Venezuela appears to be in a very parlous state, according to Peter Ziehan. The brief video below is worth watching.
That puts a different emphasis on Venezuelan President Maduro's threat to take over a resource-rich area of neighboring state Guyana.
Venezuela continues to build up military infrastructure and hardware close to the border with Guyana as President Nicolas Maduro and his supporters scale up their threats to annex an oil-rich piece of Guyanese land.
In a report shared with CNN, the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) warns that while the Venezuelan government “has little to gain and much to lose from a full-blown conflict” it continues to play “a dangerous game” over its claim over the densely forested Essequibo region.
“The constant drumbeat asserting ‘the Essequibo is ours,’ alongside the creation of new military commands and legal structures to oversee the defense of the region, is helping to institutionalize a sense of perpetual prewar footing,” it wrote.
There's more at the link.
That's a very old tactic indeed: distract one's population from severe internal or local problems by focusing them on an external grievance, war or other provocation. Argentina did it with the Falkland Islands when the former's military junta was about to lose control of the economy and drive the nation into ruin. An appeal to patriotism, particularly in a continent that fought a war over a soccer match (!), is almost guaranteed to divert attention.
Unfortunately, that won't help Guyana, which is much smaller and weaker than Venezuela; and it won't help peace and stability on the entire South American continent, where drug cartels and other evils will use the distraction to shore up their own positions (and, probably, fight with each other to gain "market share" in the perennial drug war). It might also drag the US into intervening in a war nobody except Venezuela wants.
This will bear watching.
Peter
6 comments:
"CSIS) warns that while the Venezuelan government “has little to gain and much to lose from a full-blown conflict”
That's white paper BS .
The ruling government has nothing to lose attacking and taking a resource rich area. If they win great, if they start to lose, it will keep the people distracted and allow even more restrictions on the populous in the name of national security.
Nah, Venezuelan army is not able to launch an offensive over miles and miles of jungle, because that's what the border between the two countries looks like. There are no railroads, roads all they have are jungle paths so Venezuela may launch an "offensive" just to focus the public on something else than their catastrophic state, but Guyana doesn't need to make any substantial effort to defend their territory - the jungle will do it for them...
War is almost always the distraction of choice for failed politicians.
Venezuela has the backing of Brazil, who know a thing or two about raid deployment in jungle and dirt roads, and more importantly, who have a whole crap-ton of money. Brazil'a corrupt mob boss of a president, Lula, loves him some Venezuela because Venezuela hates the US.
OTOH, Peter Z had been championing UKR beating RUS since the start of the SMO, saying that Russia doesn't stand a chance against the combine support of NATO, right up until a couple of months ago when UKR's failure was becoming obvious to all honest observers. Sooooo... I'd take his opinion with a large grain of salt.
Just curious, has anyone ever checked to see how many of these impending disasters that Ziehan so frequently promotes actually come true?
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