09 Jan Opinion – Venezuela: a long, negotiated transition under United States supervision
By,
Fabián Calle, Senior Fellow, MSI²
What we are seeing in Venezuela is the beginning of a transition. It will not be brief. It may last one year, a year and a half, or even two. But it marks a clear break from what the regime has been doing over the past decades.
The Trump administration decided to move forward by cutting off the symbolic head of the regime: Nicolás Maduro. Not as a classic dictator, but as what he effectively was throughout all these years: a delegate of the Cuban apparatus in Venezuela. After the death of Hugo Chávez, power fell into the hands of the sector most aligned with Havana, which since then consolidated its control over the key levers of the Venezuelan state, particularly the security system and the Armed Forces.
For that reason, what is falling now is not a traditional personalist regime, but a delegated structure. And what opens is not an abrupt rupture, but a process of negotiation with rewards and punishments.
The major objective of the United States is to ensure that the Venezuelan military sector gains room for autonomy vis-à-vis the Cuban apparatus. In that context, the publication of the target list should be read, in which Venezuelan leaders were equated with international terrorist leaders. Maduro, Diosdado Cabello, and Padrino López appear there, among others, but the Rodríguez brothers do not. Nor is there a massive persecution of generals. That leaves an open door and shows that Washington had been preparing interlocutors inside Venezuela.
The message to the regime is clear: free political prisoners, allow the return of U.S. companies, cease the persecution of the opposition, and reduce the presence of external actors such as Iran and China, without affecting sensitive strategic interests. If that path is not taken, the alternative is the expansion of sanctions, inclusion on terrorist lists, and eventually, new military actions.
This is a transition with a concrete supervisor: the United States. Even the harshest public messages are part of that logic. They are aimed at reassuring the military leadership, which fears a transition by rupture, involving imprisonment, confiscations, or extraditions. The message is that the process will be gradual and negotiated, as occurred in other negotiated transitions in the region. The central difference is that here there is a power with real capacity for punishment: aircraft, fleets, drones, and special forces ready to act if the process goes off track.
The Venezuelan Armed Forces have adopted a posture of extreme prudence. They have no alternative. There is military and technological inferiority, a high level of infiltration by U.S. and allied intelligence, and a decisive fact: the military leadership does not want to end up imprisoned in the United States nor lose the fortunes accumulated over the years. This creates clear incentives to negotiate. Moreover, this is not a traditional army. It is a structure deeply involved in legal and illegal businesses: smuggling, oil, drugs, and irregular migration.
From an operational standpoint, the military action was technically impeccable. Specialized forces in this type of mission participated, with highly precise intelligence work. The target was known; action was taken before it entered the most heavily fortified zone, and everything indicates that there was information from within Maduro’s inner circle and from the Armed Forces themselves. U.S. intelligence and that of allied countries have operated in Venezuela for some time and maintain dialogue with key political and military actors to prepare this transition.
Finally, from a geopolitical standpoint, Venezuela has ceased to be an actor that harbored the main rivals of the United States in the region and in the world. And this is also reflected in the reaction of the Latin American left: silences, token statements, and very measured criticism. The Venezuelan case became too visible, too obscene, even for those who for years defended it or downplayed it.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Miami Strategic Intelligence Institute (MSI²).