The Rest Is Classified - 115. Intelligence Scoop: Why Venezuela Isn’t About Oil (Ep 2)

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

President Trump is now “running Venezuela”, but how did we get to this point? Why would a US president want to control Latin America? And is it really all about drugs and oil? Listen as David and Gordon explore the reasons behind Trump’s attack on Venezuela and try to understand why this Latin American country holds so much potential for the future of the global order.  ------------------- Make someone a Declassified Club Member in 2026 – go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. Just go to ⁠⁠therestisclassified.com⁠ or join on Apple Podcasts. ------------------- THE REST IS CLASSIFIED LIVE 2026: Buy your tickets ⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠ to see David and Gordon live on stage at London’s Southbank Centre on 31 January. ------------------- EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ ⁠⁠https://nordvpn.com/restisclassified⁠⁠ Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee  ------------------- Email: ⁠[e-mail] ⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@restisclassified Video Editor: Harry Swan Social Producer: Emma Jackson Producer: Becki Hills Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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using the code T-R-I-C-10, Terms and Conditions, Supply. Welcome to the rest is classified. I'm Gordon Carrera, and I'm David McClarsky. And this is the second, David, in our emergency series looking at that U.S. mission that took out Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. Our first episode, we looked at the operation itself from And we recorded that on Sunday, January the 4th. We're recording this Monday, January the 5th, so about kind of 15, 18 hours later, really just a couple of days after the first news broke. And in that first episode, we looked at how the operation itself unfolded, how the US pulled off this, you know, really surprising move of being able to capture the sitting leader of Venezuela.

And I guess this time we're going to step back a bit and look at the wise. But there are a few more details emerging, aren't there, David, about the operation itself just in the last few hours. Gordon, I'm furious. It's Monday morning. It's actually quite early my time, but I'm already furious with you. Why? I had a quote from the Jack Ryan Amazon series about Venezuela that you hacked out of our notes. You had a long quote from a fictional TV series with someone talking about Venezuela. And I was like, hang on a sec. The fact is better than the fiction, which is maybe should be my general kind of battle cry

about you fiction writers. Except when it comes to my novels. We don't need spy fiction. We don't need thrillers. We've got the real life stuff going on. Yeah, exactly. Been ruined by reality. No, but it was a great, it was a very illustrative John Krasinski quote for the Jack Ryan series.

They called it Gordon five years ago, six years ago, I think, maybe when they ran the second in season of Jack Ryan and it was all set in Venezuela. And I actually distinctly remember watching it with my wife and commenting that there's no way that the agency would just be able to fly helicopters sort of willy-nilly through Venezuela because they're just sort of taken off and landing and, you know, violating Venezuelan airspace at will. And then look, you know, six, seven years later. I'm totally wrong. But you're right, Gordon. We do have some updates, I guess, some things that have come in over the past 12 to 15. 15 hours on the rate that I think don't materially change the story from the first episode

in the series about exactly how Operation Absolute Resolve went down, but do add some detail to it that I think puts a point on really the incredible intelligence picture that the White House, the CIA, Delta Force, all of the different agencies involved in planning and participating in this operation had at their fingertips. So some of the things that have come out, I do want to actually hat tip, there's a great journalist named Jack Murphy, who's got a substack called the High Side. What he has revealed in an update to some of the stuff he was putting out as the operation was going on is that CIA ground branch officers, and we talked in the first episode, Gordon,

about that team that was on the ground. They were on the ground in August in Venezuela. The planning for the operation didn't really start in full four. until September, one of the things that does seem to be more and more clear. And again, I think we'll get more information on this in the coming days, but the role that recent defectors, really high-level defectors from Venezuela played in helping build source networks on the ground that the agency and Delta Force were able to leverage, because it seems like there was a defector, a guy who would actually run one of Venezuela's intelligence agencies, someone who would run a state-run

oil company. And again, they played a role in kind of activating local source networks that played a role of the operation. I also think, Gordon, another interesting piece of this is the role that military, I guess you call them defectors in place played in this operation, these are kind of officers who would have been frustrated with Maduro and might have played a role in helping, you know, the Americans kind of conduct. the operation. Yeah, I think one of the things that we may learn more about in the days and weeks to come is how far there were back-channeled secret contacts with people in the Maduro regime, you know, supposed regime loyalists in which the US is kind of reaching out to

them and saying, if we remove him, will you play ball? You know, how will you operate? And I think there was a lot of that going on quietly, maybe even at some of the highest levels, which may have assisted this operation. But yeah, I think that will take a bit of time to fully emerge, but it's very interesting. The other piece that I found interesting, I guess, not a surprise given the fact that no Americans died and not a piece of equipment was lost, was that the U.S. gained total control, according to a source involved in the planet, total control over Venezuelan government and military communication systems throughout the mission. So what happened to the electrical grid in Caracas, what seems to happen to the sort of the communication system that

the military was using, it seems like the Americans had it completely wired. The last little bit I found interesting is that Maduro apparently has been videotaped constantly since his capture, and the idea there was to avoid any allegations that he is being tortured or sort of mishandled. And the thinking around even things like, you know, why is he not in kind of an orange jumpsuit? You know, he's just in that kind of gray track suit. Why is he being flown out of Guantanamo in a 757 as opposed to the Gulfstream planes that would be used when American, you know, forces render cartel members? He's being given the, um, the head of state treatment, Gordon, for a future felon. Although I hear that Brooklyn detention center ain't the

place to be and not the place to wake up. So I'm not sure it's not sure it's that good the treatment. So those, I mean, just, you know, again, I think, you know, more will obviously come out in the next few days and weeks, but just a few kind of updates to the story we told on the pod on Monday on the raid. But I think the focus of this episode, Gordon, is not how the raid went down. It's this massive question of why the U.S. did it, why Trump did it in the first place. That's right. And I think it is important to answer that because I think it also takes you to what is

the U.S. strategy and what might it do next? So it's a kind of answer with big consequences. I think maybe the easiest way to break it up is into three areas, drugs, oil and raw power. That's the subtitle to your next book, right, Gordon? The oil, drugs and raw power. The Gordon Carrera story. It could be the autobiography, maybe.

The autobiography, yeah. But yes, technically, this was a law enforcement operation with the military acting in support of DOJ and DEA to bring him to justice. I think it's worth maybe looking at the drugs first because I think it is the overt or part of the overt justification. And President Trump described Maduro as the kingpin of a vast criminal network trafficking drugs into the US, flooding the US with lethal poison, which was killing thousands of people. So the claim here is that Maduro was a narco-terrorist head of state conspiring to smuggle drugs into the US. And over the summer, the bounty on him stemming from existing charges was double to $50 million. Now, the first charges were actually laid in 2020 against Maduro, but we've just had this superseding indictment, which is the basis of the charges that are actually going to be laid, you know, and what he's appearing in court for today on this, you know, Monday as we speak. And I think it's interesting, isn't it?

If we look at some of what's being alleged that he's done to support that claim, I mean, it goes back through his backstory. So it says when he was a member of the National Assembly, Maduro moved loads of cocaine under the protection of law enforcement. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maduro provided Venezuelan diplomatic passports to drug traffickers and facilitated diplomatic cover for planes used by money launderers to repatriate.

drug proceeds from Mexico to Venezuela, and that then, as he becomes head of state when he succeeds Hugo Chavez, that he presides over this kind of narco-terrorist state, which is also partnering with what are called by the US, narco-terrorist groups from Colombia, the FARC, the ELN, the Sinaloa cartel, you know, a whole range of different criminal and drug networks. I think the most interesting bit, though, is that there is this idea that he sits atop, something called the Cartel de la Soles. Have I pronounced that right? How was that? I think it was not, I mean, I don't speak, I don't speak Spanish listeners to the pod. We'll know that. But I think that was not, you could do better. Cartel of the Sons. Let's just call it the Cartel of the Sons,

because that might be easier. Which, which, this is like, I think the central claim. And it's quite important, isn't it, in the build-up to what happened? And it's interesting, the cartel of the Suns, it's actually a reference to the Sun Insignia, which is affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking Venezuela military officers. So the idea is that this is a cartel which operates within the state, you know, within high-ranking military offices. Which is convenient. That is convenient if you're looking for a good reason to sort of depose somebody, to, to, to per- perfectly align the cartel, the criminal organization, with the official state apparatus. You could say that it was very convenient, I think. If you want to kind of claim that there's

a narco terrorist head of state, then claiming there is a narco group which is aligned perfectly with the state is one way of doing that. And I mean, the reality is when you kind of look at this cartel of the Sons is it's not, you know, it's not a cartel in the way that some of the other cartels are. And it's not really a terrorist organization in the way it's been defined, even though that the US has kind of designated it as a terrorist organization. It is a group, but it's a group of corrupt officials linked to the drug trade. So it's a kind of corrupt group rather than a traditional criminal cartel or a terrorist group. And so I think, you know, already there, you've got a sense in which, you know, the reality has been stretched and the label.

have been used of narco-terrorist groups to fit the desire to kind of carry out a certain activity and have a legal justification for it. Well, I mean, the other claim then is that this group, the cartel of the Sons, is trafficking huge amounts of cocaine and fentanyl into the U.S., right? So there's this claim. I believe, I don't think it's in the most recent indictment, but the language from the 2020 indictment basically alleged that Maduro was flooding, intentionally flooding the U.S. with drugs and using drugs as a weapon. And it was that logic that ended up with, you know,

the claim that he was a narco-terrorist. Yeah. And again, here, you know, the facts are a little bit more complex. I mean, fentanyl has been the kind of, the fentanyl flow has been the thing that's really concerned a lot of people in the U.S. in which Donald Trump, has made a kind of a big theme, but the reality is that doesn't come through Venezuela. I mean, the chemicals are coming from China and then finished in Mexico before being smuggled into the US. And so Venezuela is not really in that field at all. When it comes to cocaine, again, it's not a producer of cocaine. Its main role seems to be a transshipment point for cocaine, which is coming out of Colombia. And interesting enough, it's after the Medellin cartel was being dismantled.

in the early 90s, you know, we covered that in our Escobar series. They were looking for new routes and they start to kind of come through Venezuela. But again, here, if you look at the detail of it, most of the cocaine flowing through Venezuela is actually thought to be heading to Europe, not the United States. So again, you know, it doesn't quite stack up, you know, this sense that drugs are the justification for it. So I guess it then raises the question of why. the drugs are mentioned constantly

by the White House and by American officials. And I guess the reality is it's a hot button domestic issue, right? I mean, stopping the flow of drugs and people into the U.S. is something that, you know, gets a significant part of the American electorate animated. And I think makes it, as we'll see, I, you know, I think, spoiler alert, when you talk about oil, when you talk about the raw power politics of this, it can get confusing and kind of, it could be hard to explain. And then when you really get down to it, it could potentially paint the U.S. as the aggressor here, whereas the drug issue, I think, does allow, obviously there's the reality that Maduro and associates around him are involved in the drug trade and have profited from it extensively, right? And the reality that Maduro has overseen socioeconomic and cultural collapse in Venezuela that has seen eight million people or so leave the country.

And he's incredibly, you know, an incredibly corrupt and, you know, awful dictator. So you have all of that going for you if you're, if you're Trump. It makes it very easy to paint what happened over the weekend in almost defensive terms, right? We're defending the American people from somebody who's seeking to corrode us from within with his cocaine and fentanyl. Yeah. I mean, it allows you to kind of paint a target on his back effectively, which is what they were doing. There is also that slightly awkward fact that the former president of Honduras who'd been sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking was recently pardoned by President Trump. So the idea that, you know, going hard after drug trafficking, narco-terrorist state leaders, you know, is slightly undermined by that.

And I think what you get a sense of is that the drugs are definitely there, but it feels like a justification for a policy which was being sought for other reasons and a useful legal basis to go after Maduro personally. But I don't think it explains, does it, the kind of wider issue. So maybe let's look at the next reason and the one that I think it's really surprising that it comes up quite. explicitly, and that's oil. I mean, it's a kind of old cliche about U.S. wars for oil and that the U.S. is always kind of fighting wars for oil. And I remember in Iraq in 2003, everyone was saying, oh, you know, not everyone, but some people were saying, you know, this is a war about oil. And actually, I never thought it was. I don't think it was. And so it became a kind of cliched accusation. But in this case, it's partly true,

I think, isn't it? There is an element of truth that oil is a factor on it. I mean, the President Trump has been explicit about that. Yeah. I mean, he's talked about it constantly, although since, you know, he was very adamant and open in his press conference over the weekend that the opening of the Venezuelan oil industry, in particular to U.S. companies, is, you know, very much top of mind for him. It's clearly played a role in this. And I think also you go back into the summer and the spring as this idea about what you do about Venezuela. is starting to kind of gel inside the White House. I mean, the genesis for a lot of this was this kind of conflict between different interest groups in the states of like you have these kind of anti-Maduro, you know, Venezuelans in the states, anti- kind of leftist, you know, Latin Americans, Cubans and the states who want Maduro gone, right? They sort of want these leftist dictators pushed out. And then you also have the reality that Chevron, the U.S. oil and gas

company, pushing Trump to kind of potentially force Chevron to get out of Venezuela, which Trump doesn't want to do. You have this weird nexus of like, how do I solve both of these problems at the same time, you know, and potentially get more, you know, more American companies involved in developing what could be, you know, the rich prize of, you know, Venezuela's crumbling and shambling oil infrastructure. Yeah. And I think it's worth worth a little bit of background on how the U.S. and Venezuela when it comes to oil. Because some of those around the administration have been saying that U.S. oil rights were stolen by Venezuela. Now, there is actually kind of, there's something to that, even if it's not quite

true, you know, maybe to the extent to which they're claiming. Because the, I mean, the Venezuelans nationalized their oil industry back in the 70s, which a lot of countries did. But U.S. companies were still in there investing and partnering, you know, for the following years. But then under Hugo Chavez in the 2000s, they were kicked out. And their assets were basically appropriated by the state. And so since then, US companies have been arguing about the compensation they are owed by the Venezuelans for having taken over their assets. And this has been going through international courts as they argue about the amount

that's owed billions of dollars and the Venezuelans saying, well, we're not going to pay or we can't afford to pay that. I mean, Chevron, as you said, is still operating there, but under a license. But there is this issue which has been kind of going back and forth about compensation that the US says it's owed by Venezuela. And then there's the possibility of getting, you know, both compensation and getting back into the business of Venezuela, because it has got really, you know, it's astonishing really to think. It actually has the world's largest proven reserves of oil. I mean, it's not Saudi Arabia, which you'd have thought would have that, but it's

Venezuela, which has about 70% of the total global reserves of oil. I mean, it's astonishing. and yet is actually pulling relatively little out of the ground at the moment. I think, you know, it's gone down from three to four million barrels a day to one million or less because the infrastructure is crumbling and is in such a bad state. So, you know, you've got this kind of very tempting thing of a huge reserve, but which is not being exploited. Well, and Gordon, you would have learned that right out front of this episode if we'd included the Jack Ryan clip because he makes precisely this point. I mean, it does recall the sort of the removal of...

of a sitting head of state who's not playing ball with half an eye on the sort of natural resources of that country. It does, it recalls an operation planned by a friend of the pod, Alan Dulles, back in the 50s, doesn't it, Gordon? In Iran. Iran, yep, exactly, right? Ajax or boot, depending on which Secret Service, cryptonym you enjoy. And then also Guatemala, right, in in 54 where you had you know united fruit kind of looking at you know the sort of prize of that country and the agency unseating sitting head of state maybe in part Gordon for corporate interest so it does recall some highlights of past past sort of covert action and this one of course a completely overt action but but nonetheless you know a lot of similarities

I think one interesting fact, though, is that the, you know, the Venezuelan oil industry has been massively suppressed, but the one country which is working with it and invested in it is China. And most of its oil is going to China. And that's where, you know, China's interests have lain. So there is something which you can see also going on in the US, you know, calculation is we can get our companies in and get access to these riches. And we can also squeeze the Chinese out of our backyard. and we can have potentially more control over the oil price globally if we have this access, which is also quite useful geopolitically when you're trying to put pressure on Iran and other countries. So you can see the kind of advantages that oil does offer, you know, if you can get access to but the one thing to say is that when you look at the reality of it, you know, firstly, if you're a US oil company, are you going to rush in? Well, not when you don't know what's going to play out politically in this country. or for how long there'll be easy access to the market.

And secondly, it will take years to rebuild that infrastructure. I mean, years and years and years. So the idea that this is some kind of quick fix where you can suddenly move in, get access, you've suddenly got access to the oil and you can, you know, start making money from it, and you can, you know, take some of that yourself and return some to the Venezuelan government to help the people. I mean, none of that really makes sense in the short run. I just don't think it kind of, it's maybe a long-term play at best.

Well, there, I think Gordon, with maybe oil a factor, but not explaining the entirety of the reason for ousting Nicholas Bajaro. Let's take a break. And when we come back, everyone can dust off their old high school history books because we're going to talk about the Monroe Doctrine. We'll see you after the break. Hello, it's Gordon here from The Rest is Classified. A quick message for American listeners to let you know the news that my new book, the spy in the archive is now finally available to buy in the US. It is the story of Vasily Mitrochin, the man who was the archivist of the KGB,

but who went on to steal its deepest secrets. But after shockingly being turned away by the CIA, he ends up in the hands of MI6 and exfiltrated from Russia in a wild, dangerous, almost comic operation. It's also the story of how his attempts to destroy the KGB, ultimately failed, and how that paved the way for the rise of Vladimir Putin and the return of the KGB men who now rule Russia. That's The Spy in the Archive, available from all good bookshops stateside now.

Well, welcome back. We left off with that wonderful teaser that you would need your history textbook for this text part, because we are going to talk a little bit, and I'm very excited for this, Gordon, about whether or not Donald Trump is reasserting the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. And I think who better, Gordon, to explain the Monroe Doctrine than a British imperialist such as yourself? Thank you for that. Although I feel like your high school classes maybe could come in useful here.

Do you not remember it? Could you not recite the Monroe Doctrine? I think everyone has been brushing up slightly on it. I think it's Wikipedia page is probably been busy in the last couple of months. This has probably been a very busy time for the Monroe Doctrine Wikipedia page. And that one historian who's the expert on the Monroe Doctrine, who's now like, yes, everyone wants to talk to me. So the Monroe Doctrine, David, reminding you of your history class, was not a formal treaty. It was four paragraphs within James Monroe, a president, a message to Congress, December,

the 2nd, 1823, about telling, effectively, those pesky other countries to stay out of the American Western Hemisphere to keep clear. It's interesting because, of course, America was a pretty new state at that point, hasn't got much of a military. We're only 11 years out at that point from you burning the White House, Gordon. So, you know, exactly. Your own operation absolute resolve, you know, to sort of torch our White House. was a mere 11 years before.

Which is why it's good that you've got a Brit explaining the Monroe Doctrine because it was partly, but to be fair, it was only partly about keeping the pesky Brits out, is also trying to keep the Spanish out of Latin America. And also, interesting enough, I hadn't realized this, keeping the Russians out of what's the Pacific Northwest, obviously, you know, kind of close to Russia famously, that part of the US and trying to kind of prevent all these other countries ganging up or picking out bits of the Americas while America was kind of building its power.

And it basically said, keep clear, this is our backyard. And I mean, it's, you know, it's interesting because we were talking about it, you know, before the break as well, that this idea that this is America's backyard and it has the ability to assert power, that is something that, you know, we've seen in the past. I mean, we saw it, you know, if you think about it, we saw it in, you know, as you said, in kind of Guatemala, you know, 1954 there's a coup. You see it with, you know, the attempts which we've done on the pod to get rid of Castro in Cuba, which fail, but, you know, there's still that sense of we are not having a communist state Cuba in our backyard and you have the

kind of bay of pigs. And, you know, this wasn't just something from 1823. There were elements of it which continued. But I think what's been so interesting, isn't it, is that the Trump administration this time round are really, really right from the start asserting it very, very strong. aren't they? Well, I mean, I guess you could, you know, you could look at, this is more symbolic than anything, but I think it's illustrative of a sort of state of mind, you know, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America, talking about Canada as the 51st state, shouldn't laugh, no offense to our Canadian friends. And of course, I mean, the talk about getting a hold of Greenland, which we talked about on, you know, episodes 22 and 23.

of the rest is classified, Gordon. I mean, it's, this is maybe a feature, not a bug, of Donald Trump's forward policy. And I mean, it's, because it's also been pretty much elaborated and made official in the national security strategy that came out just a month ago. Yeah. I mean, that strategy looks, because it was really interesting because when that strategy came out, it caused a lot of shock in Europe because of the way it talked about Europe, because it had all that focus on, you know, civilizational erasure in Europe.

And it basically said nothing at all about Russia and China, but criticized, you know, European governments. And of course, Europe was kind of slightly freaked out by it. But I remember people at the time saying, well, we just don't know whether this strategy is just a bit of kind of political rhetoric and political positioning by the Trump administration or whether it really reflects policy. But, of course, what we all should have kind of read much more closely was that actually the focus of a lot of the strategy was on the American.

on the kind of Western Hemisphere, and now we are seeing it being, you know, put in place. And very explicitly, I mean, that's what I think is so interesting is this desire from the administration to kind of exert power over its own backyard and the whole of the Americas. And I mean, Donald Trump himself talks of not the Monroe Doctrine, but the Don Roe Doctrine, or as it's more formally known, the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which is basically we are going to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere and deny it. I think this is also interesting to competitors, namely, I suppose, particularly China,

but others as well, and to deal with any kind of sources of threats to the United States and its security that exist all through the continents. So, you know, it's a very explicit piece of strategy, which even goes to, you know, talking about the need to control strategically vital assets. And you know, you can see what those assets are. They are things like oil and they are things like the Panama Canal. And they might also be strategically important assets like the territory of Greenland because of its critical minerals and its position in the world in terms of kind of missile defense and national security. It also, you know, portrays Latin America as a source of kind of chaos.

to be managed by the U.S., doesn't it? I mean, it's a, you know, it's a hotbed of the drug trade. It's the source of immigration flows to the U.S. that could be destabilizing. It's a battleground for foreign influence between, you know, the U.S. and China, right? So it's this wild neighborhood, I think, in the sort of language of the national security strategy that the U.S. needs to tame. I mean, I think, you know, the The reason why I think this answer, I think, by the way, the sort of power politics answer encompasses the oil piece, right? Because oil is a component of that. And in the eyes of the Trump administration, you know, not just the eyes of the Trump administration, the actual language of

the national security strategy, key assets. If they're not in U.S. hands, they need to be in the hands of friendly actors who will sort of do what the U.S. wants. And I think you'd have to say that, you know, the world's largest proven oil reserves. Plus, you know, we haven't talked about it, Gordon, because you cut that check, Ryan, quote, all the mines, you know, in Venezuela. It has a massive sort of amount of mineral deposits that are also strategic assets. You don't want those to be in the hands of the Chinese, right? And that's, I think, the logic for a lot of what the administration has done over the past couple days. And I mean, what I found interesting was just how, you know, we we were talking about the different reasons and motives for this operation, but how explicit

they were. You had the legal justification, which is drugs, but that was also, you know, clearly a kind of relatively shallow. Then they said the oil bit, the quiet part out loud, you know, this is partly about oil. But they were also, you know, very explicit about the fact that this fits into this wider strategy. I mean, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, said in the kind of big press conference after, you know, the operation was first announced, this will re-establish American deterrence and dominance in the Western Hemisphere. This is America first. It's a very explicit strategy.

And I think that's what, you know, when you look at the parallels for this, you know, as I said, there are parallels in terms of things like kind of Guatemala and Chile. But they tended to be kind of quite covert. I mean, the only one that kind of, you know, sits a bit closer is Panama when they went after Noriega in 1989. And I mean, this is a really interesting story because on one level, it does look quite similar, doesn't it? Because you've got an operation to go after General Noriega, who is then running Panama, and to remove him and bring him to a US core. But it's also got some differences.

I mean, I hadn't realized that Noriega had been a CIA asset, David, at one point, and been used, you know, by the US to kind of go after leftist groups and then decides he's going to get big in the drug trade and kind of take over. with a country. And then they, it's different to some extent because Panama is obviously much smaller as a country. And they have a U.S. military base there because of the Panama Canal. And so in some ways it's easier to do. But it's still a pretty violent operation, which takes a few weeks, claims, I think 26 American lives, a few hundred Panamanians dead. And then eventually Noriega flees to, I think it's the Vatican embassy, the Vatican mission in Panama where he's hold up for days and they play rock music loudly at him over speakers to try and get him out, which I just think is, you know, I mean, you can actually, if you go on Spotify, you can actually

find the Spotify playlist for the tunes that they played. Someone has put it together. And it's great because they've got some, they've got Welcome to the Jungle by Guns and Roses. They've got Panama by Van Halen, very, very apt. I think all I want is you by. you too. So I think whoever was doing, and I think it was someone in Southern Command for the US military, whoever was doing the playlist was like clearly trying to find funny song titles, which they could also blare loudly at Noriega, who it turns out was an opera lover and hated rock music to try and get him out. But eventually it works. But you kind of go, that's a kind of wild way of doing a capture operation. You know, one thought I have

I just talked listening to the Panama parallel is just how far the U.S. has come in its mastery of these kind of operations. Because if you, I mean, again, 36 years ago, you needed, now, I understand it's a different, it is a different context. But I think nonetheless, 36 years ago, you needed tens of thousands of troops. And in this operation, you end up with, you know, two dozen dead Americans in Panama. In Venezuela, you have no dead Americans, right? A bigger country, bigger military. Bigger country, bigger military. The ability when sort of the U.S. special operations and intelligence apparatus focuses in on a target, whether that's bin Laden, you know, even think about Escobar, how long it took to find Escobar and to, you know, to track him down.

Like, these operations have gotten so ex, you know, just exquisitely planned and timed. It's really incredible. It's really an incredible feat. Which I think goes back to, you know, the point we may write at the start of this two-part series, which is the operation itself was flawlessly executed and incredibly effective at doing what it wanted to do. But where it leads to and what happens next is much less clear, you know. And I think that's what.

where, you know, the tricky bit comes because, you know, it's one thing to kind of carry out that operation. But until you know what's going to replace Maduro, until you understand the kind of consequence of it, it's a lot hard to say that the overall, you know, policy is a success. And I think, you know, that's, you know, perhaps where we should end up is, you know, where does this, you know, new doctrine and new policy, you know, take us? I guess you could look at this different ways, couldn't you? Because on one level, you think, okay, well, the Russians and the Chinese, aren't going to like this. You know, you think the Chinese have, you know, energy and mineral

deals with Venezuela. Chinese private buyers are the biggest customer of Venezuelan oil. There's question marks over sort of these deals, the, you know, sort of resource extraction from Venezuela that the Chinese have been conducting. I think big question mark over that. There have been protests, of course, from Beijing about the removal of Maduro. You know, Russia also has deals or had deals with him. So, like I said, what level you don't like it. On the other level, though, you do wonder if the assertion of, I don't know, almost kind of spheres of influence to some degree, you know, if you're Putin or she, you wonder

if down the line an American administration might say, look, we do what we want in our backyard and you do what you want in yours, you know? And maybe, I don't think we're there yet, but it's not hard to imagine us, us getting there at some point, maybe in the not so distant future. You know, maybe let the Russians do what they want in Ukraine and let the Chinese do what they want in Taiwan. We're not there yet. Again, I want to be clear. No. But this kind of the logic of a U.S. backyard where we do what we want could suit other great powers as well.

Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, to some extent, the Russians are already trying to do that, and they tried to do it in Ukraine. So it's not like they could be more emboldened, but they might, you know, see it as an opening. But I agree if China feels like that is the new way of the world, you know, if this is the nature of kind of power and the exercise of power and that the U.S. is less likely to kind of intervene over Taiwan, then, yeah, you can certainly see that as plausible. So I think, you know, in the short term, definitely a loss for China and Russia in terms of the battle for influence. And, you know, they've lost an ally. And if you're Russia, you know, you've lost Syria as an ally. you've now lost Venezuela. And if you're China, who are trying pretty actively to build

influence in Latin America, you know, this also potentially is a loss. But as I said, I think it's still too early to know how it's going to play out, isn't it? I think the other potentially big losers would be anti-American strong men throughout the rest of the Western Hemisphere, right? Because Trump has already made clear that, you know, Cuba, which has benefited from sort of below market pricing on Venezuelan oil, you know, had supplied the bodyguards for Maduro, many of whom presumably were killed. I mean, Trump was pretty blunt when he was asked whether the U.S. would cut Cuba off from Venezuelan supplies. He says yes, you know, and he had he had words for the Colombian president, Gustavo Pedro, who he told to, quote, watch his ass, which I think is,

you know, again, like what would stop the U.S. from doing this? If you can use this legal justification of any connection to the drug trade, any profiting that you or your associates have done from drugs. If we can then come up with a legal justification that you are a narco-terrorist, we can get an indictment in the United States legal system, and then we can have Delta force serve you with the indictment if you get out a line. I would be concerned if I were the Colombian president. Why not? I mean, you start bombing drug factories in Mexico. You put pressure on the Colombian leader. You try and squeeze Cuba. It doesn't sound like they want to invade Cuba, but they hope they can kind of, you know, it's a weak enough regime. They can kind of push it over

and collapse. You have this kind of attempt to use coercive diplomacy effectively against these countries to say, you know, do what we want or else, which works so long as, you know, Venezuela doesn't unravel or things don't go wrong to some extent, doesn't it? Well, and we've had, you know, again, everyone's got their history books out, Gordon, presumably at this point. I mean, we've had an era of what was called gunboat diplomacy in the United States, right? Late 19th, early 20th centuries. It's interesting that Trump has explicitly hung a portrait of William McKinley in the White House. I don't exactly know where it is or if it had been located somewhere else in the White House and was sort of moved. Maybe someone listening could inform us. But, you know, I

think this sort of symbolic elevation of McKinley, who expanded America, didn't he? Who expanded America, presided over the military seizure of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. So, again, I think there's a hearketing back, to say the least, of an era where, you know, at least under Trump, the U.S. will say it's our way or the highway in the Western Hemisphere. And I mean, before anyone points it out, the Brits may have known a thing or two about gumboat diplomacy as well, as the Chinese may tell us over the opium wars and various other things. But if we go back to the kind of present day, I mean, you know, you'd be worried if you're if you're Greenland. And you could see that, you know, the last day or two, Denmark has been, you know, suddenly realized, well, actually, when Donald Trump has said, we're going to get Greenland, one way or another, you know, and he talks about Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. you can see that now suddenly if you're the Danes you're thinking he may be serious about this now

I'm not convinced they're going to invade Greenland you know I mean they've already got a military base up there at Pitifick at Tulay which you know as we talked about the previous series I visited many years ago and so it may be more about kind of increasing the the reach of American power on Greenland rather than actually you know taking it over but clearly you know suddenly that looks much more real than it did before, I think. Well, yeah, I mean, play that one out, right? If, because I think we talked to those episodes that the, I think that the frightening, from the U.S. perspective, the frightening development would be if Greenland became, actually

sought formal independence and secured formal independence from Denmark. And then, you know, offered concessions, minerals, you know, sort of ports to China. even to Russia, right? That that would be the kind of situation where, you know, what happened to Baduro or what's going on in Venezuela could directly apply because I would argue that Greenland is much more important strategically, at least at least the use of Greenland sort of as a U.S. military outpost, that is more important strategically to the U.S. than anything that's going on in Venezuela. Yeah. But the Danish leader has basically said hands off. And even Kirstama, who's, you know, spends, you know, prime minister who has to walk a very careful line when it comes to kind of

relationships with the US has basically said, you know, I agree with the Danes, you know, I stand with them and their view on the future of Greenlands. You can sense there that, you know, the worries that are growing, you know, and this is, you know, the US and Denmark are two NATO countries. But if this, if, if, you know, the Don Roe doctrine really does, you know, keep pushing outwards and is as aggressive as it looks, then, you know, the tensions could get pretty real, pretty quickly. But I think a lot of it does depend, doesn't it, David, on how it got, what happens in Venezuela. It's too early to say we don't really know what their political complexion is going to be like. And, you know, there's one lesson from previous events in

things like Iraq and Libya, which is, you know, it's one thing to remove a leader. It's another thing to kind of build a kind of stable enduring regime. And we just don't know, you know, what will come next. Have you seen this one, Gordon, making the rounds, by the way, this picture? I don't think I can actually, I don't know if our intrepid. Is that the picture of the horse? Have you seen this one? Oh, no, I haven't seen that. No, there's a picture. So if you're on the video, you could probably see it now. There's a picture of a, of a horse. And the back, you know, third is exquisitely stenciled and drawn. And it says, special forces operation to capture Maduro, and then the head and the front legs look like they're drawn by, drawn by a four-year-old

child with a crayon, and it says plans for future of Venezuela. That, you know, is the sort of dynamic that we're in. I mean, Trump, you know, said, and I think Secretary of State Rubio is trying to walk this back a little bit, but Trump said in the press conference over the weekend, you know, he was asked, who is going to be running the country? And then Trump turns and looks at Rubio, Pete Hengseth, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. And Trump says, the people that are standing right behind me, we're going to be running it. He said, pointing back at the three beds. So, like, it's very unclear.

Yeah. But obviously, if you're a Venezuelan politician or military official now, you have to think a little bit differently about how you accommodate the United States because it is pretty clear there are plans to do more in Venezuela, should. Trump see fit to do so. Yeah, I think that's right. You've got to make some pretty hard calculations as of other kind of leaders and other officials in other countries in that hemisphere. So we'll, you know, I guess that's probably a good place to wrap it up. I mean, make sure you're following us on

Instagram, the rest is classified, as we'll try and put out some more updates to this story if they emerge in the kind of next few days. I doubt this will be our last emergency podcast, though, David. Somehow I doubt it, Gordon. Somehow I doubt it. Yes. I think we're going back to history, I think, next week. We should be doing the story of Britain's kind of most famous and remarkable traitor,

Kim Filby, a man, an MI6 officer, who sold his soul to the Soviet Union, the KGB. But, you know, who knows? Before that comes out, we might have to kind of do another series on something else that happens. You know, who knows in this kind of world we're in? That's right. Well, next week we might have to further bump the Philby series out after we have deposed the Prime Minister of Greenland and the Danes. Gordon, we have to comment here, just as we wrap, on the wildness of a world where the Prime Minister of Denmark has had to say the U.S. has no right to annex any of the three countries in the Danish kingdom.

So this is the world we're in and, you know, I think we'll be back with another emergency pod probably in the not so distant future. So thank you all for listing to this interruption of our regularly scheduled programming. We hope you have enjoyed this deep dive and we'll see you next time. See you next time.