Invasion of Venezuela: A psychological operation and an imminent threat

Published at: 26/09/2025 06:24 PM

In Venezuela, since President Hugo Chávez won the presidential elections in 1999, the United States has worked steadily to destabilize the Bolivarian process and force a change of government that responds to its interests. That intention is still in force; therefore, they persist in a permanent attack, both warlike and psychological.

This interventionist policy that the United States has maintained against our country began with the coup d'etat in April 2002, the oil coup of 2002-2003, attempts at destabilization with the help of Venezuelan opponents or the guarimbas of 2014 and 2017, which left more than 200 people dead and institutions burned or destroyed.

Then in 2015, the then US president, Barack Obama signed a decree declaring Venezuela “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the security of the United States”; then, in August 2018, he financed the assassination attempt against President Nicolás Maduro.

Later, in 2019, based on the Obama decree, Donald Trump, during his first administration, issued a series of executive orders, including the prohibition of American companies from buying Venezuelan oil. It even applied sanctions to non-American companies that traded with the Venezuelan State, which reduced the country's income from 55 billion dollars to only 500 million and affected all sectors of the economy.

In the same vein, in May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Venezuelan government frustrated the so-called Operation Gideon, when a group of mercenaries led by a group of former green berets, members of the special forces of the US forces, sought to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro and other Chavista officials. We can also recall the attacks and sabotage against power generation stations, carried out by mercenaries or groups linked to the extreme right financed by the United States, which occurred in 2006, 2009, 2012, 2021 and 2022.

However, the US maintains intervention strategies such as the use of foundations and Non-Governmental Organizations ( NGOs) funded by the National Foundation for Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to channel destabilization actions within communities.

Currently, in this context of the United States' relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean, North American interests in Venezuela and the geopolitical situation, there has been a chain of statements that began on August 7 of this year. The US Attorney General, Pamela Bondi, announced that “the Department of Justice and the Department of State announced a historic reward of 50 million dollars for information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro,” whom she accused of being the world's largest drug trafficker, leading the Cartel of the Suns and having links to a criminal organization extinct called El Tren de Aragua, without any evidence to support such an accusation.

The next day, the news portal The New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump signed an executive order for the US Armed Forces to combat drug cartels, even in the territory of other countries.

Following statements by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, prosecutor Bondi and some legislators, on August 14 the media began to spread information that Washington was sending 4,000 marines, three warships and a nuclear submarine to the sea Caribbean, organized by the Southern Command to combat drug trafficking groups.

The development of situations, such as the bombing of Venezuelan rockers, set off alarm bells throughout the region. The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, and the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, quickly rejected any type of military action against Venezuela.

Immediately, the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples' Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) denounced North American actions and called for strengthening the 2014 declaration of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) declaring Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace.

In Venezuela, the people demonstrated in defense of their sovereignty, their government and peace. They also declared their support for the president, the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) and the members of the National Assembly (AN). President Maduro called for the formation of workers' and peasant militias in defense of the country's sovereignty.

The statements made by Juan Eduardo Romero, national deputy of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to the news portal PIA-Global, make sense when he said: “Everything seems to be a cognitive war operation. The attempt to ensure that factors within the Armed Forces or Venezuelan society attempt some move to bring about a change of government.”

Romero also noted that “they activated all defense mechanisms: the reinforcement of security, territorial displacement, popular mobilization and popular militias , and he assured that free peoples overcome powerful empires.”

It's all a farce, it's about oil

According to the Oilprice.com portal, the global benchmark for energy price measurement, oil price analysis, alternative energy, the largest consumer of oil in the world is the United States, with 19 million barrels a day.

The world knows that the country with the largest proven oil reserves is Venezuela, with 303.8 billion barrels, well above Saudi Arabia and Iran, as stated on the Bloomberg Online portal. Also, geo-strategically, due to a matter of distance, the transfer of Venezuelan oil to U.S. refineries by ship represents a much shorter journey, and, therefore, much cheaper than bringing it from Arab countries.

On the other hand, oil experts have explained that a significant number of North American refineries developed their technology to work with Venezuelan oil, whose characteristics are not the same as those of oil extracted from other parts of the world, so they would have to make a large investment to modify their technology if they decided to work with another oil.

All of this makes Venezuela a key player for US geopolitical interests. The escalation has become evident in recent weeks, following incidents such as attacks on vessels allegedly linked to drug trafficking in the Caribbean, operations that, according to the White House, were carried out in self-defense. However, the Venezuelan government has denounced these actions as military aggression and a violation of its sovereignty. The ambiguity of the US administration, by not providing precise details about the incidents and maintaining a strong naval presence off the Venezuelan coast, has helped to create a climate of tension.

Analysis such as that of Franklin Mora, a former official of the US Department of Defense, in an interview conducted by CNN in Spanish, considered that military deployment in the Caribbean is not enough for a full-scale invasion, but rather that it is a “psychological operation that seeks to intimidate and encourage the military to remove Maduro from power.” In his opinion, the United States could be seeking surgical operations to destroy clandestine tracks used by drug trafficking.

The tense relationship between the United States and Venezuela has entered a new phase, characterized by an intense campaign of psychological pressure that seeks to destabilize the government of Nicolás Maduro. Beyond traditional economic sanctions and support for the opposition, Washington has deployed a strategy of intimidation based on threatening messages, military deployment in the region and selective actions that seek to generate uncertainty and mistrust within the Venezuelan people.

This “war of nerves”, as described by the Secretary General of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello Rondón, “is based on lies, manipulations and fake news, seeking to divide the internal forces of Chavism led by the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio , who seems to have assumed a central role in Washington's policy towards Venezuela, calling President Nicolás Maduro a “criminal” and a “fugitive” from American justice”.

Faced with this growing pressure, the Venezuelan government has responded by displaying its military strength and mobilizing the civilian population. Maduro has been accompanying the people in the midst of military formations, while his defense minister, Vladimir Padrino, has announced the deployment of troops to the country's main borders. This deployment includes the mobilization of more than 8 million militiamen, ordinary citizens who receive basic military training. The government has also denounced an increase in US spy flights over Venezuelan territory, intensifying anti-imperialist rhetoric and accusing Washington of preparing military aggression.

Faced with this climate of tension, the international community notes with concern the deterioration of diplomatic relations due to the campaign of psychological pressure led by the United States, which, although they seek to destabilize the Bolivarian Revolution, continue to bet on diplomacy and dialogue, which will always be the only ways to overcome this crisis and build a future of peace and stability for the Venezuelan people.

AMELYREN BASABE/Mazo News Team