know, have much clo, much more control of the organs of coercion in Venezuela, the defense minister, Patino and Di Caveo, who controls these thugs and goons and militias, the so-called collectives, I think they will know. That if they mess around too much and they cause too much trouble, they might get yanked out and put in the prison cell next to my daughter. And so I think they will have to swallow a lot of, what you call in Latin America, swallow a lot of toads and hang low for a while. They will of course, hope that the Trump administration will move on. You know, I, I think in many ways what, what the Venezuelan power structure is doing is what the Wolf did in the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hole. They’re eating a lot of chalk and like, Hey, you know, we can play game. And of course, they’re hoping that Trump moves on, that the United States can’t actually control what’s going on and it sooner or later they can reassert their control. They can, you know, they can. Get their fingers again into the contraband, into the corruption, maybe not the drug trafficking as they did before. I think that’s the game that is being played, and in some strange way, it serves Trump and it serves that Venezuelan power structure. And who is left out in that cold is the Venezuelan opposition.

Yeah, no, of course. I mean, that is the big tragedy in all of this, that the Venezuelan people have suffered an unprecedented catastrophe and who are yearning for some kind of turnaround, and who had the courage to vote? You know, two thirds against the dictator in rigged elections in 2024, still will have to wait for, you know, a significant new start.

The reaction has, in some sense been surprisingly muted because what is, you know, on the one hand, this is a brood reassertion of American power predominance, if you wanna use the term imperialism, but the, the reaction has been surprisingly mute. I think for two reasons. One is that this reassertion of American power scales a lot of allies. And so, you know, even the center left, left wing governments in Latin America, you know, like Lula and Brazil, they spoke out and whatever, but they’re not going really on the rampage. You know, Claudia Shane Baum in Mexico has to worry that she might be next in line and Trump threatened Pedro in colo and so that. Very reassertion of American power, I think has intimidated or kind of, if you wish, coercively motivated the reaction inside Latin America. Trump, of course, I don’t know whether it’s attention deficit or brilliant strategy, immediately move to Greenland, so the Europeans have something to worry about there, rather than getting involved in Venezuela. So in some sense, American power. I think has muted reaction among the allies, at least in the short one. You know, but you think in the long run, like OMG, this is awful. The other reason why I think the reaction has been muted is that Maduro was such an awful, dictator. I mean, you know, human rights violations in Corruption. I mean, he had indictments not only from the US but from the International criminal court. The head of the organization of American States at the time asked the ICC for an indictment of Maduro. And not only was he, you know, morally just awful, but utterly incompetent. I mean, who. Who in human history has destroyed a country as much as Maduro did during his 13 years in power? So who, who wants to defend Maduro? You know what I mean? You can say, well, the United States shouldn’t have intervened, but do you wanna look like sort of siding with defending, you know, one of the worst leaders that we can think of in recent decades?

You see the two facets again, you see the realist thing. You know, other countries are intimidated by American power, and you see the idealist streak. This. The United States chose a target that deserved its punishment. You see exactly that. Again, those two facets of kind of realist, power assertion, and idealists going after the bad guys, sorry to

Definitely. You think of you know, the European Union Agreement that had been lingering and languishing and being in the, in negotiation for 25 years and it just couldn’t break the resistance and deadlock and whatever. And I think the reason why that finally got signed is. You know, kind of if you wish, some sort of soft balancing against the United States, so you, you know, that would be an instance of that. Inland America. I haven’t seen any, I don’t know, like coordination, I don’t know what you would wanna call it. Alliance formation, partly because of course the ideological divisions. So you mentioned Argentina. You know, millet. Millet was bailed out by Trump a few months ago. He’s not going to oppose what Donald Trump, did in Venezuela. He’s ideologically happy that Donald Trump put it out, Maduro. And so, you know, given that a number of Latin American countries. governed by right-wing leaders who are ideologically have affinity with or alignment with Donald Trump. I think that is one big obstacle to any really coordinated Latin American response.

So when I, when I think of political science, I don’t use the term, but the capital S you know, so, this situation in Venezuela is highly unpredictable. It’s very fluid, it’s uncertain what will happen. It is uncertain what will happen in Venezuela. It’s uncertain what will happen in the international system because Donald Trump is so highly unpredictable to typical populism. So, so. You know, in, in the Venezuelan case, which will also affect American foreign policy. I think one of the biggest points of uncertainty is that by. Constitution that Ugo Chavez himself pushed through in 1999 by the Constitution. If the presidency is vacant and you have a transition to somebody else, there should be the convocation of new elections. That would of course provide a very important opening for the Democratic transition that Trump has shockingly marginalized and kind of pushed aside to get into the game and that, you know, if there were a real election, real competitive. that could cause a good amount of uncertainty, trouble turmoil, especially if the Democratic opposition had a chance of winning and or no, of of course, especially if it won. And so how that will play out. I mean, the established power structure in Venezuela currently headed by Delcy Rodriguez has no interest in no elections. In some sense, Donald Trump has no interest and they might well maneuver. Collude in trying to avoid this. But you know, as you mentioned a couple of minutes ago, the Venezuelan people are yearning for a new start. The opposition will do everything they can to push for elections. De Marco Ruby or agenda in the US might wanna have a regime change in Venezuela. And so how that will play out, I think is one of the main sources of uncertainty because. Contested competitive election and if the opposition were to win and there’s trouble and term on the Venezuela and protests and counter protests and violence, that could really draw the United States into the domestic politics and, you know, greatly change the equation and turn the Venezuelan case maybe more similar to the story in Afghanistan and Iraq. And so it’s very unpredictable.

Unfortunately, political science, political science hasn’t, you know, come up with a general loss that we could confidently make any clear assertions about a case like Venezuela.

Yeah, my pleasure.