Will the US invade Venezuela? - August 2025

The short answer is no. The long answer in this newsletter takes about 2,000 words.

I write about US policy in Latin America every Monday. Today’s newsletter focuses on Venezuela and the US Navy operations in the southern Caribbean. The first two points are for everyone; the other four are behind the wall for paying subscribers:

1. No, the United States is not invading Venezuela

2. Should the US invade Venezuela?

3. Could Trump order a small tactical military strike in Venezuela?

4. So, if they don’t attack Venezuela, then hypothetically, what will the US Navy do with all those ships?

5. How is Maduro responding?

6. What are the scenarios for the next few months?

Tomorrow’s newsletter will be on the Colombia security situation and overlaps a bit with the info from today.

Thanks to everyone who pays to subscribe to this newsletter. Feel free to respond to this email with feedback, comments, and questions.

No, the United States is not invading Venezuela

The US military believes in overwhelming force to achieve objectives. Should a US president ever decide to invade Venezuela, there will be an aircraft carrier, plenty of support, and tens of thousands of personnel to get the job done. At least some regional allies will be on board and provide locations for troops, equipment, and logistics support. The US military does not believe in sending only the minimal amount of personnel and equipment when it comes to regime change operations. For missions like that, they go big.

The Trump administration has begun one of the largest deployments of naval forces in the Southern Caribbean in a generation. Two guided missile destroyers are in the region, and a third is in the Eastern Pacific. The Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group - three ships with 4,500 sailors and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, with 2,200 Marines - will be arriving in the next week or so.

The deployment is big in terms of recent Southcom operations. But it’s also far too small to believe they plan to do anything significant to target the Maduro regime. This is not the overwhelming force that would be required.

For context from a different era, the Grenada invasion in 1983 included over 7,000 US personnel on the ground. Panama in 1989 required about 30,000 personnel, some of whom were already in position because the US controlled the canal zone. In terms of the number of Marines being sent to the Caribbean, 2,200 personnel is about the size of the current deployment of the National Guard in Washington, DC. That number of Marines doesn’t take and hold Caracas. Even though those Marines are fantastic and hypothetically could, they don’t even attempt to take and hold a single port in Venezuela. There is too much risk in that operation and not enough support to ensure victory.

In addition, the other big naval force in that same area is the tankers shipping oil from Venezuela back to the United States. Those shipments are just restarting now. Trump does not want to disrupt oil supplies and wants to keep gasoline prices low in the United States. It would be reckless and self-defeating to restart oil deliveries just to start blowing stuff up in Venezuela. The question of oil factors into any decision moving forward.

For all the panicked comments from regional leaders and analysts about a potential military invasion, the US naval deployment is not going there. It’s big, but not big enough, and the incentives for Trump are to avoid being drawn into a long conflict that disrupts resource flows.

Should the US invade Venezuela?

No. Back on the old blog in 2018, at a moment Trump previously threatened to invade Venezuela, I wrote 13 reasons why the US shouldn’t invade Venezuela. It’s a blog post that holds up well seven years later. To give the short version three point version here:

• You break it, you own it. Yes, the US military could easily overthrow Maduro if it were to focus and use enough resources. However, the stabilization and rebuilding of Venezuela afterward are massive challenges that would drag the military into another “forever war” (one that it would struggle with) and distract from the many other missions in the region and world that are necessary.

• The US should not be militarily invading countries in this hemisphere. We lack the legal authorization and regional support. It plays to the worst moments of US history in the region that we should be trying to move beyond. It weakens the US leadership in the hemisphere and the world over the long term.

• For as awful as things in Venezuela are, war makes them worse. The human and economic costs of a war are high. Finding a more peaceful transition of power that doesn’t require military forces is clearly preferable.

Could Trump order a small tactical military strike in Venezuela?

Ok, so hopefully I’ve convinced you that the US is not invading Venezuela, overthrowing Maduro, and occupying the country. Nor should they. However, couldn’t they just do a small one-off operation? Why not hit with a quick single missile strike or a bunker buster bomb to look tough and show the US is serious? That seems like something Trump might do, right?