The International Risk Podcast

Episode 316: After Maduro: Power, Illicit Economies and the New Rules of Intervention

• Dominic Bowen

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In this episode, Dominic Bowen and Brian Fonseca discuss the capture of Nicolás Maduro and why this dramatic moment does not automatically mark the start of a democratic transition in Venezuela. Find out more about who truly holds power inside the country today, from the military leadership and intelligence services to competing political factions within the regime.

The conversation also addresses the risks of fragmentation and civil conflict, the role of illicit economies in sustaining governance, and the future of criminal networks operating across Venezuela. Finally, they explore the international implications of Maduro’s capture, including the precedent it sets for international law, great-power competition, and the shifting global order.

Dr. Brian Fonseca is a leading expert in national security, foreign policy, and cybersecurity. He serves as Director of the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy and Adjunct Professor at Florida International University, where he also leads Cybersecurity@FIU. A Cybersecurity and International Security Fellow at New America, he regularly comments in national and international media and is an on-air political analyst for WSVN–Fox News. Dr. Fonseca has testified before the U.S. Congress and is the author or editor of several books on security and geopolitics in the Americas. He previously served in the U.S. Marine Corps and in senior research roles at U.S. Southern Command.

The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners, and senior decision-makers who are shaping how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical volatility and organised crime, to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what smart leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you’re a board member, policymaker, or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis, and real-world stories that matter.

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Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and Europe’s leading expert on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at one of Europe’s leading risk management consulting firms, Dominic advises CEOs, boards, and senior executives across the continent on how to prepare for uncertainty and act with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies, and supporting Europe’s business leaders. Trusted for his clarity, calmness under pressure, and ability to turn volatility into competitive advantage, Dominic equips today’s leaders with the insight and confidence to navigate disruption and deliver sustained strategic advantage.

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00: Brian Fonseca: But my sense is that Russian relationship has been far more transactional, in Venezuela, and that it’s been declining over the last few years; and I often say Russia will light a match, and walk away. In other words, there’s no real long-term strategic value for Russia oin Venezuela, other than to poke a finger in the eye of the United States. And so if the Russians could light a match, and walk away, and see Venezuela implode and make it a US problem, I think that’s something the Russians would do. Because their relationship with Venezuela has been historically transactional.

 

00.33: Elisa Garbil: Welcome back to the International Risk Podcast, where we discuss the latest world news and significant events that impact businesses and organisations worldwide. 

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01:40: Dominic Bowen: Today we're diving into one of the most extraordinary geopolitical moments of the last decade, and that's the capture of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. After years of political turmoil, of economic collapse, of human rights abuses, the unthinkable really has happened. I'm Dominic Bowen, host of the International West Podcast, where we unpack the topics that really matter. And to help us understand what happens next, who fills the power vacuum, what this means for Venezuela's future, the criminal groups that Venezuela supported, the global balance of power, the principles of international law,  I'm joined by Dr. Brian Fonseca. He's the Director of Florida International University's Jack D Gordon Institute of Public Policy. Dr. Fonseca, welcome to the International Risk Podcast.

 

02:24: Brian Fonseca: No, thanks so much for having me.

 

02:26: Dominic Bowen: So whereabouts in the world are you today?

 

02:29: Brian Fonseca: I am in Miami, Florida. Actually, I'm given the topic we're talking about. I'm five minutes away from one of the largest Venezuelan diasporas in the country.

 

02:36: Dominic Bowen: Interesting. Well, no doubt that makes some of your academic research a little bit easier when you're so close to the source of Venzuelan information.

 

02:44: Brian Fonseca: So living here is akin to field research on Venezuela.

 

02:48: Dominic Bowen: Exactly. Yeah, that's really great. And I’m really keen to hear what the Venezuelans living in America and of course the Venezuelans in Venezuela that you're speaking to are saying, because I think from when I look at and our analysis, this isn't the end of Maduro's repressive regime and it's not the start of a democratic transition in Venezuela. I mean, in reality, what we're seeing is the acting president, Delce Rodriguez, the existing defense minister, Lopez, the interior minister Cabello. They're still retaining control, retention of the military services, the security apparatus, the patronage networks that have kept them in power for so long. And this is likely to continue enabling that repression and the policy continuity that we've seen for decades in Venezuela. So I'd love to hear from you Brian, what is the most dangerous misconception people are having right now about Maduro's capture and what this will actually change in Venezuela?

 

03:45: Brian Fonseca:, I mean, first and foremost, there's two camps here. You know, camp one is they want to see a full swing to democratic forces. In other words, they want a complete usurping of the regime. They want democratic forces like Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez to be put in power, and they want to see democracy restored in Venezuela. That's one camp. They want to see that happen immediately. They don't want to wait for a transition. There's another camp that seems to suggest that doing that could cause the country to devolve into civil conflict. In other words, the institutions that still maintain the power, particularly the power over the use of force, the military and security institutions, intelligence institutions, do not trust the opposition and they will probably fight back if the opposition were to come into power. And that could cause the country to devolve into civil conflict. And I think that's the way that the Trump administration and Secretary Marco Rubio are hedging its strategy in Venezuela is that if it were to immediately put in place those that were elected in July of 2024, then the country could probably break out in the conflict because they would try to go after members of the regime. The regime would fight back, and the United States would have a much larger mess on its hands.

 

04:51: Dominic Bowen: So who actually holds the power in Venezuela today? and Is it this formal chain of command, the 2500 generals that Venezuela has, the intelligence services, the military factions, maybe even the colectivos? And how does that change over the next one to two months?

 

05:08: Brian Fonseca: Yeah, I mean, power is an interesting term here. I think that the military has always been the key to continuity or change in Venezuela. For years, the United States has been trying to create fractures within the military institution in the hopes of, for example, a palace coup, that the military would seize power, and that the military would see to a transition in Venezuela. The problem is the military hasn't fractured. And so the military remains sort of a major power center in Venezuela that is not aligned at the moment with sort of moderate forces, not aligned at the moment with any type of transition to democracy. In fact, in many ways, the regime has tied the survival of the military institution and those generals to the survival of the regime. And that's the fundamental challenge in Venezuela today, but i think there are three sort of influence like centers of influence the military under vladamiro padrino lopez is certainly one again he controls the military institution number two is diosdado cabello, the minister of interior he controls the internal security services in the intelligence community or the intelligence services and then there's delcy rodriguez who's an extension of the maduro influence And right now the country is being governed by Delcy, but those three power so or those three circles of influence are essentially vying to see who controls Venezuela going forward. I think that's where we're at. At this stage, Delcy is trying to assert power, but she's up against Diosdado Cabello and Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who both have indictments in U.S. courts and are fighting for survival themselves.

 

06:32: Dominic Bowen: There's always a risk of fragmentation in this sort of environment. And so I wonder, what's the fastest route to a power vacuum becoming violent in Venezuela? Are there triggers that you're watching for that might signal that fragmentation is underway?

 

06:46: Brian Fonseca: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, right now, Delce Rodriguez is trying to moderate the hardliners. I mean, her charge right now is to try to either moderate or remove hardliners from the regime so that the process of moderation could slowly bring the country back towards embracing democratic rules of the game, at least the regime. And so I think the big challenge is whether or not the hardliners can, for survival purposes, for example, moderate, or if they're going to dig in. And if they dig in and they fight, that fracture could implode into civil conflict. So you take two members that I mentioned, Diosdado Cabello and Vladimir Padrino López. Those are two of the most influential people in Venezuela right now. I think Diosdado Cabello is probably the most influential. But both of those individuals hold considerable influence across the regime. And right now they're indicted in the United States. They have a fear of being captured, just like Maduro. And Delcy is trying to moderate them, trying to offer them, you know, some type of provisions to either moderate or go into exile, leave. And so I think that's the challenge right now, is that sort of dynamic between those forces could fracture. That could be one of the most dangerous things. I think the other thing that could be really dangerous for Venezuela is the fact that there are violent non-state actors dispersed all throughout the country. Criminal elements that operate at very local levels that have been somewhat unified under an unwritten code of a sort of passive environment to operate in in areas of corruption and illicit trafficking flows, whether that's illegal gold mining, or illicit trafficking of other commodities. Then you have remnants of Colombian insurgencies that sit on the Venezuelan side of the Venezuela-Colombia border, the ELN and the FARC. And so there are these violent non-state actors that are also sort of thinking about survival. And is as if the country begins to start to put pressure there, those forces could also lash out. So you have a lot of different elements of Venezuela that could implode, whether it's the violent non-state actors or the civil conflict between, you know, between remnants of the regime that are fighting for survival.

 

08:39: Dominic Bowen: You mentioned something that I think is really interesting. It hasn't really got enough media attention, and that's the illicit economy. Gold, narcotics, fuel smuggling, weapons, links to jihadist groups in Africa for smuggling, of course the Iranian regime and weapons. What happens to these actors now, and what's going to happen to these revenue streams now that Maduro is gone and America's got much greater interest in Venezuela? Are they likely to consolidate and increase their power during this chaotic period?

 

09:07: Brian Fonseca: Yeah, it's a great point. Let me tackle the latter part of that question first. I think it's really important, which is historically, particularly over the last decade, Venezuela has leveraged the illicit economy to fill the gap of the formal or illicit economy. that had been sort of declining. right Venezuela has struggled to continue to produce oil in a way that generates enough revenue for the regime to survive. The decline in oil prices and the decline in its ability to produce has really caused a you know a challenge in terms of governance. And so what Venezuela has done, what the regime has done, is create a passive environment for illicit trafficking, which is essentially covers the gap. So you have the revenue that's needed to run the regime. You know, the illicit economy is a percentage of that; the rest of that is filled by illicit trafficking flows. And so I think that's a really big challenge that Venezuela is gonna have to address and that US pressure on Venezuela you know to move Venezuela, the government away from illicit proceeds and back onto sort of illicit proceeds that will allow the economy to to you know to operate and government to operate is gonna be a fundamental challenge for the United States in the near term. Now, when you talk about sort of the consolidation of non-state actors, I think non-state actors right now are, they're the most difficult because they blend right into the community that's the big challenge right I mean these sort of local level militia and and and sort of illicit actors that are operating at local levels you know some could consolidate around a few small groups and sort of band together others may decide to you know to leave the country and move to other places where they see again struggles with rule of law ecuador or peru or other places where They may find you know a more you open environment to operate in the illicit sphere. And yeah, know ultimately, some may come into direct conflict with you know, with government and security forces that are now charged with trying to beat some of that back. And that could be, you know, really violent in the near term as well.

 

10:43: Dominic Bowen: So what's the end game for the Trump administration? Is it regime change? Is it a negotiated transition to democracy? Is it about deterrence messaging to other authoritarian leaders, or is this more about US domestic politics and resources? Which one do you think is most realistic? 

 

11:00: Brian Fonseca: So I think it's all of the above. Let's unpack that a little bit. I think there is a long march towards restoration of democracy. I think that's certainly something that the United States would like to see. I mean, this is something that's very personal for Secretary Marco Rubio as well. Marco Rubio, who is the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor. He's also the archivist. So he holds three big positions in the US government today. But you know, Rubio is someone who grew up actually in the community that I'm living in now. He's the son of Cuban immigrants. He's been very passionate and steadfast in terms of his advocacy for the Western Hemisphere and, more importantly, you know, his consistent pressure on authoritarian regimes operating in the Western Hemisphere, of which Venezuela is one of three, Cuba and Nicaragua being the others. And so, you know, Secretary Rubio is very serious about restoring democracy and unseating authoritarian regimes. Some argue that that may not be the priority of the president, but I think that's certainly passionate, you know, to the Secretary of State. So I think there's a long, you know, objective to restore democracy. um But that process is going to is going to have to address the real-time existing, you know, regime that's in place now and the inability of the U.S. or the regime to simply hand, you know, power directly over to democratic forces. And so I think therein lies the challenge. So I think there is a mid to long-term strategy or a mid to long-term interest in restoring democracy. I think the short-term interest is going to be on gaining leverage in Venezuela. And I think the means by which the Trump administration is going to gain that leverage is by controlling the purse strings of the regime. And that's through oil. And so when you heard the president talk about running Venezuela, He didn't say govern Venezuela, which was a very intentional choice of words. He said the United States is going to run Venezuela, not govern. And I think by that, he means that the United States is going to run Venezuela by completely controlling its economic livelihood. And by controlling its economic livelihood, it can shape policy decisions on the ground. It can shape the domestic political environment in a way that moves it back in line with American foreign policy interests and, over the long term, a restoration of democracy. So I think that's what we're going to see in the near-term objectives that the Trump administration really wants out of Venezuela that I think is happening now. One is oil. You heard the president talk about, you know, restoring you know American businesses operating in Venezuela. They've been pulled out, you know, since the U.S. sanctions. And so the United States is the one that really kept Americans out of Venezuelan oil, which, by the way, has the Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves of over 300 billion. And so it's the largest in the world. And so the United States is going to reassert itself in the energy sector. It's also going to look to Venezuela to support combating illicit trafficking. This is where it comes into confrontation with the sort of drug traffickers operating passively across the country. And then migration, helping the United States address migration issues, because of course, Venezuela has had the largest refugee crisis in the Western hemisphere, with over 8 million Venezuelans leaving over the last you know several years. And so I think immigration, combating drug trafficking, and oil are absolutely near-term objectives that the Trump administration wants to get out of Venezuela that align with American foreign policy interests. And of course, the long-term interest is in restoring democracy by using its leverage on the ground to shape political outcomes that move it back in that direction.

 

13:59: Dominic Bowen: Well I think most people would certainly get behind three of those four, improving the human rights condition restoring democracy and then cracking down on illegal activity in the country for sure. Not so sure about the fourth one, securing some additional resources; but if we look at international law Brian, if we look at precedent, of a foreign power capturing a sitting head of state in another country the obvious question is what's stopping Russia from grabbing Zelensky or Macron or Keir Starmer. I mean, because international law has historically been the guardrails that say quite clearly, like most laws do, what is right and what is wrong. But when we can intervene in the activities of a sovereign power, that changes the rule of law that’s been in place since the Treaty of Westphalia in the 1600s. So what's your your view on this? Because I think a lot of people are quite concerned about the precedent that this sets.

 

14:56: Brian Fonseca: Yeah, I think they should be. And I think that's a great point. Just to piggyback on something you said, I think if Putin could capture Zelensky, he would have done it already. I think Zelensky has worked really hard to sort of evade the threats coming from the Russian government. But I also think that there may be some framing of the sort of world order and world context that may be changing slightly. So I think the global context is changing right now. I think great powers, you know, Russia, U.S., China are less inclined to support international law when it doesn't necessarily align with their respective foreign policy interests. I think that's what you're seeing with the Trump administration. I think there are three fundamental truths about how the Trump administration is approaching its foreign policy. I think number one is its interests over values. I think that for many of us who study this, values and interests are very much interconnected. But I think this administration sees, you know, hard interests, oil, for example, as being a hard interest. And so I think it's interests over values. I think the second is that the Trump administration is willing to use coercion as part of its proactive statecraft. In other words, it's not going to use coercion as a retaliatory measure in diplomatic negotiations. It's going to be coercive from the start. I think we've seen that. We saw that with sort of the initial salvo of tariffs that the Trump administration placed on every country in the world. And I think third, which also gets to your question, is that the Trump administration sees international law and multilateral organizations as a strategic risk for the United States. And we've heard the administration talk over and over about how it no longer wants to participate in multilateral organizations that don't, you know, align directly and intentionally with American foreign policy interests in the United States ability to pursue its national interests. And so I think you're walking into a world where I think the big powers are moving in that direction. And I think that that that is nerve wracking because this this world order that that spun out of, you of course the the great wars in europe and and the subsequent us you know and west win over the soviet union that world order may be changing now to sort of a world order where great powers are consolidating and no longer you know interested in this broader collaborative, coordinated international system that has a standard set of rules; the rules are going to be deployed and essentially made by the great powers. I think that it may be the context in which we're walking into.

 

17:03: Dominic Bowen: Brian, I'll take this opportunity to remind our listeners who prefer to watch their podcast that the International Risk podcast is now on YouTube. So please do go to YouTube and watch and remember to subscribe to our content. This really is critical for our success. Now, Brian, if we talk about Cuba and Russia in particular, maybe even China, their military support, their intelligence cooperation, this is often cited as sustaining the regime in Venezuela. And I think recent activities would say that it's potentially been overstated. So, if we look at the Security perspective, how should we accurately assess the roles of Cuban intelligence, Russian military Chinese security assistance in actually sustaining the jury's regime, noting that Maduro was ultimately captured while they were all in prison. 

 

17:54: Brian Fonseca: That's a great question. I had an opportunity to work with the Wilson Center on publishing something specifically on the Cuban security apparatus in Venezuela. This was back in 2019. I think much of what I wrote in 2019 holds true today, or at least held true in the lead-up to the capture of Maduro. And the reason we, you know, I did this with my co-author, John Polga Hessemovich, who's at the Naval Academy. Our focus was on really characterizing the Cuban footprint in Venezuela more accurately at the time. Then Secretary Rubio, was suggesting that there were 25,000 Cuban spies operating in Venezuela. Others were sort of carrying that talking point. And we wanted to do a deep dive on whether or not that was accurate and what roles the Cuban security services were providing. And ultimately, what we concluded was that the number was overstated. And it was overstated in a way that was meant to be inclusive of, for example, doctors operating in the country or other Cubans who may be operating in Venezuela, who were serving as spies. And I guess there's a hint of truth to that. There'll be debriefed by, you know, formal security services. And so they will provide. information to, to you know, Cuban security professionals. So I understood that, but I i think that that we're probably talking about maybe just a few thousand, 2,500, I think is what we estimated at the time, something around that number of Cuban security services on the ground in the large, you know, or the important role that they played in Venezuela was really one, providing security for Maduro and two, helping to you know, helping to, build resilience and coup proof security institutions by, you know, monitoring generals by watching the atmospherics to get a sense of whether or not any fractures were occurring and help put those out before they manifest into some type of, you know, fracture that sees to regime change or, or some type of palace coup. And so I think they played an important role there. And in terms of the security for Maduro, that has now been proven given the fact that when the United States you know executed this, I mean, flawless military operation, they killed 32 Cuban security guards in the process of going to capture Maduro. And so I think that's been the role of Cuban security forces. And I think, you know, given the sort of post-Maduro capture, Cuba is probably consolidating and withdrawing some of its footprint out of fear that the United States is going to set its eyes on Cuba next. Right. i think that's really important. But I also think that's something that the U.S. is going to put pressure on Delce and put pressure on you know, the Venezuelan government is to start to dispel, you know, rival security forces and service intelligence services from Venezuela. Cubans are probably being, you know, number one. So I think that's the Cuba characterization. You know, Venezuela has had a longstanding military relationship with Venezuela that dates back to Chavez. Chavez you know met with Putin very early on after his election in 99. He took power in 2000. And then in 2005, 2006, Chavez and Russia, so Venezuela and Russia signed a $6 billion dollars deal, an arms agreement alone that would help replenish the Venezuelan military. And so yeah, that was the start of a deepening of mill-to-mill relations between Venezuela and Russia. And so Russia has been, you know, providing you know lots of material support. It has also participated in Venezuelan oil. The Russian military has often been cited as being part of the illicit mining operations that are taking place in Venezuela as well. But my sense is the Russian relationship has been far more transactional in Venezuela and that it's been declining over the last few years. And I often say Russia will light a match and walk away. In other words, there's no real long-term strategic value for Russia in Venezuela other than to poke a finger in the eye of the United States. And so if the Russians could light a match and walk away and see Venezuela implode and make it a US problem, I think that's something the Russians would do, because their relationship with Venezuela has been historically transactional. The Chinese have a much deeper relationship economically, particularly the Chinese have put, know, I've seen estimates as high as 100 billion in terms of loans and financing opportunities for Venezuela over the last 20, 25 years. It became really heavy in the latter part of Chavez and the beginning part of Maduro, when oil prices were going down. And of course, what China was interested in was Venezuelan oil to continue to support Chinese growth globally. It needed access to these types of resources. And it found Venezuela as a great partner because it could get cheap oil, because Venezuela couldn't move its oil on the formal global oil market because of sanctions. And so there's a great symbiotic relationship between China and Venezuela in the oil. And that's going to be much harder for the Americans to displace because China still owes billions of dollars from Venezuela. And China is probably not going to sit by and not collect. And so there's going to be some mechanism there, I'm sure, some debt restructuring or something that's going to go on to ensure that, again, China doesn't walk out of here completely empty-handed. But the United States is going to work to repel them. So it goes back to an earlier question you asked, and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the United States is also looking at Venezuela as a space in which they can begin to deter and displace its rivals in the Western Hemisphere. And you can line that up, by the way, with the U.S. National Security Strategy, which puts a lot of emphasis on the Western Hemisphere and sort of the U.S. interest in displacing Russia, China, Iran, other actors that it sees as adversarial from close geographic proximity in the Western Hemisphere. And it dates back to sort of this old strategy the United States had called strategic denial, denying you know others from making entry and building relationships in the Western Hemisphere.

 

23:02: Dominic Bowen: Now, Brian, you mentioned the Cuban military. Now you were training foreign militaries. You've worked inside the US Southern Command. You mentioned the 32 Cubans who were killed. I mean, this has to be one of the most predictable attacks since the US was building up its military presence and its blockade, and conducting activities, air, sea, and even on land, in the lead up to this attack. Of course, there was, we understand that it was most likely cyber attacks in the hours before the attack, which again, whilst effective, were no doubt a signal that something was again about to happen. How was it that the US was able to conduct an operation where none of their soldiers were killed, and yet 32 Cubans were killed. How was this achieved?

 

23:57: Brian Fonseca: So, as a former US Marine myself who served in the US military, I have to say it was probably one of the most impressive military operations I've seen in an incredibly long time. I mean, yes, the US was able to come from ship to shore, of course in the cover of darkness, but you have to imagine that they saw them coming, power through 80 so enemy combatants, capture Maduro and his wife, Cecilia, before they could make their way into a locked safe house and then leave the country without taking a single casualty. And so this is an incredibly impressive show of force. And it's not just a show force to Venezuela and sort of the remnants of the regime, like Diosdado Cabello and Padrino Lopez. But I think this was a show of force for the rest of the world, particularly adversaries like Russia and China that may sort of be in the scope of the United States in future conflicts if the geopolitics continue to dissipate. So how did this military operation unfold? It was a complex multi-domain operation. When we say multi-domain, we're talking about air, land, sea, cyber, space, and electronic warfare. I mean it was incredible. On sort of all fronts. I mean, it rendered all Russian military equipment completely useless through EMP attacks, cyber attacks taking command and control offline, and jamming radars, by the way. And so they couldn't detect the Americans coming in. It was an enormous demonstration of American military power. And again, all of this unfolded over the course of two and a half hours by the time they left the ship, moved in, grabbed Maduro, and got out. And again, they powered through 32 Cubans. They killed 32 Cuban security forces. And then there was another, I think, another 40 or so Venezuelans that were killed in the process, but nothing remotely significant. No military hardware was completely decimated. It was just an overwhelmingly impressive military operation. But it it it demonstrates the complexity of multi-domain warfare today, on how air, land, sea, space, cyber, all of these things come together in incredible sophistication. To, you know, pull off really difficult military operations seamlessly.

 

25:55: Dominic Bowen: Yeah, it certainly is a very impressive operation and I still struggle to understand how there can be so many casualties on one side, at least 32 cubans, plus many other venezuelans, but then 0 casualties on the other side. I think it really shows a level of professionalism and execution the US military really does have. You know when you think of the actual practicalities, leading a team, landing on a helicopter, moving through buildings, moving into safe houses, and then extracting elements. It's very very impressive work.

 

26:23: Brian Fonseca: You know, one other element that's really incredible about this is that the Venezuelans have had six months to prepare for this, at minimum six months. And they've been preparing for it for decades, right? A confrontation with the United States. But six months of U.S. military buildup, and they couldn't, you know, take out a single aircraft, they couldn't… I mean, it's just it was just so overwhelmingly impressive. And I guess, maybe the history books will tell us whether or not there was complicity within the Venezuelan military, whether the Venezuelan military stood down in certain elements. I don't know. But certainly the Venezuelan military had to know that this was a possibility. And while I don't think the Venezuelan military is incredibly sophisticated or capable, certainly nowhere compared to the United States, but they had to have had some type of, you know, positioning to anticipate this. And the Americans still pulled it off with, you know, with a near flawless military operation, at an incredibly, you know, incredibly powerful demonstration of military muscle.

 

27:12: Dominic Bowen: And Brian you spoke about the military just then and the leadership within the military. And I think Maduro's survival has long been a mystery to many observers, especially given the economic collapse and the mass immigration. You quoted 8 million people who have sought refuge in neighboring countries. How central was Venezuela's military to Maduro's longevity? And perhaps more importantly, what do we need to understand about the military today as we look forward with Venezuela?

 

27:40: Brian Fonseca: That's a great question. And I had the opportunity to testify before the U.S. Congress on this very specific issue on a few occasions. And I've always said, and I still say, that the military is the most important institution for change or continuity in Venezuela. And unless you can move the military, whether that's a fracturing of the military or a full military swing towards you know, some type of democratic opening, the military is going to be the long pole in the tent. It's the hardest thing to overcome. And I think that's what has given Padrino Lopez his power, is that he remains incredibly influential, incredible within the military institution across the rank and file. And I think that's allowed for his longevity. Now, the other really important thing, though, is that Chavez started and Maduro continued coup-proofing their regime by co-opting the military institution, allowing the military institution to participate passively in illicit trafficking and corruption, tying the survival of the military and those leaders to the survival of the regime. Chávez also created competition between the branches to try to avoid some type of consolidated palace coup. In other words, if the army decided it was going to take power, the Air Force might intervene to try to stop it. Right? So, create a competition among the branches as well. I mean, those are all designed to coup-proof the Venezuelan regime by co-opting the military in a way that supported the survival of the regime.

 

28:57: Dominic Bowen: Now, your work, Brian, really emphasizes culture and legitimacy when we look at national security, and I think that's really spot on. How did things like Bolivarian mythology and anti-imperial narratives, of course this popular distrust of elites, shape the original Chávez's legitimacy and then of course mask the decay within the regime?

 

29:17: Brian Fonseca: That's a great question. And I think that Maduro, following Chávez, more importantly, leveraged those symbolisms as a means of rallying and unifying Venezuelans behind him. Used those symbols as a means of creating the United States as sort of the enemy of the Venezuelan people. And I think those symbols remain very important today. And as you point out, the work that I've done on culture and military institutions has been really important in terms of understanding the cultural currents that underwrite the behavior of military institutions. And so, you know, Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America, was and is a symbol of the Venezuelan people today and in the way they've exercised this concept of Bolivarian revolution. And in fact, the name of the Venezuelan military was changed to be the Bolivarian, you know, armed forces. And so, know, Bolivar is a symbol, I think remains really important in terms of you're giving people purpose of what they're fighting for, even if the narrative is changed by the elite, by those in power, as a means of trying to, you know, compel Venezuelan people to rally behind a cause that they may otherwise wouldn't rally behind, i.e., you know, enemy of the United States. And so I think that's been part of the purging and the kind of recalibrating of institutions was driven by a cultural phenomenon that was attempted to, know, again, shape behavior and and sort of move the, you know, organizations in a direction that was supportive of regime survival in many ways, right? And I think, yeah, I mean, the distrust of elites is really important. Chávez sort of prided himself on being sort on a man of the people ready to you know to displace those who had been pillaging Venezuela for decades. And while there was some truth to that, Chavez really displaced the upper middle class, but not the most elite; the most elite adapted. And much of the upper middle class left Venezuela in the 2000s and right up until recently. And many of them moved right down the street from where I'm sitting right now. I mean, 10 minutes away is a place we call Little Caracas, which is Doral. And then 45 minutes away is an area called Westin, Florida, where they now comprise a large number of the Venezuelan diaspora. And so those were the upper middle class and the middle classes that were losing under Chavez and Maduro, who fled and looked to the United States as a refuge. And so I think that going back to your question, culturally, those symbols, I think, are still important. And maybe that's something for the United States to consider as it continues to lean into Venezuela, is how it leverages those symbols and myths and sort of the identity of Venezuelans and Venezuela in its strategy going forward.

 

31:39: Dominic Bowen: Yeah, very important points to consider. And Brian, one question that we ask all of the guests that come on the International Risk Podcast is when you look around the world, when you're at dinner parties, when you're falling asleep at night, what are the international risks that concern you the most?

 

31:54: Brian Fonseca: Oh man, I don't sleep at that point. I mean, when I think about it, I'll reference something I said earlier. I think that the world order, or at least the context in which international affairs are unfolding, I think is changing away from maybe a rules-based shared global order to one where it's just a few great powers that want to control the rules of the game, and they want to write the rules in the spirit of their interests. And again, this is not me placing a value judgment necessarily, but saying I think those are the things that concern me the most is that there is this changing of the world order away from rules based and and sort of shared commitment to sort of global phenomenon to where it's just going to be a handful of countries that have pronounced power and that that wield it in pursuit you know unapologetically for their own interests.

 

32:36: Dominic Bowen: Yeah, thank you very much for unpacking that. And that’s clearly a very valid international risk and certainly one that's at the forefront of a lot of our work. And thanks very much for coming on the podcast and supporting all this work with us.

 

32:46: Brian Fonseca: Thanks so much for having me.

 

32:48: Dominic Bowen: Well, that was a great conversation with Dr. Brian Fonseca. I really appreciated him helping us unpack what's really one of the most consequential political events in the Americas over the last decade. Today's podcast was produced and coordinated by Melanie Meimoun. And shout out to our sponsor, Conductor. They're a crisis exercise platform that helps teams run crisis exercises that actually feel real. It's a great way to see what works and what doesn't before the actual crisis hits. Try it for yourself at conductor.com forward slash demos. I'm Dominic Bowen, your host. Thanks very much for listening. We'll speak again in the next couple of days. 

33:23: Elisa Garbil: Thank you for listening to this episode of the International Risk Podcast. For more episodes and articles, visit theinternationalriskpodcast.com, follow us on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Instagram for the latest updates, and to ask your questions to our host, Dominic Bowen. See you next time!