“The United States will govern Venezuela,” Donald Trump declares. But in what way? The country is almost three times larger than Vietnam. It consists of jungle, mountains, coastline, savannas, and porous borders with Colombia, Brazil, and Guyana. It has weak state institutions, armed groups, smuggling networks, and regional power centers.
All indications are that such a country cannot be “governed” from the outside. What the United States can do—and will likely try to do—is to establish a form of indirect control. That is, to influence who has their hands on the most important levers of the state.
But the tracks are alarming. In Vietnam, U.S. involvement began modestly. The aim was not to govern the country directly, but to prevent communist dominance and secure lasting American influence in the region. At first, the United States provided advisers, economic assistance, and political support to the regime in South Vietnam, but it had no ambition to deploy large military forces.
Then reality began to bite.
The South Vietnamese regime lacked legitimacy. Corruption, internal divisions, and losses on the battlefield made South Vietnam increasingly dependent on American support. At the same time, the opposing side, led by Ho Chi Minh, was patient and willing to pay a price the United States could never fully accept. When it became clear that South Vietnam could not hold out, the United States had to choose: withdraw and lose face—or escalate.
The United States chose the latter. Gradually, a handful of advisers became thousands, tens of thousands, and then hundreds of thousands of soldiers. At its peak, the United States had more than half a million troops in the country. Yet it was never enough. The territory was too vast, the terrain too inaccessible, the resistance too resilient. The more soldiers the United States poured into the war, the clearer it became that the world’s most powerful military had become mired in a quagmire.
When the United States finally withdrew after the Paris Agreement in 1973, South Vietnam collapsed rapidly. In 1975, North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon. Images of American helicopters evacuating personnel from the embassy rooftop came to stand as a symbol of a major strategic defeat. The United States had used enormous power to shape a country—and failed.
In the years that followed, the United States was struck by what is often called the “Vietnam syndrome”—a strong aversion to overseas military engagements without clear goals and prospects of victory. American leaders became more cautious, Congress more skeptical, and public opinion less willing to accept losses. Military force was to be used quickly, decisively, and preferably overwhelmingly—or not at all.
This outlook shaped U.S. foreign policy for many years afterward, but was later partly forgotten. The terrorist attacks of 2001 opened a new phase in which historical traumas were overshadowed by acute fear. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq shared features with the escalation in Vietnam, including weak local partners and unclear objectives. Over time, ever more American soldiers had to be committed. When the retreats came, the memory of Vietnam returned with renewed force. Images from Kabul airport in 2021 were immediately compared to the collapse in Saigon.
In today’s United States, any new push to send thousands of young Americans abroad would be met with fierce resistance. That constrains Trump. He is therefore dependent on finding reliable partners in Venezuela to achieve his goals.
But who?
Trump appears to have dismissed the option of backing Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado. He says she is a pleasant woman, but that she lacks sufficiently broad popular support. Another possibility is to give acting president Delcy Rodriguez a chance. She was vice president under the now-ousted Maduro and is, for many, an unknown quantity. But Trump will not treat her with kid gloves. “If she doesn’t do the right thing, she will have to pay a very high price, probably higher than Maduro,” he told The Atlantic yesterday.
That means she must do “the right thing”—in practice, three things: crack down on drug cartels and stop drug trafficking to the United States; reintegrate Venezuela’s oil sector into the international system on U.S. terms; and ensure that the country otherwise becomes a friendly partner. In other words, U.S. demands are not about territory, but about outcomes.
To achieve these goals, the United States is willing to use a broad range of instruments—economic, political, and military. Trump hopes he can get far with sanctions and financial isolation, but also with inducements in the form of investments and other benefits. These are forms of power that can, in practice, cripple or revive an oil sector without a single soldier setting foot on the ground.
As a sword of Damocles, the United States has its maritime power, which can control all traffic into and out of the country. Venezuela’s economy remains entirely dependent on oil exports, even though they have fallen dramatically in recent years. If oil revenues fail, there is no buffer. This is precisely what happened after 2014, when oil prices fell at the same time as production collapsed. The result was hyperinflation, budgetary collapse, and social crisis.
This is also why any discussion of Venezuela’s future begins and ends with oil. Without a functioning oil industry, there is no quick way out of the crisis. At the same time, oil is both technically demanding and capital-intensive. Few doubt that large American oil companies such as Chevron are capable of getting the industry back on its feet. But on what terms? That is the crux of the matter.
We can discern the outlines of a struggle that may become intense, dramatic, and long-lasting. Venezuela is a divided country—perhaps more than ever. The division no longer runs only between regime and opposition, but cuts across institutions, elites, territories, and social strata. This makes the situation both more dangerous and more unpredictable.
Venezuela—one hopes—will never become a new Vietnam. Still, there is reason to recall that the country’s geography offers a bit of everything. In the west and northwest, the Andes extend in from Colombia, with steep valleys, isolated villages, and poor infrastructure. This is classic guerrilla terrain—easy to hide in and difficult to control. In the east, south, and southeast, conditions are equally challenging. By contrast, the plains and coastal areas are relatively open, and large parts of the population live in urban settings.
“The people here are gentle and peaceful, and they harm no one,” Columbus wrote more than 500 years ago, after his third and final expedition. “I believe that this is the earthly paradise, which no one can enter without God’s will.”
It is not certain that Trump will find the country equally accommodating.
