Venezuelan here!
This is correct, to expand on this I'm going to talk about a point that doesn't seem to be explored that much around this situation. Forests, jungles and rough terrain wouldn't be the worst terrain in which the US will face Guerrillas, it'd be the multiple Favelas scattered around big cities such as Caracas, Maracaibo, Zulia, Etc. Petare for Example is the biggest Favela in all of South America, it's inhabited by over half a million people.
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Many of these Favelas are mostly controlled by Criminal/Paramilitary groups known as
, they are aligned with Maduro, and even receive weapons from the government themselves like
@JJD1803 mentioned.
So in the event of an invasion by the US these favelas can easily become hotspots for urban warfare due to their labyrinthine nature and poor infrastructure, logistics there are going to be hard, us troops are going to be harassed whenever they try to enter in these favelas and the potential for civilian casualties is massive. They can as well provide guerillas with huge numbers of new young recruits.
Just look at what
and the long story of Favela warfare in Brazil too. Imagine that but on a national level across multiple cities with properly armed guerrillas. It has the potential of becoming worse than Vietnam or Afghanistan.
Yeah, from a Trump viewpoint he has more to lose than to gain if things don't go according to plans, Republicans aren't even that interested in Venezuela, let's see this situation from a benefits/risks perspective.
Benefits
- Trump can crown himself with the title of "Liberator of Venezuela".
- Gain Venezuelan resources such as oil, gold, precious metals, etc.
- Remove Chinese/Russian influence from the region.
- Gain Strong support from Hispanic sectors within the US (Mainly Cuban and Venezuelan ones that are very anti communistic).
Risks
- Breaking his promise of not starting any war.
- If the operation does not go as planned, guerrilla and paramilitary movements could easily appear across the country, sowing chaos.
- He will be criticized for American casualties at home (By both Republicans and Democrats).
- He will be demonized by opponents for becoming Bush 2.0.
- Causing a new refugee crisis (This will piss off most of the governments around the region and even his own supporters if they manage to get into the US)
Because of this I don't think Trump wants to launch an Invasion of Venezuela (Colombia doesn't even support an Invasion and the border between Guyana and Venezuela is mostly jungle so a ground invasion will be complicated). He seems to be trying to go with the
approach in order to secure a deal like what he did with Iran, or perhaps he is doing all of this for the sake of making headlines around the world and showing off US military power (Let's remember when he threatened to Invade Canada, Greenland and Mexico and none of that ever happened)
So aside from a couple of Airstrikes across the country I doubt an Invasion will actually happen.
