, 20 tweets, 5 min read Read on Twitter
It is tempting to believe that US military intervention would quickly and efficiently solve #Venezuela's woes, or at least preferable to the current status quo.
The US military, after all, is the most sophisticated and technologically advanced in the world, and the Venezuelan military is made up of hungry soldiers and a militia that trains like this:
So why do experts almost universally agree that a US military intervention of Venezuela would be a disaster?

In part, because intervention is more costly in reality than on paper and in part because rebuilding after a foreign intervention is difficult.
According to @FrankMora_FIU, there are two plausible ways the United States might use military force in Venezuela: 1. a precision bombing campaign or 2. a full-scale invasion.
foreignaffairs.com/articles/venez…
Either option would probably be successful at removing Nicolás Maduro from power.

This is not the problem. The problem is what comes *after*.
Mora says, "Even if a military intervention began well, U.S. forces would likely find themselves bogged down in the messy work of keeping the peace and rebuilding institutions for years to come."

But why would the US be needed for rebuilding? Couldn't Venezuela do this itself?
Probably not. Rebuilding countries need strong militaries to guarantee order and stability in the state building process, but invading forces necessarily destroy those militaries.

@QuicoToro pointed this out back in February: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…
Imagine Venezuela after a successful US intervention, with a weakened or destroyed FANB and an even stronger presence of the ELN, armed criminal groups/megagangs, and colectivos (among others). The only options are anarchy or a long-term US presence--or both, like Iraq or Libya.
But what about Panama (1989) and Grenada (1983)? Those were operationally successful, right?

Panama and Grenada are nothing like Venezuela in terms of their geography, state security apparatuses, or importantly, institutions.
Moreover, in terms of state capacity, Venezuela today is just as similar, if not more, to Saddam's Iraq or Gaddafi's Libya (I'll come back to this).
@DenisonBe wrote about this back in January, summarizing his dissertation research on foreign invasions and applying it to Venezuela:
washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…
Using historical data, he shows that:
1. Trying to change a foreign regime generally fails, especially when the outside power is attempting to build new domestic institutions.
2. Policymakers think interventions are easy, which leads to poor planning.
and...
3. Local institutional strength is crucial in determining the success of foreign intervention and nation-building.

So, state capacity and institutional strength are key to reconstruction efforts. This bodes poorly for Venezuela.
Depending on the specific indicator, the country probably possesses the weakest state capacity and institutional strength of any country in the Americas.

First, here is Venezuela's government effectiveness in comparative context; it is the lowest in Latin America.
That is not all. Here I graph "state authority over territory" against "rule of law index". Countries in the upper right score well, well those in the lower left (Yemen, Syria, South Sudan) score poorly. Venezuela ranks really low.

How low?
The second chart overlays Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Panama, and Iraq before their most recent foreign interventions. Venezuela fares poorer on rule of law and state authority over territory than ANY of these other places.
Numbers reflect the state's lack of monopoly on the use of force, due to ceding control of prisons to pranes, selected urban areas to criminal groups, and rural areas, like the Arco Minero, to gangs.

Venezuela isn't Iraq or Libya--it may be WORSE.
Removing leaders in those places was relatively easy, but post-intervention occupations and rebuilding have not been.

As I wrote back in January, Venezuela's weak institutions and low stateness would require a sustained institution-building project to achieve stability.
This suggests that any military intervention--targeted or full-scale--would be likely to end with a lengthy occupation.

Venezuela's situation is dire, but any plan to remove Maduro and his cronies must also consider what comes next. FIN
@serguzes wrote about the same topic in 2018:
thebogotapost.com/the-invasion-o…
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