By Sergio Rodriguez Gelfenstein 
October 9, 2025

The following is a revised and expanded text of the paper presented Sept. 27, 2025, at the 29th Seminar, “The Parties and a New Society,” held in Mexico City and organized by the Labor Party (Partido de Trabajo) of Mexico. The author is a Venezuelan political analyst, former officer and diplomat. 

Translation: John Catalinotto

I would like to offer some guidelines to help understand Trump’s war against Venezuela and its place in regional and global dynamics. I believe this situation must be viewed from two perspectives: the international and the internal situation in the United States.

First, I think it is necessary to say that in today’s world, no event is isolated from another. To that extent, analyzing phenomena that occur in isolation prevents us from reaching a holistic assessment of the issue. The global conflict that is manifesting itself in different latitudes and longitudes of the planet and on all continents is an expression of a general crisis of Western hegemony, particularly that of the United States.

Ultimately, it is a crisis of capitalism, which as a socio-economic model has failed to solve the great problems of humanity. This crisis differs from earlier ones in that rather than being cyclical in nature, it shows signs of being structural. In its dialectical development, it heralds a change of era and system.

As this crisis unfolds, it is creating the conditions for the emergence of a new world, the contours of which are still unclear, but which undoubtedly represents progress compared to the past. Thus, three fundamental characteristics are emerging that account for the strategic transformation of the factors that determine hegemony:

 

1. The North Atlantic space is ceasing to be the center of political decision-making on the planet. That role is being assumed by Eurasia. In this territory, the presence of the United States and Europe is irrelevant compared to the decisive role that China and Russia are playing in it.

 

2. Unlike in the past, when the seas and oceans played a predominant role, the focus is now on land. This implies the need for a structural transformation of military doctrine and, therefore, of the organization and missions of the armed forces, which must shift from naval to land dominance. Aircraft carriers are no longer the most important offensive weapon. That role is now played by hypersonic missiles, which are possessed only by Russia, China, Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

 

3. Hegemony is now won not only through military strength but also through economic and financial capabilities and, above all, scientific and technological capabilities. In these areas the United States is losing the battle.

 

The United States and the West face conflicts in Ukraine, Palestine, Africa, Western Asia (in various locations), Yemen, Iran, Europe and … the Caribbean. Because it is losing the war in its strategic dimension in the economic, commercial, scientific and technological spheres, and considering that the dollar is being used less and less, the West’s only possibility of responding to this highly contentious situation is through threats, blackmail and violence. It does this using military means or, equally, communication, cultural and media instruments. These factors are present throughout the world and, of course, in the imperialist aggression against Venezuela from the Caribbean Sea.

On the other hand, what must be considered are the particular internal factors of the United States that are influencing international dynamics as never before. Perhaps this is the first time in history that the U.S. government cannot be characterized as a clearly Republican or Democratic administration.

Today, the U.S. government is bipartisan and multisectoral. It could be simply characterized as “the Trump administration,” obviously made up of Republicans, but also Democrats. (Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, are … or at least were Democrats.)

Also part of the administration are the neoconservatives of the U.S. neo-fascist ultraright who have formed an alliance with the Cuban-American lobby to try to keep the United States in an ideological cold war, just as in the last century, with the only difference being that during that Cold War the enemy was the Soviet Union and now it is the Communist Party of China.

Other key components of the Trump regime are the political and ideological group closest to Trump, known as MAGA (Make America Great Again), as well as his closest family and friends and billionaires, the most prominent (but not the only one) of whom is Elon Musk.

Trump, interest groups and the ‘deep state’

Trump also has to make these interest groups in his administration coexist with the “Deep State,” which has its own opinions: the Armed Forces, the intelligence community, the financial system [Wall Street], the media, the military-industrial complex, transnational energy companies, the big pharmaceutical industry, and drug trafficking, which is systematically managed and organized by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Without the support of all of these interest groups, no U.S. president can survive, because together they form the backbone of his political system.

In other words, today we cannot speak of the United States as if it were a monolithic and cohesive country, nor can we speak of the “U.S. government” as if there were only one such entity. There are many governments within the same administration. Trump unites them; they need him to preserve their spheres of power, and Trump, in turn, needs them and uses them to stay in power. It is a symbiotic relationship.

In the case of Venezuela and its relations with the United States, this situation is particularly noticeable. At the same time, the government of President Nicolás Maduro must meet and discuss with MAGA (Special U.S. Envoy Richard Grenell), with whom it has a certain relationship of respect. This relationship has allowed the United States, on Trump’s instructions, to quickly resolve the three problems it had with Venezuela: the resumption of oil shipments, the reception of deported Venezuelans and the return to their country of U.S. agents imprisoned in Venezuela for terrorist and criminal activities. Negotiation and dialogue have made it possible to resolve these disputes in each case.

But at the same time, the same administration, under the leadership of neoconservatives and Cuban-American neo-fascist leaders, with the consent of Trump himself, who ordered Grenell to negotiate and engage in dialogue, has deployed a war-fleet to threaten Venezuela with military action under false pretenses that have neither been proven nor demonstrated.

Trump’s diffuse management responds to the multisectoral nature and diverse interests of his administration and, of course, to the egotistical, arrogant, narcissistic and grandiloquent personality of someone who grew up as a rich kid and became accustomed to living that way. That is, he got everything he wanted through money or force when something was not within his reach. The peoples of the world must understand this dynamic and learn to act in the conditions it generates.

Military invasion?

In the case of the threat to Venezuela, an outright military invasion of the country is unlikely for several reasons:

 

1. There is no consensus within the U.S. administration regarding the feasibility of such action.

 

2. There is no support from U.S. public opinion for an attack of this magnitude.

 

3. There is no absolute conviction within the U.S. Armed Forces that they can achieve an immediate victory, and there is a risk that their action might lead to a long war of resistance that they prefer to avoid.

 

4. There is no regional consensus in support of an invasion of Venezuela. Even governments loyal and subordinate to Washington reject it. The Lima Group [of U.S. vassals] does not exist.

 

5. Neither [former rightist Presidents] Iván Duque in Colombia nor Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil are there to provide the ground support necessary for a potential operation from the sea.

 

6. Most importantly, there is no internal front to welcome the invaders and provide them with support. The terrorist opposition today constitutes a tiny minority that only exists because of the financial and logistical support of neoconservative political sectors in the United States and Europe. This disjointed opposition has no plan and is under the control of Venezuelan intelligence agencies, which will act against it the moment Washington takes a step to invade the country.

Venezuela must be alert

Despite all of the above, we cannot rule out the possibility that the United States will carry out some other type of terrorist action against Venezuela. In this context, its big problem is how to get out of the conflict it got itself into with a “victory” that allows it to demonstrate to its public that the action taken made the United States safer. That is not so difficult in the face of a public that the media have kept ignorant.

Therefore, Venezuela must be alert. Venezuela’s weapons are a united and mobilized people, the solid leadership of President Maduro, an armed force that is deployed and fully prepared for combat and, above all, a people with an undeniable will to fight and win.

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