This Saturday, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, has pleaded on social networks to consider “airspace about and around Venezuela cerrado in its entirety.”
Just as, days before, he has repeatedly said that US attacks against suspected drug ships in the Caribbean and the Pacific could become ground actions in the South American country.
Following Trump’s announcement, as well as his growing pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro —with actions such as the sending of the USS Gerald Ford to the Caribbean—, it is worth asking what forces Venezuela currently has to defend itself against a possible attack from the United States.
The Venezuelan military model is sclerotized: hypertrophied of generals, crossed by guerrillas and paramilitary groups, where Nicolás Maduro uses the stripes as a system of political control that, at the same time, returns ineffective chain of command —as was reflected in the chaos of the confrontation in Apure in 2021—.
Its structure is far from an ideal and effective direction in the shape of a branched pyramid.
sclerotized army
The country’s roughly 150,000 Army, Navy, Air Force and National Guard troops are just a fraction of the more than one million that make up the U.S. military.
However, Venezuela, with “2,000 generals”now has twice as many senior commanders as the US military and with “more than all of NATO combined”as reported by the head of the Southern Command, Admiral Craig Faller.
This implies ratios of one general per dozens of soldiers, compared to professional armies where there is usually one general per more than a thousand troops. In this way, the orders take time to descend and are diluted in a tangle of personal interests, businesses and regional alliances.
In proportional terms, represents an anomaly and it completely distances itself from the pyramidal logic that governs professional armed forces.
Analysts agree that these massive increases do not respond to operational needsbut to a system of political awards: more stripes imply better salaries, access to state businesses and control of illegal economies such as smuggling and drug trafficking. Maduro buys loyalties by distributing positions and zones of armed influence.
Although Maduro, in power since 2013, has enjoyed military loyalty by placing officers in government roles, the Private soldiers barely earn 100 dollars per month in local currency, about one-fifth of what studies show an average family needs to meet their basic needs.
Likewise, the military training of the soldiers is scarce. As an example, there is the incident that occurred in the confrontation of Apure in 2021, where the mishandling of a grenade, which exploded inside a mortar, killed the second corporal of the Venezuelan Armed Forces who was holding it, left ten injured, as well as, hours later, caused a first lieutenant to die in the hospital.
On paper, the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) maintains a conventional organization of land, air, naval forces and National Guard, complemented by an extensive Militia that the government claims to have millions of registered and reservists.
The Government of Venezuela deploys 200,000 soldiers to face the “threats” from the United States.
But beneath that facade, that sclerotized structure explains why, when a real conflict breaks out, the State responds with disorderly deployments, overlaps between forces and, often, indiscriminate violence against the civilian population.
Guerrilla as a response
Venezuela plans to set up a guerrilla style resistance or sow chaos in the event of a US air or ground attack, as reported Reuters.
The response has been mentioned publicly, although without details, by high-ranking officials, who call it “prolonged resistance,” and would involve small military units in more than 280 locations carrying out acts of sabotage and other guerrilla tactics.
In border states such as Apure, Zulia or Táchira there is a consolidated presence of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and FARC dissidents, documented by reports from the United Nations, NGOs and neighboring governments.
For years, different reports have pointed out an ambiguous relationship: part of the Armed Forces and the government would have tolerated and even coordinated with the ELN in control of routes, illegal mining and social repression, while presenting other groups as “enemies” to justify operations.
However, the Venezuelan government has consistently denied such ties and says the United States is seeking regime change to take control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
This coexistence turns border areas into a mosaic of powers where orders are no longer drawn up only from the Ministry of Defense, but from dark tables where territories, tolls and loyalties are distributed.
Paramilitaries and collectives
If the border is marked by guerrillas, the cities are by collectives and paramilitary groups that function as an internal shock arm of Chavismo. Reports on human rights describe a network in which units such as the FAES and gangs associated with organized crime participate, used to control protests, intimidate opponents and guard illegal economies.
These actors usually operate with political protection and, in many cases, in tacit coordination with local military commanders, who receive benefits in exchange for “looking the other way.”
Los collectives They are groups of armed civilians that define themselves as defenders of the Bolivarian revolution and the PSUV, but that international organizations describe as pro-government paramilitary groups.
Las Special Action Forces (FAES) of the National Police were born as an elite anti-crime unit, but UN reports describe them as death squads responsible for thousands of extrajudicial executions in poor neighborhoods under the excuse of fighting crime.
These operations, known as “liberation of the people” or other names, have involved massive incursions into neighborhoods, arbitrary arrests and murders presented as “resistance to authority”, a typical pattern of parapolice force at the service of the regime.
The result is an ecosystem of outsourced violence: Maduro does not depend only on the FANB, but on a constellation of armed groups to which he assigns areas, missions and, again, generals as guarantors that business and order do not get out of control.