I was on an Indian webcast regarding the Venezuelan crisis a few days ago with a senior professor and defense ministry advisor from Brazil. Check it out. youtube.com/watch?v=W6x9...

I have been following the Venezuela-Guyana crisis for two years. There is plenty of support for the U.S. in that neighborhood and from NATO members like UK, France, and Canada. We wrote this for the Foreign Area Officers' in-house journal: faoajournal.substack.com/p/resolving-...

Ackshually the U.S. is not the only one handling the Venezuela crisis and wanting Maduro gone. Brazil, Colombia, and Guyana want that too. Brazilians began deploying forces at the tri-border to stop an invasion of Guyana in 2023-24. Colombia has signed an air surveillance treaty with Guyana in 2025.

IMO, Russia may be key to the Venezuela crisis since it needs Venezuelan oil off the market, i.e., Maduro in power and sanctions by the U.S.. If Russian An-124 transport planes land in Venezuela they can deliver Kalibr and Oreshnik missiles that can reach Panama; and the S-400 Air Defense System.

The U.S. aircraft carrier Gerald Ford has been located around Gibraltar for a few days. It is not moving to the Caribben where it can be used for strikes on land targets in Venezuela. www.twz.com/sea/uss-ford...

Friday evening of a frustrating week means I turn to the spirit of an indomitable people.

FYI: besides the military, groups with weapons in Venezuela include the Colectivos, the drug cartels, ELN and FARC dissidents.

When everyone in DC becomes a Venezuela expert. lol "It takes two sides to have a civil war, and only the military is armed." foreignpolicy.com/2025/11/07/t...

There are MSME defense manufacturing firms doing innovative stuff that the Primes buy out. Partly because U.S. acquisitions process is so slow and complex. Then the Primes will (badly) in-house it or worse: shelve it or sit on it because it competes with or is incompatible with existing platforms.

Number of times people casually tell you, they know the guy who is the only producer of a key component of an important equipment made by a Prime or Subprime will boggle your mind. How many can they make in a year? What happens if they go out of business? Who cares? Shareholder Value Uber Alles!

If y'all want to know about how our Defense Industrial Base got so sclerotic, this played a part: most nobody in DC* wanted to go up against the Primes because they wanted jobs after their political appointments. *think tankers are somewhat excluded, but they have other issues like group think.

Been in a couple of conversations where people expressed a desire to duck political appointments for the low pay. So, what goes on in DC is that you either come from inherited or self-made money or you make money via lobbying after you're done. The latter also affects what you do when in a position.

One bit of International Relations news that should get way more attention is how Russia and China collaborated to pressure Tajikistan to kick out India from the Ayni airbase in 2023 and how India hid that until late-2025.

India's BrahMos missile sale to Indonesia may affect foreign policies of third countries. 1. It will upset Sino-Russian ties because the BrahMos is primarily for the South China Sea. 2. It will upset the U.S. because of its Russian parts. The U.S. may impose CAATSA sanctions on Indonesia. 1/2

Maduro in November 2024 uses threats of annexation of tiny neighbor Guyana to gin up popular support in Venezuela. Maduro in November 2025:

I ate two chillidogs for lunch, today, at a department function. Can't turn down a free sandwich.

The U.S. is planning to reopen the Manta airbase and Salinas naval base in Ecuador. The decision by Ecuador is contingent on an upcoming referendum to make the necessary legal changes. www.infobae.com/america/amer...

This is wrong. MP Materials both mines and processes rare earths at Mountain Pass in California, meeting a significant piece of US REE consumption (15%, maybe). Score is building a processing facility in Louisiana and the US has invested in mining in Canada through DPA.

Very few Americans realize how China has us by the short hairs because it exports rare earth minerals we use for defense equipment like the F-35 as California has stopped mining and processing due to environmental concerns.

The real problem is time. I agree on the dangers of VC in defense manufacturing. But I can't stress what a crisis we faces. U.S. had a 10 times ship building advantage over Japan in WW2. China has a 230 times advantage over us. How do we deter an invasion of Taiwan and the finlandization of SE Asia?

Most everyone I talk to who is involved in the U.S. defense manufacturing sector agrees with this take. India literally had to shut up after China took over a swathe of territory because its economy is utterly dependent on China, its top trading partner.

How Venezuela’s Military Might Respond to U.S. Attacks - The New York Times share.google/oAqQdsZ05jFl...

One of the strangest aspects of the last Peron presidency was open violence between the right-wing and leftwing Peronists. This was apart from other violent left and right-wing groups. As long as Peron lived, the differences were somehow managed. But his widow and successor couldn't manage that.

Exododus is The Byrds' rendition of Marley's Exodus. At least that's the word.

Well, I hope the Exododus from NYC doesn't affect East Tennessee.

The SS-Sandal (R 12-Dvina) had a range of 2000-2500 Kms. Recipe can be found here: www.food.com/recipe/the-c...

The NJ gubernatorial election is promising to be utterly hilarious.

What is the range of a sandwich? A mitraillette sandwich should technically have a maximum range of 200 meters, but effective range would be 150 meters.

lol

Ritwick Ghatak, the great Bengali director, communist, and drunk, once spoke outside one of our businesses, and accused my grandfather of exploiting them to send my father to Switzerland to get his Fellowship at the Royal College of Surgeons. His few (complete) movies are still admired by cinéastes.

I see, we are in the Drop Dead NYC rerun of the 1970s. Detente with super power rival, reset with allies, retreat from long foreign wars, political violence, and awareness industrial decline have all happened. So why not, this? All I want are proper discos, polyester shirts, and bellbottoms.

I was honored to join an interaction organized by Print India's Swasti Rao on the Venezuelan crisis. www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6x9...

Hi Bluesky. We’re Contemporary European Politics (CEP) a journal by Wiley & UACES, publishing cutting-edge research on the politics, governance & societies of Europe. Follow us for new articles, special issues, & insights shaping Europe’s future. #EuropeanPolitics #AcademicResearch #UACES #Wiley

Good Morning! FYI Distance from Venezuela to Panama: 1,545 Km Oreshnik missile range: 2,500-3,000 Km Kalibr missiles range: 1,500-2,000 Km www.armyrecognition.com/news/aerospa...

I find this performative European self-flagellation baffling when the US air traffic control system is breaking down and China's economy is struggling with inert domestic demand. What are held up as US or Chinese external strengths are often symptoms of their internal crises

Caveat: a couple of major critiques of the firm's methods are now up. One about margins of error and the other about how they select respondents. I am not a stats guy, so y'all be the judge.

IMO, regional public opinion on Maduro shouldn't be seen as a rejection of other left or right wing populists. Bolivia voted out MAS after 25 years, but Lula, Petro and Boric are in Brazil, Colombia and Chile. Milei and Bukele are popular in Argentina and El Salvador. Maduro is seen as uniquely bad.

A lot of regional support for U.S. intervention in Venezuela for regime change according to this AtlasIntel-Bloomberg poll. It's not surprising if you know about the refugee crisis (7.9/28 million), narco-backing (to EU not U.S.), support for FARC and ELN, etc.. www.atlasintel.org/poll/latam-w...

I can only surmise they are quite literally working to keep an eye on movements in Venezuela. Given satellite coverage is not comprehensive, this is the only option. They will be worried about Venezuelan assets seeking refuge in remote north Brazil. Recall Iraq AF flight en masse to Iran in 1990.

Can any defense experts here explain this move by Brazil? I don't understand strategy. Thanks in advance! Brazil shifts air operations closer to Venezuela share.google/yzLoiOiw02bx...

I'm a member of the theater honor society APO because I managed the box office and helped set up backdrops and lights for four years for minimum wage. Guess what happens to your lower back and knees from carrying lumber and then walking, crouching, kneeling, and crawling ramps above the stage? 😄

We don't have to wonder, we can just look up the number of targets from «The Military Balance 2025» and asses the cost of destroy each of these platforms with traditional operation reaserch approaches (IE how hard was it for the Turks to blow them up in Libya.) Also none of these platforms are

A big airbase is being renovated and tents are being set up in Puerto Rico. The Aircraft Carrier will be the Caribbean in 7 days. OTOH, land forces aren't enough to invade. These are costly but specific signals to Venezuela and reveal what the U.S. will do. I am no strategist, so I can't explain.

Venezuela has Value Arms, mostly from Russia. The U.S. has high tech, high price weapons. Assuming there's no land invasion besides Special Ops, the question isn't whether the U.S. can demo Venezuelan air defenses and establish air supremacy. It is at what cost? Attritability matters, yet again.

One thing most analysts on the right and left avoid talking about is that Venezuela and other Pink Tide governments in Latin America were products of the U.S. unipolar moment from 1990-2020. This is akin to Hoover-FDR's Good Neighbor era that allowed Vargas, Peron, finally Arbenz before Cold War 1.

The Venzuelan crisis' Great Power Competition with China should not be overlooked. This includes oil and byproducts that China needs for its navy and infrastructure, as well as a location for medium range missiles pointed at the U.S.. chinaglobalsouth.com/2025/09/23/c...

AGM-154C JSOW glide bomb deliveries to Taiwan will be further delayed to 2027 and 2028, a Ministry of National Defense report says. The delivery was originally due to be completed in 2023.

“.. The military buildup in the region is the largest unrelated to disaster relief since 1994, when the United States sent two aircraft carriers and more than 20,000 troops to Haiti ..” @reuters.com www.reuters.com/graphics/USA...

Indian news sources on Russia are generally pro-Russia. This is the state owned TV channel, too. So, the bit on deep Wagner is embedded in Maduro's security forces is unnerving. He ain't leaving without a fight. ddnews.gov.in/en/putin-rus...