← The Long Game with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer
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- [00:04]
A
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world flock to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics show, and they spend a week trying to sell each other on the weirdest gadgets you've ever seen in your entire life. This week on the Vergecast, we're talking all about everything happening at CES, from the TVs to the AI gadgets to the humanoid robots that everybody is hoping might someday do your laundry and wash your dishes. All that and much more on the Vergecast. Wherever you get Podcasts, what are the top 10 global risks we should be thinking about for 2026? Long term, you are giving away the store to countries that operate more effectively in the Law of the Jungle. I'm Preet Bharara, and this week Ian Bremmer, founder and president of the Eurasia Group, joins me to discuss his annual risk report and how we can make sense of the US Intervention in Venezuela and the capture of Nicolas Maduro. The episode is out now. Search and follow Stay tuned with Preet Wherever you get your podcasts, What they have in mind is this occupation by joystick. Like this is a video game being run from offshore. You could say occupation by remote control. Basically, we will not have physical people on the ground in Venezuela, but we will keep a flotilla and air power just offshore of Venezuela and essentially dictate terms to the regime there, tell them what we want, and if they don't do it, hit them again with military force. From the Vox Media podcast network, this is the long game. I'm Jake Sullivan.
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B
I'm John Finer.
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A
So, Jon, today's agenda pretty much writes itself.
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B
We're going to start with Venezuela, the US Capture of Nicolas Maduro, and President Trump's claim that America is now going to be running the country. Country.
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A
Lots of questions there. Not that many clear answers yet.
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B
We'll also address maybe the somewhat related push by the Trump administration to put on the agenda that it might decide to take over Greenland next. Right.
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A
We'll try to explain what they're thinking, what they're trying to do, and walk through all of the implications of that and what's really at stake. But John, before we get into that, of course, events in the rest of the world aren't stopping just because we've decided to launch a major military operation in Venezuela and run a another country.
- [02:24]
B
No, it's been an interesting week. And in fact, one thing about the last week that sort of reminded me of being in the government is we got together just before the new year to try to make a plan for 2026, the different issues that we would cover. Obviously we knew we'd be talking about Venezuela again at some point, but there was stuff that we knew we wanted to get to, including some events that took place just over the course of the last week. One of them is these protests that are taking place in Iran that are destabilizing maybe the regime there. And something that we've been watching closely where all that might lead. I don't know. There are probably other things that were on your mind.
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A
Well, I think one thing we noted before the holidays in our last podcast was things tend to happen during the holiday season. And boy, did things happen during the holiday season. This time it wasn't Christmas Day, but it was January 3rd, by the way, the same day that Trump took out Soleimani in the first term and actually when we took out Noriega 26 years ago. So January 3rd now, I think is a new day we're gonna have to watch as we go forward. But one thing, Jon spe feeling like we were back in government when the news broke that this was happening. I don't know what you thought, but I feel like having been National Security Advisor affected my wiring because I reacted to the news as though I was supposed to do something. I was following it very closely. I was thinking, who do I have to call? What more information do I need? And I had to keep reminding myself, actually, you just can sit in bed because you're a civilian. But I don't know if you have a similar challenge or if you're more sane than I am.
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B
Probably no more sane. It's a funny thing. I kept looking at my calendar. It was a Saturday, and hoping I wasn't going to be missing something as I scrolled through Twitter and watched cable as to figure out what was happening and realized I wasn't going to be missing anything because there was nothing on my calendar. It was the Saturday after a big holiday. So, yeah, a similar reaction here.
- [04:11]
A
But I did think, okay, this is going to mean we're going to have to do Venezuela on our podcast this week instead of some of the topics we were planning to cover. You mentioned the protests in Iran, which are extraordinary and deserve a much deeper dive. There's also, of course, the brewing conflict between two close friends of the United States, the United Arab Emirates, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and we're going to have to cover that as well. But maybe it's worth taking a minute or two, particularly on that second topic, before we dig into Venezuela and Greenland in detail. How are you seeing that, yeah, this.
- [04:44]
B
Is something we've been watching pretty closely for a number of months and escalating over the course of recent weeks. As you say, these are two very close friends of the United States in the Arab world, maybe the two closest friends of the United States in that part of the world. Two very complicated leaders in each country, very strong leaders in each country. People we had to work quite closely with when we were in government. Mohammed bin Zayed in the UAE and Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. And these are people who at one point were very close to each other. Mohammed IBN Zayed was a bit of a mentor to Mohammad IBN Salman. Mohammed bin Salman is a very young leader who will probably be ruling Saudi Arabia for quite some time. The leader of the UAE sort of took him under his wing very much, told the United States that we needed to work with him, to embrace him, even though he's been very complicated, as everybody knows, during his time in Saudi Arabia, including with the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a US Resident and a journalist for the Washington Post. But these were people who were aligned, who had a common approach to the region, approach to the world. And all of that has started to unravel in recent months as they. They have become more rivals than friends. Yeah.
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A
And a couple things obviously, driving that rivalry, which we'll dig into in more detail in next week's episode. One, of course, is that Saudi has decided that it wants to be the big financial, commercial and tech hub in the region and wants American companies to move out of the UAE into Saudi, of course, that the UAE has some thoughts on. And then the second thing I was really struck by a prominent Saudi commentator over the weekend saying something publicly. He said, as these smaller states, including the uae, acquire great wealth, they often begin to operate under the illusion that they are equal partners of the kingdom. Basically, Saudi Arabia sees itself as the big brother and doesn't like little brothers exercising their own separate and independent foreign policies, including in third countries where the two are very much at odds. So we're going to have to look at this as we go forward, and I very much hope that we can devote real time to it for our listeners. This is the kind of story that doesn't hit the headlines here, but damn well could hit the headlines in a big way if you actually had the UAE and Saudi at blows in Yemen or in Sudan or in Somalia or in any of these other places.
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B
They're on opposite sides in all three of those places, two of which are basically hot wars at this point. So, yes, more to come on this. The only other thing that's taken place over the last week that's maybe worth flagging is we've talked a lot about Taiwan on this podcast. The government of China, the pla, the Chinese military launched a significant exercise right around the new year to simulate essentially a blockade of Taiwan, which is a scenario we've talked about quite a bit. That would be obviously a massive escalation. This was just a military exercise, I say just, but quite a provocative action to station your ships all around Taiwan and basically send a message. We could do this if we chose to at some point. They've done this before. But the kind of thing that would have been a major news event that we would be covering were it not for this other major news event that we're going to get to shortly.
- [07:57]
A
So rising tensions between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, two of America's closest allies in the region, protests in Iran, which we're going to have to keep a very close eye on. PLA exercises around Taiwan, much else, of course, John, the Ukraine war continues and the Ukraine negotiations and diplomacy continue. So that's never going to be very far from our line of sight. But today we really do want to break a little bit from our normal pattern of covering multiple issues and dive deep on Venezuela. And then, of course, that very, as you said, closely related issue of whether the next domino, so to speak, to fall will be Greenland. So why don't we dig into it? A remarkable military operation to extract the Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife from their compound in the capital city of Caracas to the United States. And then the assertion by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, that the United States would be running Venezuela. So I do think starting with what they have said they're trying to accomplish is a good place to start. I also think we should take a few minutes after we do that to talk a little bit about the operation itself because I think it's extremely interesting you and I got to see up close our special forces plan for, prepare for and even execute some very high risk operations in our time. Nothing quite like this. So I think some time on that would be good. But why don't you lay out from your perspective what the Trump administration's rationale, what its case is, and then we can kind of dig into the extent to which we see merit in that.
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B
So I think they're basically making a few points. The first one, maybe the most basic point is one that I don't think we disagree with it all, which is Maduro is A bad guy. In fact, a very bad guy. Bad leader, oppressive. He's the heir of Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan democratically elected leader who became a total dictator between 1999 and 2013. Very anti American. People may remember Chavez from back in 2006 when he came to the UN and gave this just totally crazy, infamous speech in which he talked about the podium at the UN smelling like sulfur because the devil himself he was referring to George W. Bush had spoken at that podium a day earlier. So just a very anti American guy. Maduro inherits leadership from Chavez when Chavez died in 2013. Maduro gets elected and is every bit as horrific a dictator. Probably less charismatic, maybe less effective, less colorful than Chavez. Less colorful, but pretty colorful himself too. And look, this is not a guy who's anything like a friend to America. In fact, he's very much a U.S. adversary. And during our time in office, Venezuela held an election again in 2024 that we believe and stated quite clearly that Maduro stole. We believe that his, his main rival, a guy named Buno Gonzalez, who became his main rival only because Maduro disqualified from the election. Maria Carina Machado, who we'll talk about more, the Nobel laureate and the main opposition leader in Venezuela. We think that Gonzalez probably won that election as much as 2 to 1. And Maduro basically announced totally different results that were at odds with the facts that he had won. So stolen election, illegit the leader, Maduro bad. That's sort of point one. Second point, and this gets to the operational issue that we'll dig into a minute. It was a very impressive show of force by the US Military. I don't think there's any disputing that. I don't think there's any other country in the world that could have pulled off what the US Military did. And that does send a signal of strength to the region, to the world. It was a successful operation from the perspective of the operation itself. US did not, as we understand it so far, take any serious injuries, although there were some injuries. It sounds like no US forces were killed. And this arguably enhances the credibility of other US attempts to coerce countries that we don't like into behaving better.
- [11:58]
A
Yeah, the rest of the world definitely took note. American Special Forces being able to go in and execute this with this level of precision and skill and succeed on the objective of the operation itself. As you said, it's. That's a serious message.
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B
Third, this is a shot across the bow at adversaries of the United States that are making inroads in the Western Hemisphere in ways none of us like China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, which is obviously in the hemisphere, all very close to the Venezuelan former regime and maybe current regime, since Maduro's deputy is still in charge. And these are not countries the United States wants to see influential in the region. And the Trump administration says at least it's going to try to evict them from Venezuela and maybe other places, too. So it's arguably a step in that direction. And then the last point, which I think we believe, but it's not clear the administration is actually placing a ton of priority on, is that this is a chance for the Venezuelan people to finally, after decades of just terrible government and terrible rule, live a better life. If, and it's a very big if, there is some sort of transition to democratic governance, people like Marco Rubio, I think, believe that talk about that. Not clear at all that President Trump cares about that or has that on his agenda.
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A
When we saw this operation unfold and we heard the results of it, I think we all thought, damn, that's impressive. Okay, now what's going to happen? And within hours of being able to announce the incredible skill, effectiveness and success, operational success of the American Special Forces, President Trump goes out, gives a press conference, and kind of makes this whole thing a little bit insane. We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. The end strategic objective of this incredible use of American military force is for the United States to run Venezuela from offshore and run it for the purpose, basically, of having multinational oil companies get access to oil in Venezuela. And that takes all the points you just made and raises real questions about whether the United States is truly advancing its strategic objectives in a material way here, or whether, in fact, we just did a whole lot to get a whole little out of Venezuela, and whether, in fact, the rest of the region and the rest of the world is going to think, yeah, in the near term, we're going to have to basically try to duck a bit because we don't want to be next in line to be attacked. But fundamentally, we have to think about the United States in a much different and, frankly, much more maligned way than we thought before. So I think that's kind of the core challenge here. At the end of the day, the goal seems to have been to take one dictator out, but replace him with essentially another dictator, his vice president, who Delsey Rodriguez, who is every bit as much apart of the repressive Venezuelan regime as Maduro had been, who is propped up by the same generals that Maduro was propped up by. Let her run the country with equal repression. And in fact, there are news reports the last 48 hours that there's been an incredible amount of repression on the streets to try to ensure that the Venezuelan people can't turn this into a real democratic moment, and to do that while getting her and the generals to agree with the Trump administration on certain concessions on oil. So I think the whole strategic logic got set up along the lines of what you described and then entered President Trump from the side, who basically turned this entire thing into a bit of an oil grab. That itself is built on kind of a dubious set of assumptions, by the way.
- [15:53]
B
Kind of funny. Neither of us has mentioned drugs, which was the ostensible rationale, though, as we pointed out previously, never really made a ton of sense for the initial military military buildup and the military strikes that took place against civilian vessel after civilian vessel in the Caribbean to try to put pressure on Maduro. That argument has sort of fallen completely by the wayside, which I think we always suspected it would. But that Saturday press conference that President Trump gave that you just described, I think is going to be analyzed for a very long time historically, because, you know, I don't think we would have thought this was like a great thing had he never come out and said, the US Is running in Venezuela, and I don't really care that much about the opposition. They don't have a lot of legitimacy. But those two statements that he made, which I'm not sure were part of the plan, maybe unscripted, by the way, that does happen when people give these press conferences on short notice, really shaped this narrative in a way that has been much more disadvantageous to the Trump administration than it would have otherwise been. There was almost this defeat from the jaws of victory. And I use victory in air quotes because, again, I still would have argued vehemently against this. But defeat from the jaws of victory aspect, going out and saying those two things that then dominated coverage going forward.
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A
And which he's doubled and tripled down on, I mean, that very well may have been off the cuff. It probably was. In fact, Marco Rubio tried to row it back on Meet the Press the next day, saying, not run Venezuela, run policy towards Venezuela. President Trump said, we're going to run the country.
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B
So who are those people who will.
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A
Be running the country specifically? Well, it's not running, it's running policy, the policy with regards to this. And then President Trump said, no, no, no, we're in Charge. I'm in charge of Venezuela. And really, it looks like what they have in mind is this occupation by joystick. Like this is a video game being run from offshore. You could say occupation by remote control. Basically, we will not have physical people on the ground in Venezuela, but we will keep a flotilla, an air power just offshore of Venezuela, and essentially dictate terms to the regime there, tell them what we want, and if they don't do it, hit them again with military force. That, in the modern era, is a new model for American foreign policy. We haven't seen an effort to do occupation by remote control in the modern era. Of course, Commodore Perry, back in the 1800s, took a armada to Japan and basically told them, open up to American trade or else. So there is a historic parallel to this kind of gunboat diplomacy, but not a modern one. So we'll have to see how it ends up playing. Delsey Rodriguez has said she wants to work with us. And some people may be asking, why would she say that? One answer, obviously, is because she doesn't want to get bombed or kidnapped. But I think there's another answer, which is this kind of works for the regime in Caracas. Keep in mind, it's not just Elsie Rodriguez or the other civilians. It's really a Venezuelan military, and in particular, a set of Venezuelan generals who run the economy and extract their pound of flesh from that economy, make themselves rich while their country gets poor. And I learned an interesting fact today, which is that Venezuela actually has more generals than the United States. So being a general in Venezuela means you're part of this cabal of people who get to essentially get a cut of everything that Venezuela produces. So now, if American oil companies come in and begin to do some level of exploitation of Venezuela's oil resources and they increase production there, hey, that's just going to mean more money for the Venezuelan generals, and they can continue to get all the benefits of running the country while continuing to suppress the democratic aspirations of their people. So that seems to be the plan on the US side, and it seems to be the plan on the Venezuelan side. And as I mentioned, these initial street protests and efforts to celebrate the removal of Maduro have been met with a crackdown as Delsey Rodriguez and the generals try to assert control over the country. And on the US side, President Trump has said, I don't really care about the democratic opposition. In fact, he's kind of denigrated them. And Marco Rubio has said, we can't even begin to talk about elections anytime soon. So we are, it seems to be looking at a model which says, we're happy with the dictator. We're going to have guns offshore to make sure that dictator does what we say. And that seems to be how the US Wants to proceed with a Venezuela policy, at least for a while.
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B
The United States did something that's incredibly high risk. And I think we should maybe pause on that for a second. These operations have a lot of moving pieces, and every time you put U.S. forces in harm's way, particularly in a situation as complicated as this one was, there is the very real risk that something could go catastrophically wrong. So the United States did something extremely high risk for a benefit that, as you just described, is pretty hard to nail down at this point. Given that the fundamental nature of the regime has not changed, and given that there is the very real possibility this could go off the rails in all kinds of ways, the government could not be able to hold onto power. There could be instability, violence in the streets, and the United States could have to go back in or could decide it has to go back in and try to restore order now that we are quote, unquote, in charge. So this remote control way of operating this occupation by joystick, as you artfully put it, may require actually something a little bit more hands on, and then the administration will face a really hard decision. But should we talk just a little bit? Because I think it's. Given the number of times this administration has used force in just its first year, it is maybe worth dwelling on the fact that this is not simple. Trump is asking a lot of the United States military. Operationally, they are extraordinarily capable. We saw that up close. But these things are not straightforward. And the more that you use this tool in very high risk ways with dubious rewards, the more the risk is something going very horribly off the rails.
- [22:26]
A
Yeah. When I saw this operation described in those early morning hours of last Saturday, my first thought was, holy shit, these guys must have practiced like crazy. Because you and I know that when there is a hard target, particularly a hard target in a defended compound, and our experience has been in the counterterrorism area, our special forces, they build models like real life sized replicas, and they go practice against it relentlessly. And I thought, man, the level of practice that must have happened here had to be incredible. In the Biden administration, we located the Amir of isis, the successor to Baghdadi, at a compound in Syria. And the special forces guys planned and practiced a raid on that compound over and over and over again. Second thing I thought was, and you Just made this point. That is a damn risky operation. You're talking about going into the heart of a foreign capital, a major urban center, a compound defended not just by Venezuelan forces, but by Cuban forces as well, and trying to pull some people out of it who do not want to be pulled out of it. And going back to that raid on Haji Abdullah, the top leader, the emir of isis, that our special forces took out during the Biden administration, we watched that operation unfold much the way that Trump and his team watched this operation unfold. And we had to worry about Russian forces who were operating in Syria, Turkish forces operating in Syria, other terrorist groups. And anytime you're using helicopters, you have to have concerns. Everybody remembers that helicopter having the hard landing and the bin Laden raid. In that raid in Syria that I've been describing, we had a helicopter make a hard landing, and then things go haywire as soon as you hit the target. In the case of this raid in Syria, the target we were going after actually blew off the top floor of the building. We got everyone back safe, but we didn't breathe until we did. And it was just a reminder of how risky these operations are. And this thing in Caracas was a whole different level of risk. And of course, some troops were injured, but just absolutely incredible that they were able to pull it off.
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B
Yeah. Three points. One is the intelligence that goes into finding the target, confirming that the target is where you think he or she is at the time that you're actually going to be sending forces in. This is all super complicated, challenging work. So the intelligence picture, and there's been some reporting that there was a source somewhere on the inside of the Maduro regime helping our intelligence professionals locate him. But that is remarkable work that they were able to find him. I'm sure he was on guard that something like this could happen. The United States has been threatening it for quite some time. So in the raid that you were talking about, months, if not years of intelligence gathering went into finding Haji Abdullah ultimately proved successful. Bin Laden raid, another example. Even then, I think we were only about maybe just over 50% sure that bin Laden was actually at that target when we sent the Obama administration forces in to get bin Laden. So this is.
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A
John, can I.
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B
That is a very difficult piece.
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A
Yeah, just double tap this point because you said Maduro must have been on guard. Just a word on the operational security side. Terrorists, especially terrorist leaders, have had two decades now to kind of learn how the United States tries to track them, to basically go to bed every night thinking that some US Special Forces guy or US Aircraft may just show up.
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B
They still screw up a lot. Somehow.
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A
They do still screw up a lot. But the level of difficulty with those guys, because they're basically expecting it.
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B
Yeah, this has gotten harder.
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A
Maduro definitely was doing things. He was moving around to different compounds, as has been reported. He definitely knew there was a possibility they were coming after him, particularly a possibility they'd try to strike him, because that had been out there in the news. But do you think that he went to bed at night thinking, hey, these guys might actually show up in my bedroom? I think he may have been briefed that or thought that, but I don't think he had the level of operational security that these terrorists do because there's just not the same kind of precedent to go do the thing that happened here as in that case.
- [26:44]
B
And this goes to one of the big differences, actually, between the two cases we described, like, you know, Maduro and the people around him. These are not hardened guerrilla fighters used to operating in austere circumstances, you know, maybe without their phones or technology, without their creature comforts. Absolutely not. I mean, these are people who live kush lives in the capital of, you know, what is, for all its failings and economic challenges, still a modern city. These are not isis. These are not the Al Qaeda leaders of the previous era. And they're also not ISIS and the Al Qaeda leaders of the previous era in terms of the threat that they pose to the United States. I mean, one of the things that I think really needs to be driven home is we took the risks that we took. And the president asked the US Military to take the risks that it took to get Haji Abdullah, who was the leader of isis, the number one terrorist organization targeting Americans, our allies, our civilians. Not at all clear, whatever you think of Maduro. And we laid out a pretty negative case about who he is and what he's doing. Not at all clear that the risk and threat he poses to the United States is anything like the risk and threat posed by those organizations. So, yeah, these are really apples and oranges for the reason you cite, but also for just the basic level of malice and threat.
- [28:04]
A
Well, the American people strongly agree with you. As we noted in our New York Times op ed, CBS did a poll. They asked the American people, is Venezuela a serious threat to the United States? 87% of people said no. And 87% of people are in this case, right.
- [28:18]
B
In the category of how these things work sometimes operationally, you described, and the Trump administration has described the special forces building essentially a replica of the building that they thought Maduro would be housed in. And we know that Special Forces did the same when they were going after Haji Abdullah. The other thing they do is not just the life size replica, they will also build almost like a middle school diorama sized replica to bring into the situation room. And when they are briefing the President, the National Security Council, the Secretary of State on the operation, they will go through with a pointer or just by showing you on this relief map that they create exactly where they're going to land, exactly where they expect the target to be, how long they plan to be there. So all of this is not only meticulously planned in the execution by the people who are doing it, but in terms of how it is explained to the civilians who are not obviously sitting at the training site, they go the extra mile to do that too. And you do feel a higher level of comfort when you realize how much preparation has gone into this. All of that said, the level of nervousness about all the different foreseen and unforeseen things that could foul this up is sort of off the charts in these situations. When you realize people from your country who you know your president has sent there are at risk during the hours that they're at the site.
- [29:35]
A
Yeah. And those, it's like you hold your breath the entire time and only exhale when they're, you might call feet dry. They're the helicopters or the planes or whatever it is have left the territory, the hostile territory. And it's man, it is heart pounding stuff and a reminder that things can go wrong. And to your point, when these things succeed, it can lead to overconfidence, it can lead you to think it's always going to work. And I think in the Trump case they are certainly walking around quite cocky right now and it could lead them to decide to take military action in other places and something could always go wrong. I just wanted to flag one other difference between the terrorist operations of the kind we've been talking about in this operation and that is in the Bin Laden raid, in the Haji Abdullah raid, in the strike that we took to take out Zawahiri, the leader of Al Qaeda who followed Bin Laden, bin Laden's number two during 911 there was a remarkable amount of work taken to avoid any casualties beyond the immediate target, basically to try to pull anyone else away from the site. And so for example, in the Zawahiri case, we engineered the weapon so that it would not have a large blast because there were people in the room next door and we also didn't want to bring down the building.
- [31:03]
B
And in the other two cases, to your point, we chose to do those operations by raid instead of by airstrike, in large part to avoid civilians having larger casualties, even though there's higher risk.
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A
Now in the Caracas case, you had a lot of guys with guns. We talked about the Venezuelan and Cuban guards, but you had a lot of other people just rolling around this compound as well. And the method here seems to have been based on the reporting, just go in and blast away. And I think the US government has now said 75 people were killed in this raid, many of them military firing back at our forces. And our forces have every right to act in self defense against any threat that they see. But probably many of them civilians too. So this method of raid of just go in and really open up the magazines was somewhat different from the way that we've conducted much more pinpoint terrorist raids in the past. And memo to bad guys around the world, if you buy Russian surface to air missile systems and you think they're going to protect you in some way, you now have two cases, Iran and Venezuela, where they don't protect you at all. I think the technical term is pieces of garbage. It was definitely a case where whatever the Venezuelans thought these air defense systems were going to do for them, they did not do. Our forces were able to neutralize them and operate in the skies very effectively and without taking any hits from air defense systems.
- [32:33]
B
I think we knew that the Venezuelan military was not formidable. I think that if you got a casualty estimate for what a, a raid like this would generate on your own side, I suspect it was not zero. And the idea that they were able to do this as effectively and as low casualty as they could is really a testament to our special forces, our military, our intelligence people, and to your.
- [32:55]
A
Earlier point, a real signal to the world that the US has these extraordinary capabilities. A good reminder of that. So where do we go from here? What do you see? What should people be looking for in the hours, days, weeks ahead in Venezuela? And then we should talk about obviously beyond Venezuela.
- [33:12]
B
I think we should point out some of the other reasons why we think this was ill advised. One is the United States has a history of these regime change by force military missions in the Western Hemisphere, in the Middle east and other places. And the track record is not good. Over time, these operations tend to look better in the moment than they do in the rearview mirror as it becomes very difficult to control governance, stability, security in these countries. Once we've Gone in and toppled the government. We don't tend to be very good at picking leaders of foreign countries, and when we try, it often ages badly. Iraq is obviously the paradigmatic example, but there are many others as well, including in Latin America. I think we also worry about the precedent that this sets for the rest of the world, which I think you should say more about. You've been quite outspoken and I think correct on this. This idea that President Trump has asserted, as we discussed when we talked about his national security strategy, that the United States has these special prerogatives in our own hemisphere. And apparently now those prerogatives include being able to choose who governs sovereign countries.
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A
In these places and what happens to the resources in those countries. Whether and what happens to their resources.
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B
Yeah, that is not an idea. Whether or not our adversaries like what we did in Venezuela, that concept that in your own neighborhood you can use force to control sovereign countries is an idea that'll be very friendly to Russia, China. Russia is obviously already waging a war on somewhat the same theory about Ukraine, saying that they should be able to control who governs Ukraine and it should, frankly, basically be them. We worry a lot about the Chinese operating on the same theory in the Indo Pacific, including the possibility that they will take action in Taiwan. So I think the precedent to this is dangerous, not just generally, but with these very specific cases of U.S. adversaries.
- [35:11]
A
Yeah, it's interesting just to spend one more minute on Venezuela and then kind of turning to these other implications that I think are quite profound. So the preferred outcome, it seems right now, is client regime, dictatorial regime, the successor to Maduro, running the country with the generals and giving us access to the oil and potentially to minerals in Venezuela. That's the preferred scenario. That's what President Trump seems to be driving at. Second scenario is Delsey Rodriguez and the people around her decide, no, we're not going to do what America tells us, and we start hitting them again. As you pointed out, that is a potential risk. Or we go grab another one of them, whether it's the interior minister, the defense minister, or Delsey Rodriguez herself. A third option, which I think we have to watch for, is that Delsey Rodriguez is not able to actually effectively consolidate power and someone else emerges, or that Venezuela just descends into instability more broadly. And in that world, the whole strategy of having some client dictator is going to fall apart and the implications for the broader region will be real. I suppose a fourth possibility is that at some point, the Trump administration gets more ambitious and says we want to see a transition to democracy. They're not signaling that by any stretch right now. But I think we have to ask, to the point you were making about the possibility for a better future for Venezuela, about whether that scenario is even conceivable. And I'm curious what your answer to that question is. President Trump has basically thrown the opposition leader, Machado, under the bus. I think it would be very tough.
- [36:55]
B
For her to be the leader.
- [36:56]
A
She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect, respect to is there a world in which, as this goes forward, actually it could give way to some kind of political change in Venezuela?
- [37:10]
B
This, to me raises the question of was there a way in which they could have executed this that would have ended positively or increased the odds dramatically that it would have ended positively? And I think had they done this very clean operation to extract Maduro and then immediately pivoted to one of two options, really, for a transition. One is under the Venezuelan Constitution, which obviously the current government basically ignores, it is required that if the president can no longer fulfill his duties within 30 days, the vice president who assumes the duties of the president should call an election. So one option was they could have said to Delsey Rodriguez, okay, you know, you're the acting president or you're the president, because Maduro can no longer fulfill his duties, you have 30 days to call an election in which every opposition candidate who wants to run, unlike last time, when you disqualified Maria Corina Machado, is entitled to run. That is an option that was available to them. They have very much veered away from that. And every time the idea of an election comes up, even Marco Rubio, who is probably the closest there is to a proponent of democracy in Venezuela in this administration, sort of hand waves it away because there's risk and messiness associated with that, too. And they seem to prefer the predictability of dealing with a less antagonistic dictator. If that's how they see Delsey Rodriguez. The other thing they could have said is there already was an election in 2024. Edmundo Gonzalez won that election. Even the Biden administration said, Edmundo Gonzalez won that election. And if we are in charge and in control of Venezuela, we're going to fly Edmundo Gonzalez back in, and you are going to make him the president. Now, a whole lot of risks and things that could have gone wrong with that, but had something in that vein been at least their negotiating position going into their conversations with what's left of the regime. I think they would have had a lot more support for what they've done in the United States and in the rest of the world. We haven't gotten to the reaction of the rest of the world, which has been interesting, I think in some ways more muted than I would have expected for reasons that I think we can speculate about. But I think there would have been much more support had that been what they try to do. Instead, they've just shifted to this very cynical stick with Delsey, take the oil. We should probably talk for a minute about the oil dimension of this, which is highly complicated too. The notion that we're just going to be able to go in and grab all this material wealth from Venezuela, I think is not as straightforward as they're saying. But anyway, I think that would have been a better way forward for them.
- [39:41]
A
Yeah, on the oil thing, I think when we get to pods next week, the week after, we should just devote a segment to that question. And in particular, the question which you and I asked ourselves every day we were in the job, how is what we are doing making the American people better off? Right. We can talk about all this other stuff, but like is this actually helping working families in the United States of America? And I think Trump's answer would be, well, I'm going to get a bunch of oil. But that's super complicated. A because the break even price for American oil majors to go in and try to extract more oil in Venezuela is $80 a barrel, according to some estimates, which is higher than the current price of oil. So it's not even clear you're going to get a lot more oil out of the ground. But then secondly, President Trump has had to come out and say, look, I'm prepared to give taxpayer money to these massive multinational corporations to go build infrastructure in a foreign country, by the way, while taking away energy tax credits here in the United States. And as one of our friends put it, nothing says America first like paying an oil company to drill in Venezuela rather than Texas or Alaska. So I think there are a lot of questions here. You might say a word about it now, but I think just as a preview, we're going to want to go through, is this strategy actually going to deliver any tangible benefit to the United States of America? And I think that there are real reasons to believe the answer to that question is no.
- [41:09]
B
The only thing I'd add is the Trump administration is already trying to make the case that they've generated this windfall. They came out and said the Venezuelans are going to give us 30 to 50 million barrels of oil, which sounds like a big number. It's a lot of barrels.
- [41:24]
A
Also sounds like Dr. Evil, which you were a little bit.
- [41:28]
B
With the hand gesture. The reality is that's like a couple billion dollars in oil at the current market price. We have a federal budget of $7 trillion. The discretionary part of that is like almost 2 trillion DOL. The Pentagon budget is upwards of $1 trillion. This operation and the embargo around Venezuela is probably cost in the hundreds of millions, if not billions. So the notion that a couple billion dollars in oil that apparently Venezuela has made as some sort of peace offering is going to generate material benefit for the United States, which Trump actually said, I'm going to make sure this is money that I'll control for the benefit of the American people. Not going to move the needle for.
- [42:07]
A
Reference, because 30 to 50 million barrels people could be like, well, what does that mean? The United states consumes roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day. So that's two days of oil for America. Back a couple years ago, this didn't get a huge amount of press, but President Biden did these major releases from the American Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and he then bought back oil to fill the reserve. And because of the difference in price, he was actually making 20 bucks every barrel he was buying back. And the Wall Street Journal had this amazing headline that Joe Biden is the greatest oil trader in history on behalf of the American people. So comparatively, what President Biden did compared to this relatively modest thing that President Trump is now touting as the greatest thing ever, we'll have to see what comes beyond that fight.
- [42:58]
B
Not particularly compelled, no military invasion required to do that either.
- [43:03]
A
Yeah, exactly. We did not have to roll the Special Forces into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We do have to worry about this regime grabbing Americans, which they have done before and which, in fact, I believe there were reports that Maduro was doing in the days leading up to his release as well. And when you and I were working the Venezuela file, one of the things we tried to do was bring Americans safely home. And there was a group of them, in fact, work for the oil company Citgo, who had been in prison for years going back to the Trump administration. And we got them out, and they were on a plane home over the Caribbean. And President Biden did a call with their families to say, I have the most amazing news. After many years, your loved ones are coming home. And there was a pause on the phone, and then the first person who spoke said that's the best news I've heard all day. President Biden lost it. He was like, I hope so.
- [44:01]
B
I hope it's been longer than that.
- [44:06]
A
That is really apropos of very little, but since we're talking about Venezuela, I thought I would share one of the more humorous and, frankly, positive moments of our time in the, You know, your point about where all this goes from here is now, I think, the topic that we should really turn to. And you and I made the point in our op ed that President Trump's appetite for the use of military force, military muscle, grows with the eating. And it hasn't even been a week and he's already named a series of countries that he potentially would use military action against, including Colombia and Cuba and Mexico and, of course, Greenland. Now, Greenland is a territory of 55,000 people. It's an autonomous territory of Denmark. Greenland governs its internal affairs. Denmark retains control over sovereign matters, particularly foreign defense and security policy. And the Danes have basically said Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders, it belongs to Greenland and Denmark. It does not belong to the United States. Stephen Miller has gone out and basically said we could go take it by force. No one will stop us. And I think there are real questions now about whether the United States is going to try to forcibly take the territory of a NATO ally. And this would be quite a remarkable watershed moment in modern international affairs.
- [45:58]
B
So Trump has been talking about this for quite some time, including back in his first term, although then it was less in the vein of invasion and more in the vein of we should just, just buy it or make them sell it to us and maybe things come back to that. But this has been a preoccupation of fixation for him for a while. And part of this is strategic, and we can lay out, we probably should, the sort of strategic case for why it would be a good thing if the United States controlled Greenland, which, by the way, bottom line up front, we totally opposed doing anything by military force against NATO. Allies shouldn't have to say that, but that is the truth. But I don't think for Trump, this is really a strategic desire. I think this is much more in the vein of kind of a previous era of American presidents making their bones, making their reputation on expanding the physical landmass of the United States. This is not an idea that has been in the American discourse for well over 100 years. But I think he likes the idea that the biggest island on earth, Greenland, could come under the control of the United States. And then again, like with Venezuela, there is a whole resource dimension of this that we could dig into. But strategically, this is pretty crazy stuff. The notion that the United States would take military action against an ally with no provocation, no threat, only because marginally, we would like to have more of their territory would be about the worst justification for military action that's ever occurred in history, I think. Why do they want to do this?
- [47:36]
A
Yeah, I think it is, as you said, important to lay out what is their logic? What is the argument that they are making in the Situation Room in the Oval Office? What is President Trump thinking when he goes to bed at night and dreams about taking Greenland? First is mineral resources. They believe that Greenland has substantial deposits of minerals, including rare earth minerals, which, of course, have been much the subject of discussion in the U.S. china context, potentially energy resources as well. Second, geography historically, and maybe you want to get into this a bit, the United States has always, a little bit had its eye on Greenland, because from a geographic perspective, in the context of nuclear deterrence with Russia, Greenland is very important for our radar and for our capacity to mount a defense against inbound missiles coming over the Pole. And in fact, the United States has a space force base on Greenland today and a set of radars as part of the protective layer for the United States of America. And then third, I think it really is the point you made, which is from President Trump's perspective, real estate matters in international affairs, this is good real estate. And his presidential legacy will be much burnished if he adds to the overall territory of America. It's not, not an accident that he has the portrait of President James K. Polk in the Oval Office. James K. Polk added a huge amount of the American west when he fought and won the Mexican American war in the mid-1800s. I should add the final point that goes in the zone of this geography element, which is the contested space around Greenland. China has had its eye on it. Russia has had its eye on it. They operate in the waters off Greenland. China has been trying to invest directly on the land in Greenland. So I think President Trump also has in mind in the great power, great game kind of mindset that the United States controlling Greenland muscles out potential other great powers and would say, we need physical control, sovereign control of it, to be able to ensure that we are able to do that. So I think that's the set of arguments that they are making. And they're basically saying, it's there and we can take it. No one's gonna stop us. That was literally kind of Stephen Miller saying the quiet part out loud. On Jake Tapper show on cnn. So I think that's how they've rationalized, constructed an argument for going ahead and doing this. And as you say, I think both of us think that this is not a debatable issue. It is ludicrous to think that the United States of America should go seize the sovereign territory of a very close ally. And one should note the Danes have been with us coming and going in every way in everything we ask of them. I would argue there probably is no better NATO ally. I might be offending the UK and others, but the Danes just always show up and us basically saying to them, for all of that, we're going to stick it to you. It's pretty crazy.
- [50:41]
B
Yeah, I was going to make the same point about the Danes. Just there are countries that you call on when you have a time of need or a time of challenge who sort of maybe get back to you in a few days. And then there are countries that pick up the phone immediately and say how can we help? And the Danes are a how can we help? Ally which are in short supply sometimes. It is interesting, you know, Trump has been on this again since his first term. He came right back to it at the beginning of his second term. By the way, the other thing he did, which is sort of wild, I hadn't really paid much attention to it, is he actually named a special envoy to Greenland, the governor of Louisiana, of all people.
- [51:18]
A
Yeah.
- [51:18]
B
A guy named Jeff Landry, which, you know, what Louisiana has to do with Greenland. Maybe there's some oil and gas connection. I'm not totally sure why we need.
- [51:26]
A
To know about the cage in the Cajun Greenlanders.
- [51:29]
B
Yeah. That may be the hidden rationale for, for all this, you know, and why we need a special envoy to a, essentially a part of Denmark. I'm, I'm not sure either. But all of this speaks to the idea that he does have this desire. And I think we used to laugh it off. And I'm not saying I think this is in the category of more likely than not that we do something, but it has to be taken seriously at this point. They do not get the benefit of the doubt that this is off the table. And every time they are asked if they are taking military force off the table, they say no. The other interesting point you hinted at this. It is just maybe worth talking a little bit about some of the history here, which I found very interesting in preparing for this. So President Trump is not the first U.S. leader U.S. president to have an interest in or designs on Greenland Going Back to the 19th century, 1868, a Secretary of State named William Seward, the Marco Rubio of his day, maybe it's pronounced Seward. The guy who by the way, arranged the purchase of Alaska for the United States, which in its moment was considered to be a massive mistake, became known as his folly, but in retrospect has proven to be an extraordinary investment of resources. He also wanted the United States to look at buying Greenland. He has this incredible quote that I came upon that you could almost imagine a modern version of coming out of Marco Rubio's mouth. He said Greenland has in vast quantities whale, walrus, seal and shark, cod, salmon, salmon, trout and herring, foxes, wolf, reindeer, bear, a myriad of birds. Good coal is found on the western coast at various points extending far north, most cheaply mined and close to good harbors. It's almost the sort of strategic and critical minerals resources argument argument of its day. That didn't happen, I think in large part because the Alaska purchase was considered not a good one, even though it was. In 1910, the United States almost tried to negotiate a sort of three way swap in which Denmark would give the US Greenland. In exchange for Greenland, the US Would give Denmark some islands in the Philippines and then Denmark would turn around and give the Philippines islands. These islands the United States gave to Denmark to Germany. This very complicated deal. Germany would give a piece of territory that Denmark wanted back to Denmark. This actually got negotiated. It never took place.
- [53:48]
A
By the way, that is a hell of a. I mean, that is quite.
- [53:52]
B
High degree of difficulty. High degree of difficulty. And then During World War II, Greenland became this incredibly strategically important territory because US aircraft could not easily fly all the way from the United States to Europe. So they needed an airstrip in Greenland. By the way, our aircraft can now fly to Europe. So less consequential, but that is the beginning of US basing in Greenland, which was quite important. And in the end of that, in 1946, the United States actually did try to buy Greenland from Denmark and offered $100 million in gold. The reaction of the Danish, you could imagine almost being the reaction of the Danish today. The Foreign minister at the time said, while we owe much to America, I do not feel we owe them the whole island of Greenland, even though the United States had just liberated the continent of Europe in World War II. So there is this history and as you say, military basing in Greenland. And that history, by the way, includes an agreement that is on the books still today from 1919 51, in which the United States has actually extensive rights and access militarily to Greenland. That does not really require us to launch a hostile invasion in order to do more there. I think there is plenty that could be done through negotiations. So there is an interesting history here. But as you indicated, the reaction of the current Danish government, of the European leaders who are members of NATO, not exactly positive to what Trump is putting on the table. Table.
- [55:17]
A
No, they actually put out a pretty remarkable statement. A series of European leaders backing Denmark up and saying Greenland belongs to its people. It's for Denmark and Greenland and them only to decide, essentially saying to the US Back off, although it was more polite than I think we would have worded it. That's in the European character. Also, they're trying, I think, not to provoke too much. That $100 million offer you mentioned in 1946, Marco Rubio is essentially peddling a purchase offer. Right. He went out yesterday and said, a lot of the reasons that we're saber rattling is basically because we want to buy it. And I think that we are likely to see the Trump administration put some purchase offer on the table. I would be very surprised if Greenland entertained that. And then the question will be, does the President think, hey, I did the Venezuela thing. Why not do Greenland? I think it's something that we're going to have to watch for. You alluded to this, but all the rationales I laid out for why, why the United States needs Greenland, as Trump says, are absolutely achievable in the current context. More military basing. Denmark says, absolutely, let's do it. Access to minerals and other natural resources. Denmark says, absolutely, let's do it. Pushing back on the Chinese and the Russians. Denmark says, let's make a plan. We're prepared to execute it with you. The only one of the rationales that cannot easily be satisfied with Greenland not being invaded by the United States of America is Trump's desire to be the James K. Polk of the 21st century. Which, needless to say, is not the most compelling reason for us to go.
- [56:52]
B
Only the worst rationale. Only the worst rationale. We can't do that.
- [56:55]
A
Well, by the way, Mette Frederiksen, the Danish Prime Minister, indicated that basically this would put the NATO alliance, not just at risk, but essentially NATO as we know.
- [57:09]
B
She said it would end. Basically, yeah.
- [57:11]
A
Would end. And I think she's not wrong that this would be the death knell of the NATO alliance. If the major player in NATO, the United States of America, attacks and seizes the territory of another NATO member, you can kiss that goodbye. And all of the benefits over all of the decades that have come from the deep transatlantic bond. Poof. And for what? Basically for James K. Polk, I guess. So it's not a surprise to me that even some senior Republicans are coming out and saying, absolutely do not do this. But I actually believe this is an area where you gotta believe President Trump when he says things, and the Congress in a way that we don't believe they're gonna step up seriously on Venezuela should step up and actually say, you cannot use American military force in Greenland. I don't know if they would contemplate that or do that, but there is a potential role for them here so.
- [58:06]
B
Incredible you have to watch this space. But watch this space, I think is the upshot.
- [58:10]
A
And in closing, I think we should bring this right back to where we started. You mentioned the Taiwan exercises and what China's up to out in Asia. The intense, relentless focus of the President on the immediate neighborhood as part of this quote, unquote, Dun Row Doctrine, the new form of the Monroe Doctrine. My view is that people in Beijing right now have long believed America is in terminal decline. And the way they look at this Venezuela action is they think this is the classic pathologies of countries in decline. They lash out at their next door neighbors, their weaker neighbors. And I think this is reinforcing for China, even though they recognize the skill of our special forces, that the US Is increasingly a spent force and that they can operate with greater impunity in their region. And so not only are they getting more aggressive with respect to Taiwan, but just in the last couple days they've actually signaled that they may impose further rare earth controls on Japan and figure the US Won't do anything about it. So the connection between what is happening in Asia and what is happening right here at home is real and something for us to think about and talk about in future episodes. And that that's we call this podcast the Long Game because it's exactly those longer term implications and consequences that aren't immediately apparent that end up coming home to roost.
- [59:32]
B
And by the way, ditto for the what will the US Final negotiating position be when it comes to the Russia Ukraine?
- [59:37]
A
Absolutely.
- [59:38]
B
Will the United States put enough pressure on Russia to get a deal that is just and acceptable to the Ukrainians who by the way, were the ones who were invaded? Or does was president acting inside our own hemisphere and signaling maybe implicitly at least, that others can do the same, suggest that actually he is not going to push for a fair and just deal and put enough pressure on Russia to get it another thing to watch as this unfolds. Also to come well, that's all for today. We'll be back next week with a new episode of the Long Game.
- [60:09]
A
In the meantime, send us your questions and comments@longgameoxmedia.com and find us on substack@staytuned.substack.com the links are in the show notes.
- [60:28]
B
That's it for this episode of the Long Game.
- [60:30]
A
If you like the show, please follow, share with friends and leave a review. It really helps listeners find us for.
- [60:36]
B
Updates and more analysis in your inbox. Join the community@staytuned.substack.com the long game is.
- [60:43]
A
A Vox Media Podcast Network production Executive Producer Tamara Sepper Lead Editorial Producer Jennifer Indig Deputy Editor Celine Rohr Senior Producer.
- [60:53]
B
Matthew Billy Video producers Nat Weiner and.
- [60:57]
A
Adam Harris Supervising Producer Jake Kaplan Associate Producer Claudia Hernandez Marketing Manager Leanna Greenway.
- [61:05]
B
Music is by Nat Wiener. We're your hosts, John Finer and Jake Sullivan.
- [61:09]
A
Thanks for listening.