On Jan. 3, the United States captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in Operation Absolute Resolve, a mission that had been painstakingly planned and rehearsed for months. The operation itself had been an enormous undertaking, involving over 150 aircraft, several warships stationed offshore, and an unknown number of special operations forces. But it all started with intelligence.
It was only a few months ago in September that Maduro bragged that China had given him a phone that “the Americans can’t hack…neither their spy planes, nor their satellites.” In the end, it may not have mattered because apparently the CIA already had a spy in Maduro’s inner circle and a team on the ground that had been tracking his every move since August. But the sophisticated operation to capture Maduro revealed an even broader U.S. intelligence effort. Based on the statements of American officials and summary of events by General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the operation required the full panoply of U.S. intelligence capabilities, including human intelligence, geospatial intelligence, signals intelligence, and even potentially cyberattacks.
Going forward, intelligence has a central role to play in capitalizing on the successful capture of Maduro and stabilizing post-Maduro Venezuela. It can demonstrate U.S. capabilities and resolve against several of America’s foremost state adversaries, and it can deal a serious blow to the illicit drug trade and finances of non-state actors like Hezbollah and cartels. A U.S.-aligned Venezuela would be an enormous asset and ally in the contemporary era of geopolitical conflict and competition. But this will not be easy. The great test for American intelligence in Venezuela will be if it escapes the historical cycle that so many are predicting will follow.
A Warning About Shadow Wars
American intelligence success underscored more than just Venezuelan intelligence failure because Maduro received intelligence, military, and technological support from China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba. Cuba even acknowledged that thirty-two members of its armed forces and intelligence services were killed in the raid, possibly protecting Maduro himself, in what is undoubtedly an embarrassing debacle for Cuban counterintelligence. In a rare admission, two Chinese military affairs experts highlighted several competencies and advantages the United States demonstrated in executing the mission, including evading the Russian-provided Venezuelan air defense system and recruiting Venezuelan officials as intelligence assets. Surely, Operation Absolute Resolve should go down in the history books as a stunning victory for American intelligence.
Not so fast. Intelligence, regime change, and Latin America? Venezuela has all the makings of another intelligence-spearheaded scandal, echoing several that happened in the twentieth century—from Guatemala to Cuba to Chile to Nicaragua. For a country haunted by the recent ghosts of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the more distant ghosts of the Cold War in Latin America, Maduro’s capture now has Americans wondering, what happens next? If the United States cannot help stabilize Venezuela, then Maduro’s capture will enter the annals of history as another example of a failed U.S. intelligence coup in Latin America.
In a press conference on the operation, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would “run” Venezuela, adding that he was not afraid to put “boots on the ground.” But recent polling revealed little public support for an American invasion of Venezuela and the administration’s new National Security Strategy specifically eschews “imposing…democratic or social change,” suggesting just as little presidential appetite for a military occupation or nation-building effort in Venezuela. Intelligence could offer a lower risk way to advance U.S. interests. But one of the warnings of history is that intelligence and covert action have led to deeper U.S. entanglement and prolonged shadow wars for the United States in countries where other states are determined to protect their clients or are contesting American efforts to install a friendly government. The key will be for the Trump administration to use intelligence to control mission creep in Venezuela and for the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) to support the administration with analysis and operations that keep U.S. foreign policy goals in Venezuela measured, attainable, and credible.
The Trump administration will need to leverage the intelligence advantages revealed by Operation Absolute Resolve because it is doubtful Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, or non-state actors like Hezbollah or drug cartels will allow the United States to displace them in Venezuela without a fight. Everyone involved will be looking to exploit the power vacuum created by Maduro’s removal. The question will be whether the United States can successfully keep this struggle contained to the shadows without having to call in the military as an occupying force. Perhaps the most common perception of an intelligence-led shadow war involves paramilitary operations, which, historically speaking, can get ugly. Some observers are already predicting chaos in Venezuela. Street and jungle firefights between U.S. and foreign-supported proxies, political assassinations, and human rights abuses are all possibilities that the United States must avoid at all costs. This might not be easy with so many actors ready to be spoilers in any American plans for a post-Maduro Venezuela.
Intelligence in the Lead
Succession is the big question facing both Venezuela and the Trump administration right now. A classified CIA report concluded that Maduro holdovers would be best positioned to head the new Venezuelan government. Nonetheless, the United States could lend intelligence support and protection for Venezuelan opposition figures, for example, María Corina Machado, who might be targeted based on the danger they pose to entrenched interests, like U.S. intelligence helped foil Russian attempts to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Aside from possibly turning members of Maduro’s inner circle into assets, the IC will have to continue analyzing both Maduro heirs apparent and opposition figures to prepare the Trump administration for future negotiations and possible changes in the government. Leadership analysis could shape other covert efforts, for instance, information campaigns to influence public opinion or elections to replace the government with one more amenable to working closely with the United States. The IC will also have to fend off competing efforts by adversaries to extend their influence over Venezuela’s new government. Furthermore, Maduro’s capture could expose internal rifts within Venezuela’s military and intelligence services that the IC could exploit to develop new assets and liaison partners.
Regardless of who is in charge, the United States faces a Venezuelan state thoroughly compromised by both state and non-state counterintelligence challenges. As a preliminary measure, the Trump administration is already pressuring Venezuela’s interim government to expel all suspected intelligence officers from China, Russia, Cuba, and Iran. The IC will also have to identify spies for these states in the Venezuelan government and corrupt officials who have been co-opted by groups like Hezbollah and cartels. Acting President Decly Rodríguez has apparently ordered the arrest of U.S.-sanctioned Major General Javier Marcano Tábata, the director of military counterintelligence and head of presidential security, but his replacement by another U.S.-sanctioned general who was responsible for brutal crackdowns on protestors in 2014, will alarm human rights advocates. Venezuela could already be headed toward the Cold War-era model where the United States supported abusive, reactionary governments as long as they advanced American interests.
The problem is not only the people, but also the military and intelligence infrastructure positioned by foreign states in Venezuela. The Chinese telecom giant, ZTE, constructed a database for Venezuela modeled on elements of China’s social credit system to help extend government control over the population. China has supported Venezuela with radar and satellite technology as part of its growing space and surveillance foothold in the Western Hemisphere and Russia supplied Venezuela with its aerial defense system, even though both proved vulnerable to the U.S. military in Operation Absolute Resolve. Nonetheless, they are an area of access and influence for those states. Additionally, helping the new Venezuelan government roll back its dependence on Chinese and Russian technology is as much a U.S. national security imperative as a Venezuelan one because they are likely compromised and can provide information to foreign governments about U.S. intelligence operations in Venezuela. American intelligence officers therefore not only have to worry about the people they are working with, but also the systems in place. So, even a friendlier Venezuelan government does not mean it will be a friendlier operating environment for American intelligence.
The IC will also need to play a role in securing Venezuelan economic infrastructure. In the press conference following the operation, President Trump suggested U.S. oil companies would invest in and rebuild Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, which would be a pillar of any new Venezuelan government’s efforts to restore its economy and establish its legitimacy with the Venezuelan people. More recently, the Trump administration is insisting Venezuela sever economic ties with Russia, China, and Iran. These states undoubtedly do not want to see Venezuela’s considerable oil, mineral, and precious metal wealth come under American control. The IC would have to work with private sector U.S. companies on physical and cyber security to protect oil, mineral, and precious metal infrastructure from state-sponsored sabotage. Foreign investment to rebuild Venezuela’s crumbling energy and mining sectors will be critical to the country’s future, but companies will only want to invest if they consider it safe to do so.
Violent non-state actors including Hezbollah and drug cartels have used Venezuela as a safe haven and base of operations. Russia, China, and Iran may exploit these non-state actors, and their willingness to use violence, to destabilize Venezuela. Moreover, these groups have their own economic interests in Venezuela, and it will be difficult to avoid bloodshed if the Venezuelan government attempts to root them out. The United States may revive elements of the Plan Colombia playbook, which was an agreement reached between the U.S. and Colombian governments to help the latter restore order after decades of instability created by non-state actors like drug cartels and the FARC. Economic development and intelligence support were central to the plan. In this respect, the Treasury Department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis will play as big a role as any in the IC to identify, target, sanction, and disrupt foreign state and non-state actors engaging in criminal enterprises in Venezuela. Although political and military covert action always command more of the public’s attention, economic covert action could actually eclipse them in the shadow war over Venezuela’s future.
Stabilizing Venezuela and securing American interests there will require tackling not only the state and non-state actors that can threaten reconstruction but also lingering corruption in the post-Maduro Venezuelan government. The IC can aid the U.S. government’s effort to transparently and successfully prosecute Maduro for his crimes. The prosecution will need access to intelligence collected on Maduro’s connection to drug cartels and narcoterrorist groups. This case could also present a foundation for anti-corruption investigations and trials in Venezuela that could restore public trust in the government.
From Covert Action to Public Accountability
The operation to capture Maduro was all the more remarkable as an intelligence success because it remained secret until its execution. This was quite an achievement for the second Trump administration, which suffered from pervasive leaking in its first administration. However, the Trump administration only informed the “Gang of Eight” after the operation was underway, and Democratic lawmakers are already claiming they were misled about the administration’s plans in Venezuela. The IC will be called upon to account for its activities at congressional hearings on the Maduro operation and the Trump administration’s policy for a post-Maduro Venezuela. The IC will have to resist pressure to politicize intelligence to suit either the Trump administration or opposing lawmakers. Resisting politicization also includes avoiding leaks from classified hearings or materials given to members of Congress, which could directly affect ongoing intelligence operations in Venezuela, like those that plagued previous American covert action operations in Latin America during the Cold War.
That said, the IC should be as transparent as security permits precisely because secret intelligence operations in Latin America were the source of so much scandal and public outcry in other periods of American history. Immediately after Maduro’s capture, disinformation began to flood social media. The IC, which already struggles with countering disinformation and advancing its own narrative, will face disinformation operations designed to undermine global and domestic public trust in the U.S. government’s activities in Venezuela. Undoubtedly, foreign intelligence services will commit many of the same sins or worse that they will accuse the United States of in Venezuela, just as they did in the Cold War. The IC will have to work with both the Venezuelan and American governments to manage the information environment. Ultimately, the only thing worse than disinformation is information based on real abuses, so the IC must avoid repeating the mistakes it has made in other Latin American countries. The United States and its intelligence community have succumbed to these mistakes in the past, so the real test of resolve is yet to come.
