USAFSOC C-146A Wolfhound operating in the area. So some signaling seems to be taking place. Let's hope it's enough to scare Venezuela off.
Venezuela Update
- Thread starter Feanor
- Start date
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #102
I'm not well informed on the Venezuelan Armed Forces, but my first thought is, couldn't engineer units start cutting roads into the jungle and setting up outposts protecting the roads? It wouldn't be a swift invasion but it could be a steady advance against an enemy that can't really fight back very well. By the time you have the second outpost in, you start building a lateral road connecting the first ring of outposts, and suddenly the jungle isn't that impenetrable, and supplies aren't that hard to get there. On the one hand it would be slow, on the other hand it would be much harder to dislodge.
EDIT: I suspect the answer might be something like "this is what the US or someone similar could do but not Venezuela" but I didn't want to leave this question unexplored.
The problem with that is that it's an invitation to those who'd want to stop Venezuela. Put a few soldiers in front of the slowly moving roadbuilders. If the Venezuelans attack them, Venezuela has started a war with the UK, USA, or whoever. It's much easier to get support at home for retaliation than it is to get support for taking back territory lost to an invasion of a country many of your citizens know nothing about.
What Venezuela (or the government) really wants is the coast, because of the EEZ & what's in it: most of Guyana's oil. But the old (long, long, pre-oil) Venezuelan claim was up to the river Essequibo, & just claiming the coast would be a very obvious bit of unprincipled greed.
It's nicely illustrated here -
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch...x794.png?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
There are some airstrips scattered across that territory, & rivers, but as far as I can tell there's no river suitable for invading along. The Essequibo's pretty big (see Kurupukari ferry crossing below - that's about half way down Guyana), but that runs the wrong way. It's what Venezuela claims as its border
https://i0.wp.com/guyanasouthameric...02/FB_IMG_1612466386415.jpg?fit=678,452&ssl=1
The rivers running more west-east are smaller, & as far as I can see meander a lot, & aren't good or reliable transport routes.
What Venezuela (or the government) really wants is the coast, because of the EEZ & what's in it: most of Guyana's oil. But the old (long, long, pre-oil) Venezuelan claim was up to the river Essequibo, & just claiming the coast would be a very obvious bit of unprincipled greed.
It's nicely illustrated here -
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch...x794.png?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
There are some airstrips scattered across that territory, & rivers, but as far as I can tell there's no river suitable for invading along. The Essequibo's pretty big (see Kurupukari ferry crossing below - that's about half way down Guyana), but that runs the wrong way. It's what Venezuela claims as its border
https://i0.wp.com/guyanasouthameric...02/FB_IMG_1612466386415.jpg?fit=678,452&ssl=1
The rivers running more west-east are smaller, & as far as I can see meander a lot, & aren't good or reliable transport routes.
BTW, while I don't know much about the current state of the Venezuelan armed forces in general, the level of competence shown by its navy in taking on a cruise ship & losing is not impressive.
Venezuela navy vessel sinks after 'ramming cruise ship'
Note the Venezuelan response to one of its patrol vessels getting sunk after attacking a cruise ship. Accusing the cruise ship of "aggression and piracy", & suggesting that it may have been "transporting mercenaries to attack military bases in Venezuela".
Venezuela navy vessel sinks after 'ramming cruise ship'
Note the Venezuelan response to one of its patrol vessels getting sunk after attacking a cruise ship. Accusing the cruise ship of "aggression and piracy", & suggesting that it may have been "transporting mercenaries to attack military bases in Venezuela".
As Italo-Bolivian.
Are you sure they want to stop the invasion?
Venezuelan refugees are affecting the economies of the receiving states as MEA ones did to Sweden.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/copesa/QUTD7V2QFZGL3EJ7K7VLG7OJHQ.png)
This is Chile, the most developed and probably one of the most Martial countries out there (Pinochet called the Germans a bunch of "insert derogatory homosexual term" after their reunification , that the true heir of the Prussian army were them. Just compare Chilean equipment to the neighbor countries to understand the level of martiality of their culture).
Now lets take a look at the post-WW2 conflicts in the continent.
Islas Malvinas
Tierra del Fuego
Jungle between Peru and Ecuador
All three of them where in very low populated areas, almost desert.
And under this light the Jungle between Venezuela and Guyana fall fully in this type of "battlefield".
Now if you are the governments of the rest of the continent:
www.realinstitutoelcano.org
You ask yourself if you are ready for a slow demise of the Venezuelan dictatorship, you don't know how much time will take, and how many millions more of refugees is going to create.
Or if you let the Venezuelan do their Malvinas, invade a low populated area, with the fight mainly fought in the air, with the help of the US.
If I was at the head of the goverments i would really do a thought about it.
Consider that refugees are an amazing breeding ground for criminality, and in South America that means Narco Traffic that is a direct menace to the state and not petty criminality.
Are you sure they want to stop the invasion?
Venezuelan refugees are affecting the economies of the receiving states as MEA ones did to Sweden.
This is Chile, the most developed and probably one of the most Martial countries out there (Pinochet called the Germans a bunch of "insert derogatory homosexual term" after their reunification , that the true heir of the Prussian army were them. Just compare Chilean equipment to the neighbor countries to understand the level of martiality of their culture).
Now lets take a look at the post-WW2 conflicts in the continent.
Islas Malvinas
Tierra del Fuego
Jungle between Peru and Ecuador
All three of them where in very low populated areas, almost desert.
And under this light the Jungle between Venezuela and Guyana fall fully in this type of "battlefield".
Now if you are the governments of the rest of the continent:
El reemplazo de las redes colombianas por las venezolanas en el narcotráfico fronterizo internacional - Real Instituto Elcano
¿Cuál es la dinámica del narcotráfico internacional en la región fronteriza entre Colombia y Venezuela? ¿Por qué ocurrió ese remplazo de redes de colombianos por redes de venezolanos? ¿Cómo se generó ese remplazo? ¿Qué características tienen las redes venezolanas?
www.realinstitutoelcano.org
You ask yourself if you are ready for a slow demise of the Venezuelan dictatorship, you don't know how much time will take, and how many millions more of refugees is going to create.
Or if you let the Venezuelan do their Malvinas, invade a low populated area, with the fight mainly fought in the air, with the help of the US.
If I was at the head of the goverments i would really do a thought about it.
Consider that refugees are an amazing breeding ground for criminality, and in South America that means Narco Traffic that is a direct menace to the state and not petty criminality.
They're being flooded with Venezuelan refugees wholly caused by the policies of the Venezuelan government. Starting a war isn't going to help that. It'd almost certainly trigger a reimposition of the recently lifted sanctions. Bang goes the glimmer of hope for Venezuela's economy . . .
It doesn't take the US to do this. Brazil has been doing this to their own Amazonian jungle just by letting commercial loggers cut the trees and sell the timber. Venezuela's economy though, is bad enough that they can't even do this. Venezuela is undergoing massive deforestation, but this is spurred by illegal gold mining, because the gold can pay for it. But there's no gold in West Guyana, so where's the money to cut the trees and make the outposts in the jungle of West Guyana.
Making the ring of outposts and the roads connecting it doesn't require a huge economy like the US, but it does require a healthy economy with excess money that can be used to fund it. Venezuela doesn't have that.
Except that this is a replica of Malvinas War
Argentina's dictatorship dug its own grave in Falklands War
Argentina's embattled military dictatorship was on its last legs when it sought to secure a lifeline with an invasion of the British Falkland Islands 40 years ago this week.
And failing will have the same outcome.
Even worse if the answer doesnt come from a foreign power like the UK but from the whole continent, asserting a continental identity (unluckily).
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #110
To be clear I envisioned this taking place fairly rapidly. On the scale of weeks rather then months. But your points are well taken, and I appreciate the insight. Presumably this isn't something that can be resolved by brute force with a mass mobilization of labor?
You cannot solve it by mass numbers because you will have regardless bottlenecks in the infrastructure, that in the case of Venezuela I hardly think they planned them for such type of operations.
And there is a difference between illegal deforestation and infrastructure oriented one, the one is way easier to apply simply by setting on fires. Thus it advances in a spread front and not as in this case that they probably need a focused effort.
I don't think so because the issue isn't the lack of labor, but rather the lack of tools and materials. Are there bulldozers? Backhoes? Tampers? Where's the asphalt coming from? Who's going to truck in the gravel? Where are the fuel? Is there enough food for the workers and soldiers? How do they collect the food and transport them and distribute them? All these are technically solvable as long as someone's paying for it but that's exactly what the Venezuelan state can't do.
To do what? If all Venezuela wants to do is shoot something up and then declare victory, a patrol boat can do it just fine. But if they want to launch a surprise landing operation, how many soldiers can a submarine carry? Looking at other armed forces, whenever they're talking about special forces insertion using a submarine, they're talking a small team of maybe a platoon. So call it ten people. Likely they're special forces of some sort and really good at killing people, but realistically ten people can't hold a city. At most they manage to sneak into the capital and kill several high ranking people, but that won't get them West Guyana.
This is possible, but Venezuela can't possibly achieve surprise with this. The concentration of ships and troops will be obvious from satellite imagery and the US likely will know the exact moment the ships set sail. I can't see them keeping quiet about it. They'll give a warning to Guyana and the Guyanan government will head inland while their army prepares a defense. Even if we assume the Venezuelan landing operation succeeds, the Guyanan government would be safely inland and Venezuela can't keep their expeditionary force supplied for any length of time. They don't have the logistics.
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Ananda
The Bunker Group
I tend to agree with @tonnyc assessment, as one thing for sure, Venezuela are broke. That's why I put oil price equation in my previous posts. Some traders also speculate that Venezuela now trying to get political instability in the region, as this is after all big oil production region.
When you can't increase your production output due to problem on your aging infrastructure and neglected development, what you can hope is to increase the prices or keeping the supply-demand momentum imbalances. Creating tensions is one of them.
Maduro timing to do this referendum shown either this is domestic diversion or tensions creation to support oil prices. With problem in ME, Russia-Ukraine/Euro Zone, now adding in South America, it is supporting momentum for pricing imbalances.
Russia despite economic problem before invasion, is far from a broke economy. Even with current Western sanctions, they are not broken economy and still capable to support prolong arms campaign. Saddam's economy is in relative good condition when he decide to invade Kuwait. You need healthy balance purses if you want to conduct arm invasion. It is expensive endeavor, especially when you need to build infrastructure to invade.
When you can't increase your production output due to problem on your aging infrastructure and neglected development, what you can hope is to increase the prices or keeping the supply-demand momentum imbalances. Creating tensions is one of them.
Maduro timing to do this referendum shown either this is domestic diversion or tensions creation to support oil prices. With problem in ME, Russia-Ukraine/Euro Zone, now adding in South America, it is supporting momentum for pricing imbalances.
Russia despite economic problem before invasion, is far from a broke economy. Even with current Western sanctions, they are not broken economy and still capable to support prolong arms campaign. Saddam's economy is in relative good condition when he decide to invade Kuwait. You need healthy balance purses if you want to conduct arm invasion. It is expensive endeavor, especially when you need to build infrastructure to invade.
According to the Guardian, voter turnout was extremely poor, and independent analysts say the results are "rigged".
Maduro vote to claim Guyana’s territory backfires as Venezuelans stay home | Guyana | The Guardian
However this does not stop Maduro, who according to the BBC is now moving forward with plans to annex the region. He has ordered the state oil company to issue extraction licences there and proposed the National Assembly pass a bill making the area part of Venezuela.
Guyana has put its defence forces on full alert in response.
Essequibo: Venezuela moves to claim Guyana-controlled region - BBC News
In a television appearance Tuesday, Maduro presented a new official map of Venezuela with Essequibo incorporated, without the disputed delimitation, during a Council of State in which he announced a series of measures and upcoming legislation to cement Caracas’ possession of the territory and its resources. Earlier, Maduro had sent a military contingent to Puerto Barima on the Venezuelan Atlantic border, close to the limits of the area under claim. Venezuela-Guyana dispute: Maduro mobilizes the army and announces annexation of Essequibo | International | EL PAÍS English (elpais.com)
I hope the US is able to react very fast now before it's too late.
Maduro vote to claim Guyana’s territory backfires as Venezuelans stay home | Guyana | The Guardian
However this does not stop Maduro, who according to the BBC is now moving forward with plans to annex the region. He has ordered the state oil company to issue extraction licences there and proposed the National Assembly pass a bill making the area part of Venezuela.
Guyana has put its defence forces on full alert in response.
Essequibo: Venezuela moves to claim Guyana-controlled region - BBC News
In a television appearance Tuesday, Maduro presented a new official map of Venezuela with Essequibo incorporated, without the disputed delimitation, during a Council of State in which he announced a series of measures and upcoming legislation to cement Caracas’ possession of the territory and its resources. Earlier, Maduro had sent a military contingent to Puerto Barima on the Venezuelan Atlantic border, close to the limits of the area under claim. Venezuela-Guyana dispute: Maduro mobilizes the army and announces annexation of Essequibo | International | EL PAÍS English (elpais.com)
I hope the US is able to react very fast now before it's too late.
Are you sure they want to react fast?
History taught us differently or we forgot about Desert Storm and April Glaspie?
foreignpolicy.com
She did an amazing job (no sarcasm) exactly as instructed.
"Never stop your enemy from making a mistake"
History taught us differently or we forgot about Desert Storm and April Glaspie?
WikiLeaks, April Glaspie, and Saddam Hussein
I'm generally not inclined to take issue with my FP colleagues, but David Kenner's recent posting on the WikiLeaks release of a cable recounting Saddam…
foreignpolicy.com
She did an amazing job (no sarcasm) exactly as instructed.
"Never stop your enemy from making a mistake"
Attributed to Napoleon: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake".
There's also the issue of who could be mobilised. Given that almost 90% of Venezuelans live in towns & cities, the pool of people suitable for such a task could be rather limited, especially since very many of the rural population are growing food, even if only for themselves. How many urban Venezuelans could be dumped in the wilds with axes, saws, etc. & accomplish anything useful?
I think Tonnyc is right on this. The problem is logistics. How to get all that labour to the border, & having got them there, how to feed & supply them?
There's also the issue of who could be mobilised. Given that almost 90% of Venezuelans live in towns & cities, the pool of people suitable for such a task could be rather limited, especially since very many of the rural population are growing food, even if only for themselves. How many urban Venezuelans could be dumped in the wilds with axes, saws, etc. & accomplish anything useful?
Helicopter carrying 5 senior Guyana military officials is missing near tense border with Venezuela
A military helicopter carrying seven people has vanished near Guyana’s border with Venezuela
abcnews.go.com
Very bad timing, but even as per Guyanese sources, they dont expect Venezuela to have shot down the copter.
Big_Zucchini
Well-Known Member
@Feanor asked about clearing the jungle. I am now asking about whether burning the jungle is doable and how well can trucks handle charred trees.
A good analysis of the current situation by havoc_six:
A good analysis of the current situation by havoc_six:
Sandhi Yudha
Well-Known Member
The presidents of Guyana and Venezuela will meet each other in Saint Vincent en de Grenadines soon.
It is clear that everyone realizes that an armed conflict is devastating for the economy of the whole region and specially for these two countries. Let alone a full scale war.
nos.nl
It is clear that everyone realizes that an armed conflict is devastating for the economy of the whole region and specially for these two countries. Let alone a full scale war.
Presidenten Guyana en Venezuela spreken ontmoeting af over grensconflict
De ruzie draait om het gebied Essequibo in Guyana, waar enorme olievelden zijn gevonden. Venezolanen stemden in een referendum voor annexatie.
nos.nl