The Truth About Trump’s Attacks on Venezuela

Do Americans want a post-Gaddafi Libya type scenario in our own hemisphere?

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The United States is quietly positioning itself for a major military confrontation with Venezuela, using a manufactured “narco-terror” narrative to justify airstrikes and regime change aimed at securing control over the country’s vast oil reserves. The fragmented, armed landscape inside Venezuela guarantees that what follows will be chaos and violence.

The Truth About Trump’s Attacks on Venezuela

By Jake Morphonios

Blackstone Intelligence

December 4, 2025

Venezuela is no longer a country where the government fully controls the use of force. Instead, power is divided among several competing armed actors who operate with their own agendas, territory, and revenue streams.¹ ²

This fragmentation means the state has lost the traditional monopoly of violence that stable governments are supposed to maintain.¹ ² Maduro’s regime sits on top of a loose, unstable coalition of criminal networks, guerrilla groups, and military factions, each of which can exert force independently of the central government.¹ ²

A major share of this power is held by cartel linked networks and military mafias that control smuggling routes, illegal gold mines, extortion schemes, and border crossings.³ ⁴ ⁵ These groups often operate from within the state itself: corrupt generals, intelligence chiefs, and military units that function more like criminal organizations than government institutions.³ ⁴ ⁵

Alongside them are foreign guerrilla groups such as the ELN and dissident factions of the FARC, which have carved out enclaves inside Venezuela. They run mines, checkpoints, and illicit economies under Maduro’s political protection but not his command.² ⁴

The result is a country where violence and coercion are dispersed, not centralized. Maduro survives not because he controls all of Venezuela, but because he manages an alliance of armed actors who benefit from the system as it exists.¹ ²

This also means that if the regime were to collapse suddenly through U.S. military pressure or internal fractures, the country could rapidly descend into chaos, with rival factions fighting for territory and resources.¹ ² It is this reality that makes intervention far more dangerous and unpredictable than simply removing Maduro and expecting a stable government to emerge.

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Is Trump Going to Attack?

About four months ago, I was doing consulting work for an investor who wanted my assessment on global stability. Would the Iran crisis turn into a world war? Would the Ukraine Russia conflict erupt into a world war? Where would conflict open or close investment opportunities?

What I said then is that the spot to watch would be Venezuela. I referred to reports I had done throughout Trump’s first term and how he wanted to take control of Venezuelan oil away from Venezuelans just like he took control of Syrian oil away from Syrians.

And here we are. His propaganda has changed over time as he has tried to find a story that tickles the ears of his base to allow him to carry out regime change operations with their support. But regardless of whether Trump can win his base over on this, he is going to take action one way or another.

The report continues below…