The Duran Podcast - Venezuela gunboat diplomacy and regime change

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

Venezuela gunboat diplomacy and regime change

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Venezuela and the military buildup in Venezuela. And Trump, he spoke to 60 minutes yesterday. I believe it's been five years since he's appeared on 60 minutes, actually. But much of the discussion was on Venezuela. And the impression that I got from Trump is that no one knows what's going to happen in Venezuela. Obviously, he's not saying what's going to happen in Venezuela. I'm starting to wonder, does he know what's going to happen in Venezuela, to be quite honest? But your thoughts on the military buildup, just real quick.

The analysis is that either an operation is going to happen, right? Or that this is some sort of pressure campaign to get Maduro to step down, right? I mean, those are the two schools of thought when it comes to Venezuela. Either all of this buildup is to scare Maduro or maybe people around him so that he goes to Russia or China or Iran, whatever various senators are saying. Just grab your stuff, Maduro, and leave. Or there's going to be an operation. What are your thoughts? Well, I think you're absolutely right.

And I suspect you're probably right also about Trump's own calculations. in the sense that perhaps he hasn't yet made that final decision to go in. I think he realizes that maybe this isn't very popular with his electoral base. There might be dissensions about this within the administration. I don't know how secure Tulsi Gabbard's position is, for example, but she did make statements the other day about how regime change. is something that this administration does not do. Well, everything about what is going on around Venezuela strongly suggests to me that regime

change is the purpose here, but perhaps that is her way of signaling to Trump that she doesn't agree with any military operation against Venezuela. And that does seem to me to chime very strongly with the views of her base. The trouble is this. Let's assume that this is awesome poker game. It's a game of poker intended to get Maduro to quit, which we have all of these comments from Michael Flynn, he's former national security advisors, senators, officials, they're all telling Maduro, pack your bags and go away. Let's assume that it doesn't work, that Maduro refuses to go. And at the moment he's showing no sign of intending to go. I would also say something else. At the moment,

the situation in Venezuela itself appears to be quite calm. There are no great protests demanding that Maduro leave. There is no sign so far of dissent with the military. Well, let's assume that Maduro stays and there isn't the internal pressure on him to go. If this is a bluff and Maduro calls it, what does Trump then do? I mean, he's assembled this huge force. He's sent an aircraft carrier, the Gerald Ford, or he's sending an aircraft carrier, Gerald Ford to the area. He's got a large part of the US Navy now deployed in the Caribbean.

by some accounts, the 16,000 troops now in the area as well. He can't, it seems to me, very easily retreat. If he does, he's going to look absurd and very foolish. And there would be a significant loss of face. And at that point, Maduro's position might turn out to have actually been consolidated by this whole affair as opposed to weakened. And even if this is a poker game, and perhaps that is indeed what it is, it's a poker game where the stakes are now becoming so high that I think that sooner or later, if Maduro

tries to stick it out, something on the military side is inevitably going to happen. If you deploy huge forces, military forces, on this kind of scale, and you do nothing with them, then, as I said, you risk looking weak and ridiculous. And always, when there are very, very large forces deployed in this kind of way, the temptation to use them to at least do something becomes very strong. So this is my own sense of where we're going. I think that you're probably right. Trump himself is in a shifting ground. He says to himself, should I, shouldn't I?

Well, I, won't I? There's people talking around here. There's probably arguments. One gets the sense that Rubio is only too keen to get going and to attack Venezuela and to take out Maduro, as they would say. And Machada, of course, is too. cheering on this whole operation from the sidelines. But sooner or later, a decision has to be made.

And as I said, if this is a game of poker and Maduro calls the bluff, I can't myself see Trump simply backing off and pulling all the ships back and going home. I can't see that myself. I can't see how it can work. Anyway, that's my thought. He is losing support. It does look like the momentum for the strike is starting to melt away. Axios actually reported on this. His base, his support in the Republican Party is starting to get if he on the whole thing. The more it drags on, right? The more questions arise. And you also did it mentioned the extrajudicial killings, right? The killings of the speedboats. How do you explain that if you just walk away from this? I mean, you're exactly right. What do you tell your base?

What do you tell Congress? I tried to scare Maduro to leave and it didn't work. Yeah, exactly. And you're absolutely right. I mean, it's important to say people have already been killed. There is unease, apparently, within the U.S. Navy, about this. And we're absolutely, I could see why. I mean, the US Navy isn't there to kill people as part of some kind of police operation. The US Navy is there to kill people in a war, an actual war conducted by the United States. I mean, they're not going to feel comfortable, to put it mildly, about being used in this way. And extrajudicial killings, as they are euphemistically called, are murders. I mean, you know, you're just killing people without going through any process, any legal.

legal process. And that has been commented about, by the way, even in the British media, there's a British naval officer who's come out and very strongly supportive of Trump in all kinds of ways. And he writes regularly, you know, in the newspapers here, that he said that this is wholly wrong. And I understand that US Navy officers are unhappy about this. And you're absolutely right. The base, the electoral base, isn't happy about. about this either. And one thing I would point out, by the way, is an awful lot of people talk about how easily manipulated people in the United States are. Well, you could see that that really isn't the case because they are seen through this. They are able to see that this is

actually a regime change operation being basically packaged as a law enforcement. enforcement operation. And more and more people in the United States are seeing through that fiction. So you're quite right. I mean, there is a slide in the support for this. And again, given how far he has already committed himself to this, I think it's going to be very difficult for him to pull back. So that's my overall view of this. So Tulsi says no. regime change, the era of regime change is over with the U.S. President Trump. She is putting Trump in a difficult position. Because everyone knows this is a regime change. Obviously, everybody knows this is a regime change. Yes. Everyone. So Tulsi comes out and she says,

well, we don't do regime changes anymore. Yes. So the minute Trump launches an operation in Venezuela, well, there you go. Regime change. So what happens to Tulsi? Well, indeed, exactly. And also just another comment, you also got a factor in the midterms. What if, Alexander, the midterms are a big loss for the Trump White House, for the Republicans? What if the Democrats control Congress, they could use a lot of this to go after Trump?

If he goes into Venezuela or if he doesn't go into Venezuela. you know, you've got to think of the midterms as well and how that factors in. Well, absolutely. I mean, coming back to Tulsi, she's putting her position on the line now. I mean, if there is a go-ahead, if Trump presses the button and launches this attack on Venezuela, then I cannot see after what she has just said, her position, how her position, how she's able to remain in, in post. I mean, there was already tensions around her at the time of the Iran, the attack on Iran. This, in some respects, goes, well, not some respects. This does go further than that. She would be completely arguing, publicly arguing against the president's policy. I don't myself

see and how she can remain direct. He's director of national intelligence. I mean, she would have to step down, I think. I mean, that is how it looks to me. If she were to stay, I mean, she would be politically very damaged, not just politically very damaged, but it would seem that she is an irrelevance within the administration. she's not really exercising any authority within the US intelligence community, and she's not listened to any longer by the president.

So I think she's taken a significant risk by coming out in the way that she has. And the fact that she's done that suggests to me that there must be other people in the administration, who are also unhappy. And again, I speak, you know, somebody with experience in bureaucratic battles. When people do go out like this and speak out in that way, they rarely do so on their own. They're usually doing so because there are other people in the wings who are also worried about this. And you're absolutely correct. I mean, the extrajudicial killings, let's stick with that euphemism.

are something which the President of the United States ought not to be doing. If the Democrats regain control of Congress in the midterms, absolutely they can make use of that. And given that there is this slide in opinion around this, they would have grounds to. I mean, they might have not just grounds to, they would have support perhaps to do it. After all, we know that there's a significant part of the Democratic,

party's electoral base, which would be keen to come after Donald Trump, regardless of what he does. But if this continues in this same way, that pool of people could increase beyond the Democratic party's existing electoral base. And in contrast to the two previous impeachers. there would actually potentially be genuine grounds to take action in this case. Now, I wanted to say something else about this because there is another factor which people constantly bring up, which is what are China and Russia going to do? I was going to ask you that very question. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, there are all kinds of reports at the moment circulating that China and Russia are being contacted by Maduro and he's asking them for all kinds of things. And he's supposedly asked the Russians for help to get his Suhoi 30 fighter jets flying again. And he might be asking for missiles and he might be asking for intelligence and radar things. There are reports about Wagner as well. I don't know if you've heard that they're operating there. I don't know if that's true or not. There may be truth, truth to all of this, but people should not overstate the significance of this again. Because we've discussed this in previous programs. The Russians and the Chinese can do so much, but they cannot do more because Venezuela is too far away.

They do not have the oceanic global presence that the United States. States has and which is its trump card as a superpower. So, I mean, Russia does not have, you know, fleets of aircraft carriers and overseas bases and secure supply lines to send lots of military equipment to Venezuela in the way that the United States is able, has been able to send huge amounts of military supplies to Ukraine, for example. And China has more of a global reach than Russia does at the present time. But even then, they don't have the same kind of global reach that the United States does. And given that that is so, they must make their own calculations if they send advanced technology to Venezuela.

and if they sent people from the Wagner organization to Venezuela, in other words, Russian contractors and people of that kind, and there is a military operation against Venezuela, it may not be anywhere near enough. It would have been anywhere near enough to make a difference in the end. And not only would attempting something be humiliating, be humiliating because it would expose the fact that you do not have that global reach if you tried to do something.

But of course, if you're going to send advanced technology and your own people to Venezuela and your own people are captured and your advanced technology because you're sending it falls into America's hands, well, that will be a mistake as well. So the Russians and the Chinese are going to have to make all of these very tough, very difficult very hard-headed calculations, but it could very well turn out to be the case, that they will decide that they will do a certain amount, but not as much as some people think. And this isn't because they don't want to do it. It's because ultimately they can't. They cannot do more, given the geographical and geopolitical realities. Well, on the flip side, the U.S. doesn't look like

it's in a position to do a lot either, at least from the standpoint of a full invasion, a ground operation, let's say. If you go by what the Washington Post is reporting, they're saying that when the Ford carrier group, when it does arrive, if and when it does arrive to the region, you're looking at about 16,000 total U.S. troops of Venezuela's massive. It's a huge country. Obviously, that's not enough. If the ID, was to actually go into the country with boots on the ground. So it does look like at the moment, you're going to be seeing if Trump gives the green light air strikes, maybe going after various key facilities, military facilities, government facilities,

in order to try and get the government to collapse. I mean, that seems to be the way this is shaping up. But Venezuela is not going to, is not going to be an easy target for the Trump administration or for the regime change neocons. I mean, it is a very big country, and it does look like Maduro does have the popular support. That's how it looks. Yeah.

I mean, there's so far, there's no protest. There's no sign. that there's been any massive up swing of support for the United States in Venezuela or Mahjada. Palis intrigue. There is no hint of any of this. Now, and I think you've actually put the finger on it because Venezuela's major defense is not China and Russia. It is the things you've just said. The huge size of the country, the fact that much of it is jungle and mountain, that is a very complex country, that Caracas itself, the capital is a huge city. And so far, it appears as if Maduro has a degree of support, a critical mass of support within Venezuela itself.

Now, the big question is, I mean, the only thing, way this can work, or so it looks to me, is if a number of things happen, attacks on Venezuela and Brazil. military bases, energy installations, that kind of thing. A decapitation strike, perhaps against Maduro himself, perhaps against other members of the Venezuelan government, perhaps against the Venezuelan military leadership. In other words, an attempt to cut the head off the regime and create a crisis there. But also, it does absolutely require support from a significant section of Venezuelan society in order to have somebody who's able to move immediately and to take control.

And, well, there are lots of rumors that the CIA and all kinds of people like that are busy on the ground, that they're trying to bribe Venezuelan officers. that they're working within Venezuelan society to do all of that. And that may very well be happening. But it isn't visible at the moment. You would say, well, it wouldn't be. But I personally would have expected to see some flicker of sign that something like that is indeed happening. So far, as I said, there is none. unless all of these things are coordinated effectively together,

then it's very easy to see how this can turn into a debacle. Bear in mind, look, if there is a decapitation strike and it is successful and the government collapses, but whatever alternative regime the United States wishes to install does not have support and correct, and its legitimacy is contested and people in the countryside reject it as well. And the Maduro Chavez system does have extensive branches in the countryside. Let's say all of that works. Then what you have is a potential for a long-running internal crisis and perhaps an insurgents.

as well. And as we've seen in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in all sorts of other places, the United States doesn't have the staying power to deal with that kind of emergency. And it's difficult to imagine that any regime that it installs in Caracas would have that staying power either. So it would be a long-running crisis. And for the Trump administration, that would be perhaps the worst outcome of all. Just a final question, big picture. What is this all about? The oil, the resources that Venezuela has. Not even all. They have a lot of resources, right? Okay, okay, that's the obvious answer to that question. But when you zoom out and you look at the big geopolitical question, China, Bricks, Trump's recent comments about Nigeria. Nigeria is a BRICS partner country. The regime change operations that we've seen around China, right, around China's periphery over the past three months that have unfolded over the past six months,

not only China's periphery, but also India's periphery, the going after of India and China with regards to Russian oil and trying to break them off from their partnership with, with Russia or their partnership with each other. Is this more than just about resources? I mean, obviously, there is the resource component. Nigeria has oil, Venezuela has all. Okay, that's understood.

But is this also some big geopolitical chessboard move that Trump, the U.S. deep state, the neocons that think tanks are making here in that they're saying, you know what, We're going to go all in to dismantle bricks and even more so to destroy China, one belt, one road, all of that stuff. We're going to dismantle all of it because at the end of the day, they are our main competitor. Indisputably, because you're talking about the resources, about the oil and all of that. There are all kinds of reports, which I am sure are true, that Rick Rinell, who was Trump, Sanvoi had meetings with Maduro and Maduro said to them, you can have it all. Please come in,

you know, develop your resources. We've already got Chevron here. We're absolutely happy for you to come and to do all of the things that you want us to do. We're prepared to give you complete access to our resources. The only thing, apparently, that is driving this is that not the resources, but the fact that Maduro himself won't go. Now, I think that there is undoubtedly a degree of personal animus here. I mean, Trump apparently doesn't can't, you know, it isn't rational about Maduro. There have been these reports, and I'm sure that's true. The Rubio, who apparently is the main driver behind this, also hates Maduro too, and all of that. But, But I think beneath it all, there is this great geopolitical play.

We've had the reports in that the Pentagon that Elbridge, Colbury and people like that are now saying that what the United States needs to do is to consolidate control of its own hemisphere, the Western Hemisphere, that it needs to understand that this multipolar system is now coming. There's been a report by the Rand Corporation that the United States does need to come to some kind of long-term understanding with China that, you know, that they can't be defeated. And what the United States needs to do is to consolidate, focus on its sphere of influence. And Latin America, obviously, is the U.S.'s historic sphere of influence.

And Maduro has shown interest in joining bricks and the U.S. sees bricks, I think very much. as part of China's economic and political and geopolitical outreach. So we don't want China having a presence in what Americans still tend to see as some Americans tend to see as their backyard, even the Venezuela is a long way away from the US. So overthrow the regime in Venezuela put in its place a regime that is completely reliable to the United States, and you consolidate your sphere of influence that way. And of course, there is a wider global geopolitical chess game still at play as well. So you talk about the bricks, you want to undermine the bricks, you want to play Russia off against China, which is part of what Trump was trying to do

earlier this year when he was reaching out to the Russians. And he still sometimes talks in that way. And he also, in advance of his meeting with Xi Jinping in South Korea, spoke about trying to play the Chinese off against the Russians. And then you try and play the Indians off against the Chinese. And of course, Nigeria, a country very much part of the British Commonwealth. People tend to overlook this. But it is long historic links with the United States, with Britain. And, of course, it's got lots of oil. It's a huge country in Africa, and it's a BRICS partner country, so you try to break them away.

So ultimately this is... Oh, so Iran. I forgot about Iran as well. Iran is also a BRICS member. Absolutely, absolutely, all that. So it is ultimately the same old geopolitical chess game, the one that the neocons have been playing. It's becoming a little bit more feverish, actually, because the original plan, if you remember, was to break up Russia.

This is the Brzynski Grand Chessball. That isn't working. So you're now trying to do that in other places. You're trying to win against Iran and win against Venezuela and win against Nigeria. And you're trying to put pressure on India too. And you could see that this is all intensifying all the time in all sorts of ways. and Iman can see also how it is running into all kinds of problems that Iran didn't collapse in June. India is showing resistance.

Nigeria, well, we'll see what Nigeria does. And Venezuela at the moment is defined. Yeah, well, we'll see what will happen there. Okay. We will end the video there at the durand.locals.com. We are also on substack. So check us out on substact. The link is in the description box down below.

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