Venezuela 'sends tanks to border'

Vlad Plasmius said:

However, one has to wonder if Colombia would be capable in a conventional conflict when most of their experience is with counter-terror operations.

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Actually the war against FARC has entailed numerous counter-insurgency operations; the Columbian military has fought IIRC brigade level battles against FARC in the countryside, broken the sieges of several isolated towns, etc. Although the vast majority of fighting in the Columbian Civil War has probably been COIN operations at squad level, ambushes in the jungle and the like. In the last few years, the scale of the fighting has declined. But I would no means call it "counterterrorist" operations. That makes it sounds like all they do is rescue hostages of airplanes and arrest people.

Chavez has no other place at the current time to send much of his heavy crude to have it refined. He needs the US more than the US needs him in that respect. So it is I who doubt that Chavez will try anything.

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Yes without oil, the Venezuelan Army's equipment won't count for much.

Vlad is right, this is pointless because the US is the 2000 pound gorilla in the room. Although I get the sense that the US hasn't condemned Venezuela more strongly because there are some in power who would almost like Chavez to move so we could get a chance to bloody him. Personally I hope for peace, but this situation will continue as long as FARC hides in Ecuador and Venezuela.

The US consumes 9253000 barrels/day. Venezuela supplies 1.264 million barrels/day 14 % of the oil in 2007. 14 % of the people will not have oil. 3-4% could crash the economy, 14% will crash the economy. The US economy is weak and needs to start getting into its own oil resources. Venezuela is not as dependent as you think:

"Construction of the refinery, with a designed capacity to process 12 million tons of crude oil annually, is to start soon and will be completed by mid- 2008,"... I think it can probably start refining.

Well I found that the US currently exports 1,317,000 barrels/day, which could offset the loss of supply. The US should have plans to make a switch if something happens. Actually after reading some other posts, the US could easily replace the lose in supply.

Troika
"I think at this point we can confidently say you are divorced from reality. Bombing a nations' infrastructure will overthrow the government? Yeah, that worked really well in Iraq. Or Britain. Or Germany. Or Japan. And those would be massive campaign Venezuela is utterly incapable of launching."

Well yeah it did work in Iraq, Serbia, Japan, (Britain and Germany are horrible examples, Germany was looking to take over Britain, Germany????). Chavez from history can bomb infrastructure and overthrow a government.

If Chavez attacks, US removes Chavez and recovers oil supplies from Venezuela. I wonder what Brazil and Argentina would do. I think Chavez knows he will lose a lot, but an attack on Venezuela protecting Columbia might destabilize South America or allow the US to reaffirm its influence in the region.

alwaysfresh said:

The US consumes 9253000 barrels/day. Venezuela supplies 1.264 million barrels/day 14 % of the oil in 2007. 14 % of the people will not have oil. 3-4% could crash the economy, 14% will crash the economy. The US economy is weak and needs to start getting into its own oil resources. Venezuela is not as dependent as you think:

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And on the planet we are from, US economy is strong. By the way, you seem to think that oil supply is utterly static, oil consumption is inflexible (here's a hint, if oil prices go up, people drive less. It's inconvenient, but it's not going to kill them. Meanwhile, it pisses them off) and that strategic oil reserve doesn't exist. I guess is just three more things you ignorant of. You also fail to mention why Venezuela is not equally threatened... it has precisely ONE weapon which will drive a giant to desperation... not a smart move.

By the way, Canada and Mexico also supplying about 15% of US oil each... do they make US foreign policy, too?

alwaysfresh said:

"Construction of the refinery, with a designed capacity to process 12 million tons of crude oil annually, is to start soon and will be completed by mid- 2008,"... I think it can probably start refining.

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You have NO clue about how industry function, do you? This would be YEARS from full operational capacity.

alwaysfresh said:

Well I found that the US currently exports 1,317,000 barrels/day, which could offset the loss of supply. The US should have plans to make a switch if something happens.

Troika
"I think at this point we can confidently say you are divorced from reality. Bombing a nations' infrastructure will overthrow the government? Yeah, that worked really well in Iraq. Or Britain. Or Germany. Or Japan. And those would be massive campaign Venezuela is utterly incapable of launching."

Well yeah it did work in Iraq, Serbia, Japan, (Britain and Germany are horrible examples, Germany was looking to take over Britain, Germany????). Chavez from history can bomb infrastructure and overthrow a government.

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Yeah, it's called this little thing 'World War II'. Battle of Britain rings a bell? Iraq didn't surrender, it stuck arond for 12 years before INVADED and OCCUPIED. Nazi Germany suffered the CLASSICAL strategic bombing campaign... but only caused SOME officers to consider coups.. more because they are not winning the war in the EAST than anything. Check out whose' troops were in Berlin in May 9th 1945.

Japan also did not surrender with strategic bombing campaign, but only surrendered after COMPLETE DESTRUCTION of two cities and lost of most overseas conquests.

All of this belies the point that ALL of the above are FAR higher intensity than ANYTHING Venezuela can possibly pull off. Causing a nation to have favourable government installed after bombing of infrastructure is fantasy of faschist.

I can understand Colombia's move to assassinate a FARC leader, but you don't just go into a foreign sovereign territory to do it.

This sets a DANGEROUS precedent. For those of you who take Colombia's and America's side on this issue and follow-up Cuban politics, do you remember who Luis Posada Carriles is?

He's the anti-Castro terrorist who blew up a Cubana Airlines plane and plotted to assassinate Castro. He's now in Miami, Florida or somewhere in the US. If Castro knows where he is, are Cubans also allowed to assassinate him in the US? You probably will say no, because it will violate US sovereign territorial borders and all.

The same issue with this Ecuador-Colombia thing. Colombia violated Ecuadorian borders. They shouldn't have done so without permission. Ecuador has a right to retaliate against Colombia and Ecuador's allies have a right to defend it's own borders (i.e. Venezuela has a right to move it's own troops to it's own borders).

I don't understand why people are being so biased with this issue, just because they're anti-Chavez. Chavez is merely reacting (not initiating, but REACTING) to Colombian violation of internationally set borders.

By reading some of the posts in this thread, it seems like some posters are against world leaders being allowed to move troops within their own borders.

ccL1 said:

I can understand Colombia's move to assassinate a FARC leader, but you don't just go into a foreign sovereign territory to do it.

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When you have the opportunity in a fairly remote area, and when you know good and well that the host ountry is sympathetic to your enemy...you may well take the risk. Move in quickly, clinically eliminate the leader, and then move out. Do not hold ground, do little or no collatoral damage, and then weather the protests from those nations (particularly Venezuela) who you know are abetting and funding your enemies anyway.

ccL1 said:

This sets a DANGEROUS precedent.

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Not so dangerous given the parameters I just established.

ccL1 said:

If Castro knows where he is, are Cubans also allowed to assassinate him in the US? You probably will say no, because it will violate US sovereign territorial borders and all.

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I would say no because Cuba could not and would not take the risk. It is not a remote area, the US government did not fund or support that guy, and the US capability in terms of detection and interdiction makes it almost impossible for the Cubans to mount such an operation unless it was clandestine and undercover (ie. not in uniform and not acting as the military) which puts it in a different league altogether.

ccL1 said:

By reading some of the posts in this thread, it seems like some posters are against world leaders being allowed to move troops within their own borders.

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Not at all. Ecuador and Venezuela have every right to move their troops around within their borders however they wish. My commnets have simply been that if those troops attempted to attack Columbia and bring its government down, that the US would help Columbia and it would be an overt act of war.

What Columbia did was not warfare against Ecuador. It was clearly a very limited and targeted operation against gueralla/terrorist enemies of Columbia who hide on the Ecuador side of the border in the remote areas. No ground was held, and no attacks were made against Ecuadoran population centers, military, infrastructure, or government.

It did violate their borders and as I said, with such limited, targeted and specific goals, the Columbians were willing to take the risk to get the prize and then weather what I am sure they hoped would be purely diplomatic protests.

But, that is all just my opinion on the matter.

My understanding of the Venezuelan Flankers is that the airframes delivered are PLAAF rejects, and that this bit of information was never passed on to the Venezuelans until they discovered it. We kind of making the assumption that the Venezuelan Flankers are of decent quality, but I'm wondering why the Chinese rejected these birds in the first place? Could it be that there were some major defects that could hamper operational capability?

That's what I heard but I got some doubts about the story. I think the original meaning got badly twisted. I think the original idea was that the PLAN "rejected" (actually did not follow up) the Su-30MK2 after the first buy. Reasons can vary or it can be a collection of reasons. Quality issues, support issues, to the perception that they're buying obsolete aircraft right off, to the perception that the Su-30MK2 no longer fits the PLAN's changing needs. The PLAAF, as you remember, stopped buying Su-30MKKs altogether.

It was probable that Sukhoi, over confident that it had a new contract bagged after the first, may have okayed production of new fighters. If I remember that time, the Russians were acting with high confidence that China would make a second and third order of Su-30MK2.

But you know, that didn't happen. So in a sense, the planes that were already being built became "rejected". Venenzuela isn't the only country that have ordered the same type. Vietnam also did (funny and superbly convenient that the last letter for the designation Su-30MKV can apply for both Vietnam and Venenzuela.)

We can all agree Chavez's and Ecuador's reaction will make the Colombians think twice about violating their borders again. Colombia has effectively stood down. It did not mobolise any troops, if Chavez wanted to launch limited strike then declare a ceasefire, Colombia will be at a major disadvantage and would most likely suffer heavy causalties.

I think we all underestimated the President. He is a military man after all. His move has showed other nations not that he is no push over.

Baibar of Jalat said:

We can all agree Chavez's and Ecuador's reaction will make the Colombians think twice about violating their borders again. Colombia has effectively stood down. It did not mobolise any troops, if Chavez wanted to launch limited strike then declare a ceasefire, Colombia will be at a major disadvantage and would most likely suffer heavy causalties.

I think we all underestimated the President. He is a military man after all. His move has showed other nations not that he is no push over.

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Colombia didn't see the issue as being particularly worrisome; they felt that they could swoop in and attack the insurgents that were hiding in Ecuador, move back out, and then weather the diplomatic storm afterwords, of which they are.

On the military front, there is still no sign of any troop movements towards Colombia. If there are any movements I would expect them to be focused on the Guajira peninsula, as the only territory along the 2200km border suitable for an armoured thrust is there. However, even if successful it won't get very far. There is a single road across the peninsula into Colombia and it really accomplishes nothing. The llamos (plains) have very soft ground and no roads at all, the Amazon region is even worse, and that only leaves the Andes. Chavez may push on Cucuta from San Cristobal, but the mountain terrain and the build up areas would play into the Colombian defenders hands. The reality of for the Venezuelan Army is that they won't be able to support their deployment on the border, let alone a major offensive or even a couple of weeks of combat ops.

Furthermore, Chavez sent his troops not to where the border cities of Colombia are located but to jungle terrain where the FARC are located. If Chavez wanted to invade Colombia, he would have sent them to the border cities near Colombia, and where I mentioned earlier, but he sent them to the jungle terrain! Most likely, he is trying to protect the FARC from potential Colombian raids. Not surprising as there is 3 laptops full of highly incriminating, damning and explicit evidence that Chavez is providing assistance to the FARC that have been handed over to the OAS.

Baibar of Jalat said:

Colombia has effectively stood down. It did not mobolise any troops, if Chavez wanted to launch limited strike then declare a ceasefire, Colombia will be at a major disadvantage and would most likely suffer heavy causalties.

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I do not believe Colombia has "stood down". They had not built up on these borders to begin with. In this case, they are simply maintaining their readiness posture and not massing their own troops directly across from the Venezuelans.

This does not mean at all that they are unprepared.

Now, in an opening, first move, Venezuelan forces may experience some temporary success...but Chavez and his forces would then pay a heavy price because that activity, which then would be an overt military act of war against the military and infrastructure of their neighbor (which the border incursion by Columbia to take out terrorists was not), and would then be reacted to as such and the Colombians would undoubtedly receive mucho US aid, both logistically and I believe in terms of forces as well.

I believe Chavez would be foolish to try it. He would risk losing his entire modern military capability which he has spent so much money acquiring.

But that's just my opinion, nothing more.