As United States naval deployments in the Caribbean intensify and rhetoric heats up, the prospect of a US attack on Venezuela feels increasingly close.<\/p>\n
Since early September, the US has carried out military strikes on at least 21 Venezuelan boats it claims are trafficking drugs in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 87 people. The Trump administration has justified the attacks as, it says, the inflow of drugs to the US threatens national security. However, it has provided no evidence of drug trafficking, and experts say Venezuela is not the main source of drugs such as cocaine being smuggled into the US.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump has given conflicting messages about whether he plans a ground operation inside Venezuela. He has simultaneously not\u00a0ruled\u00a0it<\/span>\u00a0out, while also denying he was considering strikes inside the country. He has, however, authorised CIA operations inside the country.<\/p>\n Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claims Trump\u2019s real objective is to force a regime change by removing him from power, and warned that the country would resist any such attempt.<\/p>\n Here is what we know:<\/p>\n Analysts say the US has several military options for striking Venezuela, most of which employ air and maritime power rather than ground troops.<\/p>\n In recent months, the US has deployed a considerable air and naval force to the Caribbean, close to the coast of Venezuela, including the world\u2019s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pieces are in place for an air and missile attack,\u201d Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first strike will likely be long-range missiles launched from air and sea because Venezuela has relatively strong air defences,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n While the Trump administration\u2019s rhetoric has increasingly focused on the Maduro government, which it claims has links to drug gangs in Venezuela, analysts note that targeting alleged cartel-linked infrastructure would be easier to justify internationally and easier to conclude quickly.<\/p>\n What nearly all experts have ruled out is a ground invasion.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t really see that an attack is likely at all at this stage,\u201d Elias Ferrer, founder of Orinoco Research and the lead editor of the Venezuelan media organisation Guacamaya, said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be no boots on the ground because US ground forces in the region are not strong enough for an invasion,\u201d Cancian said.<\/p>\n Furthermore, a large-scale land operation would likely be deeply unpopular in the US and face major obstacles at home.<\/p>\n \u201cAny move toward overt ground operations would encounter significant legal barriers, congressional pushback, and the shadow of Iraq and Afghanistan \u2013 all of which make a full occupation extremely unlikely,\u201d Salvador Santino Regilme, a political scientist who leads the international relations programme at Leiden University in the Netherlands, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cAnalytically, we should think in terms of a spectrum of limited but potentially escalating uses of force, not a binary choice between \u2018no attack\u2019 and an Iraq-style invasion,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n An \u2018Iraq-style invasion\u2019 refers to a large-scale ground campaign followed by a US-led occupation, the dismantling of state institutions and an open-ended nation-building effort \u2013 the kind of intervention that would require hundreds of thousands of troops, years of counterinsurgency operations, and massive political and financial investment.<\/p>\n While some policymakers in Washington hope a military strike would trigger a political transition in government, analysts warn it is far more likely to plunge the nation into instability.<\/p>\n Ferrer described the idea of an attack as opening a \u201cPandora\u2019s box\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cArmed actors are empowered in a conflict, so either the military itself or paramilitary actors \u2013 whether they\u2019re politically motivated or just organised crime \u2013 could try to take over certain parts of the country. That is not the only result. But you open up all of those possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n In such an environment, Ferrer warned, the political opposition would be among the least likely to benefit.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the most likely losers out of such a situation is the Venezuelan opposition, only because they don\u2019t have an armed wing or strong connections with the armed and security forces,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Indeed, some analysts argue that even a limited US strike would likely strengthen the Maduro government in the short term.<\/p>\n \u201cExternal aggression tends to generate a rally-around-the-flag effect and gives incumbents a powerful pretext to criminalise dissent as treason,\u201d Santino Regilme told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cThe opposition, which is already fragmented and socially uneven, would likely be further divided between those who welcome US pressure and those who fear being permanently discredited as foreign proxies,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cComparative experiences in Iraq, Libya, and other cases of externally driven regime change suggest that coercive intervention rarely produces stable democracy,\u201d Santino Regilme explained.<\/p>\n Despite rising tensions, senior Venezuelan officials have adopted an openly defiant posture. While publicly calling for peace, they frame any potential US action as an attack on national sovereignty.<\/p>\n \u201cThey [the US] think that with a bombing they\u2019ll end everything. Here, in this country?\u201d Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello scoffed on state television in early November.<\/p>\n Maduro struck a similar tone earlier this month.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want peace, but peace with sovereignty, equality and freedom,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do not want a slave\u2019s peace, nor the peace of colonies.\u201d<\/p>\n Cancian, the retired Marine Corps colonel from CSIS, said the US, through the CIA, is working to undermine the loyalty of the Venezuelan military to the Maduro government.<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States may tell these forces that they will be left alone if they remain in garrison during any fighting,\u201d Cancian explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThe US did something like this during Desert Storm,\u201d he said. That was the 1991 Gulf War campaign in which a US-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait.<\/p>\n In that conflict, US officials quietly signalled to certain Iraqi units that if they stayed in their barracks and did not resist, they would not be targeted \u2013 an approach that helped limit resistance during the ground offensive.<\/p>\n But, according to Cancian, the Venezuelan government has purged any opposition from the military.<\/p>\n \u201cThus, there is a high likelihood that the military and security forces will fight,\u201d he added<\/p>\n Ferrer said this all depends on what signals the US sends them before any attack. \u201cWhat\u2019s actually more interesting is what kind of deal the US is trying to make. How is it trying to involve or marginalise the armed forces and the security forces?\u201d<\/p>\n He outlined the dilemma facing Washington: \u201cIs it telling them, \u2018Hey guys, you can stay in control of these businesses, these ministries \u2013 the generals can keep their posts\u2019? Or is it going to do something like de-Baathification in Iraq, where they remove all the officers and fire all the soldiers to purge the armed forces of pro-Maduro elements?\u201d<\/p>\n Marginalising the armed forces could trigger more, not less, violence, Ferrer warned.<\/p>\n \u201cNot necessarily a coup or a civil war involving the whole country, but you might have pockets of conflict arising all over the country. That\u2019s definitely a possibility if the armed forces are marginalised,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Analysts say the picture is complex. \u201cOrdinary Venezuelans have already endured a prolonged socioeconomic collapse, hyperinflation, widespread shortages, international sanctions and one of the largest displacement crises in the world,\u201d Santino Regilme said.<\/p>\nHow could the US attack Venezuela?<\/h2>\n
![\"INTERACTIVE-VENEZUELA-AT-A-GLANCE-2025-1764062410\"](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/INTERACTIVE-VENEZUELA-AT-A-GLANCE-2025-1764062410.png?quality=80\")
<\/p>\n![\"Opposition](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2024-07-30T191053Z_233095500_RC2T59APKI6B_RTRMADP_3_VENEZUELA-ELECTION-1764919870.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
What could a US attack mean for Venezuela?<\/h2>\n
![\"Venezuela's](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2025-12-01T232124Z_1478311111_RC2X7IAF4L0L_RTRMADP_3_USA-TRUMP-VENEZUELA-MADURO-1764918239.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
What is the US\u2019s main strategy?<\/h2>\n
So how could Venezuela\u2019s military respond to an attack?<\/h2>\n
![\"Venezuela's](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2025-11-25T220931Z_1049293586_RC2Y3IAMQHV0_RTRMADP_3_USA-TRUMP-VENEZUELA-MARCH-1764919533.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
How might ordinary Venezuelans react?<\/h2>\n