Stephen Sefton, November 8th 2025
So much ill-informed material has been published about the menace of possible US military action against Venezuela, it is worth trying to summarize what reliable information in fact exists.
Currently, the US forces deployed in the Caribbean seem to consist principally of three destroyers, a missile cruiser, three amphibious assault vessels, a special forces vessel and a nuclear-powered submarine. It’s now reported that as many as 10,000 marines and special forces troops may be deployed along with those vessels. The deployment of the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, earlier ordered to the Caribbean with another five destroyers, seems to have been canceled or at least postponed for now.
The US is reactivating a former base on Puerto Rico apparently principally to accommodate B-52H heavy bombers and a variety of military aircraft including F-35 fighters. Trinidad and Tobago’s government, against majority popular opinion, appears to be offering unconditional support to the US military deployment. Although possessing overwhelming firepower, this military deployment consists of vessels and aircraft equipped with mediocre and even outdated military technology, especially in terms of air-defense.
This has been demonstrated both in NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine and in its defense of the zionist entity in Occupied Palestine during the 12-day NATO-Zionist war against Iran in July. Likewise, before the fall of the government of president Bashar al Assad, zionist F-35 fighters avoided Syrian air space for fear of being hit by Syrian air defense systems. During the 12-day war in June this year, Iranian missiles regularly penetrated Zionist and NATO air defense systems, causing extensive damage to military targets across Occupied Palestine.
Thus Venezuela’s military equipment, supplied and supported continuously for over twenty years by Russia and China, and more recently by Iran, is definitely equivalent in terms of military technology to that of the US forces and may well be superior in terms of air-defense. As I have noted elsewhere, experts writing on the matter indicate that Venezuelan radar systems and advanced Chinese telecommunications systems offer a powerful challenge to control of the electromagnetic spectrum by US forces.
Venezuela has collaborated with the Chinese electronic technology company CETC since 2005. The modern JY-27A 3D radar system of this company is now deployed in the country, along with modern Russian systems such as the VHF-band 9S19ME radar and the S-band 64N6, in addition to the excellent, though older, P-18 radar system.
This early warning network feeds information to a formidable force of anti-air and anti-ship missiles, like the CM-90 from Iran, the C-802A from China, the KH31A from Russia and the Otomat MK2 from Italy/France. Venezuela’s anti-air missiles include the proven Russian Buk-M2E, Pechora-2M, Tor-M1 and S300VM, in addition to thousands of Igla-S man-portable anti-air missiles. Recent reports suggest that a newer version of the formidable medium-range Pantsir mobile air-defense system has been added over the last couple of months.
As well as anti-ship or anti-radar missiles, Venezuela’s Sukhoi-S30 fighter jets carry advanced Russian R77 air-to-air missiles. At sea, Venezuela’s warships and naval patrol vessels also carry effective modern anti-ship and anti-radar missiles. Venezuela’s military have had many years of training both at home and in partner countries so as to be able to use all these systems effectively.
Similarly, most commentators generally forget that Venezuela has three satellites. The Simón Bolívar Venesat 1, launched in 2008, provides internet and telecommunications. The Francisco de Miranda, launched in 2012 provides observation resources and the Antonio de Sucre, launched in 2017 facilitates observation and mapping. Also, in April this year, Russia and Venezuela completed the activation in Venezuela of Russia’s Glonass global positioning system.
Thus, self-evidently, the US forces are up against a highly technologically competent adversary who is watching them just as much as they themselves are being observed by the US. These technological resources are deployed at the disposal of 120,000 professional armed forces personnel and more than four million well-trained and well armed militia members to which another four million volunteers have reportedly been added over the last two months. In any ground combat inside Venezuela, US forces will also have to combat the numerous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) deployed by Venezuela’s military.
Venezuela has been developing its UAV manufacturing for more than 20 years and now has several types of national designs as well as models derived from, among others, the Iranian Mohajer and Shahed variants and the Russian Orlan UAV. Venezuela has very experienced fighting units, whose members have had many years to train both at home and overseas (in Russia, Belarus and China) on their various radar, telecommunications, electronic warfare, FPV drones, air defense, anti-radar, anti-ship and other equipment.
Taken together, Venezuela’s military forces are formidable enough to deter a large-scale US military ground operation. Nor is Venezuela’s military high command or political leadership susceptible to the bribery that facilitated the betrayal by senior military commanders which led directly to the destruction of Libya and Syria. More likely are missile attacks against Venezuela’s military bases like the El Libertador air base, similar to those against the Shayrat military air base in Syria in 2017, or so-called decapitation strikes by the CIA and US special forces against the Bolivarian leadership, perhaps disguised somehow as a popular rebellion.
However, just as the yankee-zionist aggression against Iran ended up strengthening support for the Islamic Revolution, so too any attack on Venezuela will definitely strengthen support for the Bolivarian Revolution and President Maduro. At the domestic political level in the US it will further alienate Donald Trump’s political base and, too, support at the hemispheric level. An eventual outcome with very adverse consequences for the US government is guaranteed. The US forces deployed in the Caribbean seem to be aimed at enabling the establishment of a bridgehead somewhere in Venezuelan territory. But such an operation risks suffering severe casualties against the diverse deterrent capacity of Venezuela’s armed forces.
Furthermore, Venezuela’s population and government have already defeated the West’s economic war. Powerful countries in the region such as Brazil and Mexico have declared their opposition to US military aggression. Colombia, Cuba, Honduras and Nicaragua, along with many of the Caribbean island nations have expressed political solidarity with Venezuela. The country’s national right-wing political opposition is completely discredited and the national economy is self-sufficient in food production. Above all, the Venezuelan armed forces and a majority of the population cohere strongly in a civic-military alliance around a national project focused on the human person and the flourishing of the potential of their nation’s families.
While much commentary emphasizes the physical distance between Venezuela and its powerful allies, China, Russia and Iran, it’s worth remembering the feat of Nicaragua which, with the support of the Soviet Union, neutralized a formidable armed terrorist force, trained and financed by the US government during ten years of bloody war. Similarly, despite the enormous distances to be crossed, the Cuban Revolution and the Soviet Union ensured the victory of Angola against the powerful armed forces of the apartheid regime in South Africa, even though it was supported by the collective West. Thus, in the same way that Russia and China are now supporting Iran, it is certain that they will support Venezuela.
For the moment, there is no trustworthy corroboration of reports of Russian naval vessels deployed off Venezuela nor is there any indication that Russia intends to send Venezuela any advanced weapons capable of threatening the United States. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has explicitly stated, “The most important thing is to avoid escalation and contribute to finding solutions to the existing problems in a constructive way.
But Maria Zakharova has also made clear that Russia “supports Venezuela's leadership in protecting national sovereignty, taking into account the dynamics of the international and regional situation. We maintain contact with our partners, we are ready to continue to respond appropriately to their requests... We will continue to work "shoulder to shoulder", looking to the future with calm and confidence. We've been through different situations. We are ready for anything.”"
One way or another, a more or less abrupt climb down by the US government is likely. A precedent exists in the formidable deployment of forces against North Korea during the first Trump government in 2017 which were then dispersed. So there's nothing either to stop this military display of force in the Caribbean from being quickly scaled down and made permanent like the continuing regular provocations against North Korea, just so as to sustain Venezuela's armed forces in a permanent state of alert while the US authorities portray it as a necessary anti-narcotics deployment.
While China and Russia might want to deploy their naval ships from time to time so as to “protect freedom of navigation" like the US and its allies do in the Strait of Taiwan and the South China Sea, Russian or Chinese vessels stationed for any length of time in the Caribbean would make it even easier to justify continued gross intervention by the US authorities. So any such deployment would very likely be symbolic, such as past visits by Russian naval vessels and Russian strategic bombers have been.
Currently, I think we can expect that the Chinese naval medical vessel which will visit Nicaragua for a few days this week, will later head down to Venezuela through the Panama Canal on precisely the kind of visit that makes an embarrassing contrast with US military aggression in the region, reinforcing the message that China’s presence in Latin America is both beneficial, steadfast and permanent. The most important task of global solidarity with Venezuela now is to support Venezuela's and Colombia's, and no doubt Russia's and China's, efforts to reduce tension in the Caribbean and disarm US aggression via diplomacy