As Washington sharpens its posture toward Nicolás Maduro’s regime, analysts are offering a stark assessment of what the U.S. would face in any confrontation with Venezuela — and why the White House should tread carefully despite Venezuela’s deteriorating forces.
According to Fox News, specialists who spoke with the outlet described a country whose military might looks imposing in official documents but is hollowed out by corruption, collapsing infrastructure, and political manipulation from the top down.
Isaias Medina, an international lawyer and former Venezuelan diplomat who broke publicly with Maduro at the International Criminal Court, said the regime’s foundations are not those of a conventional state.
“Venezuela today resembles a fortress built on sand wrapped around a criminal regime,” Medina said, arguing that any hypothetical U.S. action would be less an invasion than “evicting a terrorist cartel that settled next door.”
Medina emphasized the need for restraint, warning that millions of civilians have suffered under the regime and could be endangered in any strike.
“The only acceptable approach is overwhelming bias toward restraint and longer operational timelines, forgoing targets that cannot be struck cleanly,” he said.
Behind the scenes, he added, the Venezuelan military is riddled with decay. Equipment has deteriorated from years of neglect, and many of the thousands of generals appointed for loyalty rather than competence are out of touch with the roughly 100,000 rank-and-file troops.
Medina suggested many lower-ranking soldiers might abandon their posts if conflict breaks out.
Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the real threat from Venezuela lies in its air and naval systems. He pointed to fighter aircraft, a small number of naval vessels, and Russian-built surface-to-air missiles as the country’s most capable assets.
“You have to break this up,” he said. “There’s an air-naval part, which is most likely what could impact our strike operations.”
But he believes the U.S. could disable those systems rapidly. “Reasonably speaking, in the first day or two of a campaign plan, we can eliminate the air and maritime threat to U.S. forces,” Montgomery said. Initial strikes, he added, would target airfields, aircraft, and air-defense batteries to block any Venezuelan response.
Asked whether Venezuela could retaliate afterward, Montgomery was blunt: “Not against an air campaign. No.”
A ground operation, however, drew far more skepticism. Montgomery noted that Venezuela’s professional military likely numbers between 65,000 and 70,000 troops — many of whom, he said, “didn’t join the army to fight.” The country’s sprawling militia network could become a factor, though its effectiveness would depend entirely on loyalty to Maduro.
Geography alone poses a major obstacle. “Venezuela is probably twice the geographic size of California, 35 to 40 million citizens,” Montgomery said. “This would be a terrifically challenging ground campaign, especially if it turned into a counterinsurgency.”
He didn’t mince words: “Today, I would not do this. I do not recommend it.”
Montgomery did argue that an air campaign could outperform current naval strategies targeting drug flows, recalling his own time directing counter-narcotics missions. He said unreliable intelligence often hindered maritime interdictions.
Despite internal breakdowns, Venezuela still retains significant — though uneven — hardware, including T-72B tanks, BMP-3 infantry vehicles, Russian artillery systems, multiple rocket launchers, and a handful of Su-30 fighter jets. Its air defenses feature the S-300VM, Buk-M2E, and Pechora-2M systems, complicating early phases of any U.S. operation.
Meanwhile, Caracas’ deepening partnerships with Iran, Russia, and China remain a top concern for U.S. officials.
Jorge Jraissati, president of the Economic Inclusion Group, said internal support for Maduro continues to erode. “Numbers show only 20% of Venezuelans approve of this regime,” he said, adding that for years, “there has been no respect for the will of the population” as the government aligns with “anti-Western regimes that destabilize the region.”
