Likelihood of Venezuela waging war on the Dutch Antilles? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14698120
Extremely unlikely, to say the least.

Venezuela isn't a very impressive or very expansionist military power, an island hopping campaign would be a catastrofuck of epic dimensions. With the added geopolitical disaster of waging war against a NATO country (the Netherlands). At a time when the Venezuelan State is quite busy trying to fend off a pro-West counterrevolution and muddle through/recover from economic depression.

The Bolivarian Republic would have to be utterly insane to go for it. I'm pretty sure they're not.
#14698124
Even Chavez at the height of his success and popularity chickened out of going to war with Colombia. His successors, in a much weaker position, aren't going to take on the Netherlands and, by implication, the whole of NATO.
#14698127
Potemkin wrote:Even Chavez at the height of his success and popularity chickened out of going to war with Colombia. His successors, in a much weaker position, aren't going to take on the Netherlands and, by implication, the whole of NATO.

Who knows? Some South American generals tried it once, when they were in really deep shit. They thought it might have helped them.
#14698129
So the question is, "Would Venezuela risk war with the US?"

As Pote and Klass said, in effect, not a chance. It would be an epic fail. The Venezuelan military does not have anything like the strength to pull something like this off.

Venezuela has enough trouble at home without asking its military to take a deliberate and inevitable humiliating drubbing. I doubt that any leader proposing such a thing would remain in office for long.

The heated rhetoric is just for local consumption. Like the gay marriage debate in the US it is just a weapon of mass distraction.
#14698131
Drlee wrote:So the question is, "Would Venezuela risk war with the US?"

They would definitely risk it, if they had no other chance to keep power. The only consequence of losing that war for a small group of tiny islands could be losing their power as well. So what would they actually risk by risking it?
#14698153
Venezuela's socialist government is a cautious rational actor. It didn't heat up its cold war with Colombia even at the height of its power, with the US stretched thin in several various colonial wars and unlikely to go for full intervention. Against the provocations of Uribe's unpopular narco-fascist government, with large regions of Colombia in outright civil war.

They didn't do that, why would they go to war against the Netherlands? They don't even seriously want the islands, for fuck's sake. They'd have just bribed corrupt Dutch officials to withdraw during the oil boom. They didn't.
#14698154
KlassWar wrote:Venezuela's socialist government is a cautious rational actor. It didn't heat up its cold war with Colombia even at the height of its power, with the US stretched thin in several various colonial wars and unlikely to go for full intervention. Against the provocations of Uribe's unpopular narco-fascist government, with large regions of Colombia in outright civil war.

They didn't do that, why would they go to war against the Netherlands? They don't even seriously want the islands, for fuck's sake. They'd have just bribed corrupt Dutch officials to withdraw during the oil boom. They didn't.

This all might be true, but my point still stands I guess. Anyone can feel like sometimes a tiny patriotic war might help him.
#14698163
The people are too busy standing in line to buy life essentials to think about invading inconsequential islands for some neo-colonial revanche fantasy. The Argentinians could at least provide food for their citizens. In Venezuela they have to stand in line for an entire day to buy a bag of wheat. And the oil reserves on the Antilles are negligible in contrast to what can be found in Venezuela proper.
#14698197
Even Chavez at the height of his success and popularity chickened out of going to war with Colombia. His successors, in a much weaker position, aren't going to take on the Netherlands


I don't think colonies count with NATO. They didn't count with the Falklands right?

I don't see why it's impossible in that case. They are in deep shit and could do with a distraction. Only real blocker is their armed forces are utterly useless.
#14698206
I don't think colonies count with NATO. They didn't count with the Falklands right?

Good point. Though NATO wouldn't stop the Dutch from counterattacking the Venezuelan military any more than they stopped Britain from counterattacking the Argentinian military.

I don't see why it's impossible in that case. They are in deep shit and could do with a distraction. Only real blocker is their armed forces are utterly useless.

Indeed. The Argentinian military was far superior to the current Venezuelan military, yet they were ignominiously defeated by the UK. Even the Dutch - who are pretty pathetic themselves - could probably kick the Venezuelan military's asses. It's just not worth it.
#14698218
layman wrote:I don't think colonies count with NATO. They didn't count with the Falklands right?


Formally they don't count, conflict with a NATO country gives the rest of the bloc a convenient excuse to intervene if that's what they're inclined to do. During the Falklands crisis the US didn't join the war because Argentina had a right-wing pro-American goverment. Venezuela has a left-wing anti-imperialist government, the US establishment is probably a lot more eager to topple them.

layman wrote:I don't see why it's impossible in that case. They are in deep shit and could do with a distraction. Only real blocker is their armed forces are utterly useless.


Militarily it might be doable if Venezuela were a proper naval power: the Dutch aren't a powerful country, their capacity for a transatlantic conflict is questionable at best. But politically it's a non-starter. Venezuela is trying to prevent US intervention, military provocations are probably not on the agenda.
#14698226
There is NATO and then there are bilateral defence treaties. Anyway, they have already lost the propaganda war on their home turf before the theoretical war ever began. More likely the Venezuelans are going to slide from general discontent to outright revolt if resources are going to be diverted to fund a pointless war in order to acquire worthless territory with an ethno-cultural and lingual divergent population (African slave descendants).
#14704143
Bosnjak wrote:unpossible they have conditions ins most cities like under siege...


Stalinist economy does not work they should try Titoism, the only socialist model which was able produce enough consumer goods...


Venezuela doesn't have a Stalinist economic model. The model of state capitalism PSUV has sort of managed to implement is arguably to the right of Tito. Titoism ran on cooperatives and union-run public companies, Venezuela isn't much to the left of a social-democratic postwar consensus kinda social democracy.
#14706075
KlassWar wrote:Venezuela doesn't have a Stalinist economic model. The model of state capitalism PSUV has sort of managed to implement is arguably to the right of Tito. Titoism ran on cooperatives and union-run public companies, Venezuela isn't much to the left of a social-democratic postwar consensus kinda social democracy.


Statecapitalism was first introduced by Saddam Hussein, Big Companies belong to the state, with a normal private economy, now in PRC it comes to its full developement

Venezuella has many stateowned companies, but it has regulated prices... it is somedifferent

Yugoslawia, had nearly all companies except small family busines stateownend(by workers), but it they could go bankrupt, it was called Market-Socialism.


Stalinism had the problem it worked well for heavy industry, but failed in Farming unlike Leninism which worked extremly well, even better then under Capitalism...
#14708767
State capitalism is a system where the strategic sectors are owned and operated by the State. The rest of the economy might be cooperatives, private companies or whatever. The key features are that the state runs the strategic sectors, uses this economic control to direct the rest of the economy (towards for-profit commodity production). It also seeks to cut deals (temporary concessions, joint ventures) with private capital to develop productive forces in ways it deems useful (the capitalists DO sell you the rope to hang'em with :D ).

Doi Moi Vietnam, Dengite China, the NEP era Soviet Union, Titoite 'market socialism' and so on are state capitalist. The problem with Venezuela is that it failed to take full control over financing and communications, and this puts the bourgeoisie in a position where they can fund and agitate for counter-revolutionary activity, as well as put economic pressure on the regime. It's the same reason the social democratic attempts at state capitalism were defeated, come to think of it... They didn't grab enough economic power to be able to sideline the bourgeoisie into powerlessness.
#14709075
layman wrote:I don't think colonies count with NATO. They didn't count with the Falklands right?

I don't see why it's impossible in that case. They are in deep shit and could do with a distraction. Only real blocker is their armed forces are utterly useless.

On the other hand, the US didn't altogether dislike Argentina at the time and also knew the UK could handle them, probably via backchannels the UK advised them to stay out of it too. In the case of the Falklands the optimal policy for the US and the rest of Nato would be to stay out of the way.

I think it would be different for Venezuala vs the Dutch; the US would probably be loving an excuse to drop kick Venezuala into the stone age.
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