The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Imminent US Strikes Against Venezuelan Government || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: November 8, 2025

It appears that US military strikes against the Venezuelan government are imminent. Let's take a look at what passes for a military in Venezuela.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://bit.ly/4nMXOdi

Hey all, Peter Zion here coming to you from Colorado, and today we're talking about Venezuela because it looks like the United States is getting ready to overthrow the Venezuelan government. We now have the USS Ford, which is the largest and newest of the American supercarriers in region by far the most important and powerful battle platform that humanity has ever created, along with roping in certain countries in the region like, say, Trinidad and Tobago, which are directly off the coast of Venezuela, and then, of course, the U.S. facilities in Puerto Rico, were being used very aggressively to push troops and ships into the regions. Let's talk about what the other side looks like.

Okay, that's about it. One of the fun things about Latin American militaries is back in the 1970s and 1980s, they were involved in coups. And so when democracy kicked back in the 90s and 2000s, the militaries were deliberately gutted. And so as a result, they're really not capable of much. Venezuela was a partial exemption to that because in Venezuela, you actually had a relatively robust democracy throughout this entire period until a guy by the

name of Hugo Chavez, who was a military dude, threw his own coup and overthrew the Democratic-elected government and basically imposed an authoritarian system that has since under his successor become flat-out dictatorial. Chavez, Maduro, and their clique have basically robbed the country blind, ripping up everything that wasn't bolted down, and even a lot of things that were bolted down and basically destroying the entire non-oil economy of the country, and they haven't exactly done a great job with the oil economy either. So what used to be the most technically, educationally, and industrially advanced country in all of Latin America is now a laggard. What that means for the military? Well, Chavez, when he came in, was not a general.

I think he was a colonel. Was he even that? No, I don't think he was even that. Not a big dude. So his coup wasn't really military in the traditional sense. And the military had been a pillar of support for the old government. So Chavez started by buying off the leadership of the military directly, but no longer really purchased a lot of equipment. Then when it became apparent that he was going to be opposed to the United States and he realized some military hardware would be useful, he started buying hardware from the Russians. But the Russians, not having a lot of respect for Chavez, sold him a lot of crap that didn't even

operate when it was purchased in the 2000s. Not 2025. And for the last several years, the leader of Venezuela has been a bus driver. So the military has not been given a priority. It's been gutted of all of its leadership. It's basically been turned into a corruption sieve, and they haven't gotten really good equipment since the 1990s. So if it came up to a straight up fight between the United States' embassy guards and Caracas and the Venezuelan military, I would bet on the embassy guards, even those are only a couple dozen of them, because they're Marines, and duh. In a straight-up fight between the military of Venezuela and the military of the United States, there's no math here. If the United States decides that it wants to knock off the government

of Nicholas Maduro, this is an operation that will be measured in hours, days if they get really lucky. That doesn't mean that this is a great idea, because there's always the question of what happens the next day. Knocking a government off is the easy. part, especially in a place like Venezuela. Putting a government back together on the other side, well, the United States tried to do that in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we saw how much fun that was. Venezuela is in better shape than Afghanistan, but I'd say worse shape than Iraq was under Saddam. Oh, and one more thing. Under the previous government Chavez, the Venezuelan government imported a huge number of AK-47s, not for the military, but for the population, and then built an AK-47 facility to make

more. By a very, very, very, very conservative assessment, there's 100,000 AK-47s in public circulation with the pro-chevista gangs, and probably a more realistic number is upwards of a half a million. So no matter who the next political authority is who tries to run Venezuela, there are literally hundreds of thousands of assault rifles in the hands of a population that has literally been paid for the last 25 years to be on the side of the government that will now be deposed. whatever comes next to Venezuela, Lord, it's going to be messy.