'Regime change on the cheap': Is US 'dramatic show of force' designed to 'scare military' into removing Maduro?

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00:00Well, to talk a little more about this subject, I'm joined now on the line from London by

00:04Christopher Sabiatini, who is a senior research fellow for Latin America on the US and America's

00:11programme at Chatham House Think Tank in London. First of all, welcome to the programme, Mr Sabiatini.

00:18Thank you so much for your time. We do appreciate it. Maybe first of all, I could begin by asking

00:25you, you know, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro says this is all about engineering regime

00:32change in his country. Is he right? Yes, quite frankly, he is. He is also engaged in illicit

00:40arms trafficking and money laundering and cocaine trafficking. But the truth is, is he's correct

00:47on this. There's no reason, first of all, why the US would be so concerned with drug traffickers

00:52leaving Venezuela. First of all, Venezuelan, the cocaine that transits through Venezuela,

00:57it doesn't produce it, but the cocaine that transits through Venezuela only represents about

01:005% of the cocaine that enters the US. Also, Venezuela doesn't produce fentanyl. That is

01:08produced in Mexico, although Trump alleges that these boats are carrying fentanyl, that's simply

01:13untrue. It doesn't produce fentanyl. The real reason here is the hope that they can dislodge

01:20Maduro from power, and maybe some of his cronies as well, to stage a more pro-US government that is

01:28less engaged in illicit activities, that is more democratic, and they can open up the country for

01:33investment. So that's what this is really about. And the hope is, by this dramatic show of force,

01:38and it escalates, it's been going on since late August until now, and now with the arrival of the

01:42US, Steril Ford, the hope is that they will scare the military into removing Maduro or pressuring him

01:49to go into exile, and they can have a sort of a regime change on the cheap. As you mentioned in

01:54your report, Donald Trump has said he doesn't plan to go to war with Venezuela. They're hoping to do

01:58this without actually bringing any sort of force on land to do that. But this escalation does lead

02:05us to wonder, if that doesn't work, what will come next? And do you think it is likely to work?

02:11You know, Maduro is saying he's organized a huge military operation to counterattack. You know,

02:16would Venezuelans fight? They know they would have very little chance against the US. And how popular

02:23is Maduro in Venezuela? Do you think this could work? Do you think that some in the Venezuelan army

02:29might change? A lot of questions there, Angelo. So let me address the first one. Maduro is not

02:36popular in Venezuela. There was an election last year that Maduro stole international election observers

02:41and the opposition, which collected the individual tally sheets and the receipts printed out by the voting

02:45machines, demonstrated the opposition won close to 70% of the vote, and Nicolas Maduro only won about

02:5130%. But he went on to declare his own victory, never provided any evidence for those claims. So

02:56he's clearly unpopular. He's led the country into economic ruin. More than 8 million Venezuelans

03:01have fled the country. There is a deep problem right now of inflation approaching about 400% in the

03:06country. So he's not popular. The problem is what he's done over the last, well, several decades,

03:11including the time when his predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez, was in power, is effectively corrupt

03:17the military, is give the military access to many of the transit points in which cocaine passes over,

03:23give them access to favorable conditions on a currency exchange rate so they can engage in arbitrage

03:28to make money in imports. He's also granted other armed groups control over the rich gold mining area in

03:35the Orinoco, including the Colombian guerrilla group, the ELN. So what he's done is he's basically

03:41coup-proofed his government. He's implicated them in this entire corrupt scheme that he is running,

03:46along with Vladimir Pavarino, who you mentioned in your report, too, and Diosdado Cabello. These guys are

03:52indeed deeply involved in narcotics trafficking and illicit activities, but they've implicated the

03:57military. So the military is unlikely to turn. They're also unlikely to turn because Maduro and Chavez before

04:03him have brought in Cuban spies who've deeply penetrated the entire intelligence sector and

04:08also the military, and they're keeping an eye on who expresses any dissent with this government.

04:13If you dissent with this government and you're in the military, you will have a very difficult time.

04:18This government not only jails those dissenters within the military, he also jails their families,

04:23and there's several dozen former military officers currently in political prison, and a number have

04:28been killed, and they're more in exile. So it's unlikely the military is going to turn on Maduro in

04:33this case. It's also, though, unlikely the U.S. will intervene or invade Venezuela. It's a country of

04:4128 million people, multiple urban centers, jungles, mountains, as well as a number of armed groups,

04:47including paramilitaries that are deeply loyal to Nicolás Maduro, the colectivos they're called.

04:53So they would face an uphill battle. The U.S. would probably win it, but it would be a difficult

04:58battle with multiple fronts to be fought and with multiple armed groups to confront. And as we know,

05:03Donald Trump doesn't have the stomach for what he denounced as forever wars in the 2016 campaign

05:09against Hillary Clinton then, and referring in particular to Iraq and Afghanistan. So I don't

05:16think the U.S. is about to invade. I think it may strike some targets safely from missiles and from

05:21the boats that are parked off the coast, but I don't see it invading. And the hope is by doing

05:25that somehow, it will spark some regime change that will remove Maduro from power and somehow lead

05:31to the opposition to take power. I think that latter part is highly unlikely. I just don't see that

05:35happening, given the current array of characters you have in this government and given the deep

05:40corruption and weakness of the Venezuelan state.

05:43The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, has ordered that his people should suspend any

05:52intelligence sharing with Washington over this. You know, does the United States value

05:58their intelligence? We're also hearing unconfirmed reports that the U.K. has also said it might

06:04suspend intelligence sharing because it fears perhaps being involved in illegal operations.

06:10Is Trump bothered by that?

06:13I doubt in the case of Colombia and Trump and the president Petro of Colombia have had a very

06:20public spat, including Gustavo Petro calling for Trump's ouster. One clear how. So I don't think

06:28the Petro connection bothers him that much, although it is actually a loss for U.S. military intelligence.

06:33The U.S. has had a very deep security relationship with Colombia going back decades, in part because

06:39of the guerrilla insurgency that existed at the time and narcotics. So they are going to lose

06:43intelligence and a certain number of assets in Colombia. But symbolically, it doesn't matter

06:47much to Trump. If indeed the case is true in the United Kingdom, we'll see. But it's certainly been

06:52alleged that they are going to suspend sharing intelligence with the United States and the

06:56Caribbean. And they have very good intelligence networks in the Caribbean, given their interests

07:01there and their presence in the Caribbean. Maybe because we don't know. And the truth is,

07:07is that many of these cases, the boats that you saw being bombed, we don't know whether they're

07:12carrying drugs. We don't. There was this is not a typical operation for drugs interdiction.

07:17Typically, the Coast Guard boards the boats, confirms that there are drugs there and then

07:21arrest the people. But in this case, they're blown to smithereens and sink to the bottom of the ocean.

07:26So we don't know, actually, if they were carrying drugs, if they were serious narcotics traffickers,

07:31cartel members. So we don't know if UK intelligence played a role in that. But what we can say is if

07:37the UK is suspending its operations of intelligence sharing with the United States, it shows a huge

07:42amount of displeasure with the illegality of what the Donald Trump administration is doing right now,

07:49of labeling these people narco-terrorists and killing them in international waters without a trial,

07:55without any form of evidence, without any form of due process. Clearly, if the UK is doing this,

08:01it's sending a signal that it's willing to risk other elements of intelligence cooperation simply

08:06in the name of preserving international law and condemning the extrajudicial killing of suspects.

08:12You've just outlined there all the ways in which it flouts international law. Trump operates on this

08:19very kind of approximate way of doing things very often. Is it working in terms of do ordinary

08:24Americans think it's a good policy? And is it having any effect, even if, as you say, there's no evidence

08:31that actual drug traffickers are being eliminated? They might be, they might not be. But it's sending a

08:38signal, a wider signal. Is there any evidence that it's actually working and that drug trafficking

08:42is significantly diminishing?

08:46So there are several questions there again, Angela. First of all, Americans do actually, a majority of

08:51Americans do support these actions. But we have to recognize these are pretty cost-free actions. I mean,

08:56not cost-free to the taxpayers. It's estimated that sending the aircraft carrier costs about $8 million

09:02a day. And even before then, people were estimating it was close to several million dollars a day for the rest

09:07of the fleet. Because there are now about 15,000 U.S. soldiers or naval officers and personnel off the

09:14coast of Venezuela. So it's not cost-free. But in this case, this doesn't represent a threat to U.S.

09:19lives. It doesn't represent a commitment to boots on the ground. And in that case, when you look at the

09:25numbers, although many Americans support the idea of these operations, they do deeply oppose. Only about

09:3120 percent, a little over, close to 30, really support any sort of U.S. military action. So it's

09:38popular in the sense of as long as it remains cost-free, but very unpopular if there's going

09:43to be the commitment of troops. Now, has this stopped the flow of drugs? No. As I mentioned,

09:48only this is really insignificant in the amount of drugs that flows to the United States.

09:53Five to eight percent of the drugs comes from Venezuela, mostly come by flying over Venezuela or

09:58stopping over briefly. Fentanyl is not produced in Venezuela. Most of the cocaine actually that's

10:03produced or flown over Venezuela is headed towards Europe and Western Africa. So again, this is,

10:09no pun intended, trumping up an excuse to basically try to threaten Maduro by alleging that somehow the

10:17Venezuelan government is complicit in killing American lives from overdoses. And by the way,

10:22most of the American lives that are killed by overdoses, tragically, about 80,000 last year,

10:26aren't killed by cocaine, they're killed by fentanyl. But fentanyl is not produced in Venezuela.

10:31So this is really an element of trying, Trump trying to do two things, mobilize his base in

10:36support of defending America first, in this case from drugs, but then also trying to promote regime

10:41change to a regime that really has been an enemy for Donald Trump, even going back to his first term,

10:46when they created a parallel shadow government and nominated by the National Assembly,

10:51an interim Democratic president, Juan Guaido, in the hope, again, in that case, that the military

10:57would defect in suing their support from Maduro to Juan Guaido. It didn't happen. This time,

11:02Donald Trump is bringing real weapons and real threats of intervention off the coast of Venezuela.

11:08We'll see if this works. It may, but I highly doubt it.

11:11Really interesting. Christopher Sabatini, that's all we have time for, sadly. Thank you so much for

11:17sharing your knowledge with us and your insights on this. Christopher Sabatini there, Senior Research

11:22Fellow for Latin America on the US and the Americas Programme at Chatham House Think Tank in London.

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