Venezuela: Iran, Russia and China's South American Proxy?

On Sept. 2, the U.S. Department of Justice reported American agents had seized a corporate jet "owned and operated for the benefit" of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. The agents seized the French-made Dassault Falcon 900EX in the Dominican Republic and then flew it to Florida.

DOJ's website added context. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the plane "was illegally purchased for $13 million through a shell company and smuggled out of the U.S. by Nicolas Maduro and his cronies." Garland added DOJ intends "to pursue those who violate our sanctions and export controls to prevent them from using American resources to undermine" U.S. national security.

The seizure task force was enforcing Executive Order 13884 (issued during the Trump administration), which "prohibits U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with persons who have acted or purported to act directly or indirectly for or on behalf of, the Government of Venezuela, including as a member of the Maduro regime."

The legalese directly targets individuals. Embargoes target nations, financial sanctions companies (entities). Individual sanctions target the perpetrators, in this case Maduro himself.

However, charging Maduro and his cronies with "undermining U.S. security" understates the case. Maduro, his kleptocrat regime, his secret police, his shell companies and his international cronies -- Iran, Russia and China -- are waging a slow war of disintegration targeting the U.S.

Disintegrative warfare -- it means something. The term appears in chapter 13 of a book called "World-System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change" (2000).

In a disintegrative war, a "unitary belligerent becomes increasingly fragmented by secessions."

In other words, a strong nation collapses into weak, vulnerable pieces.

In a March 2024 column, I wrote: "In 2010, China's People's Liberation Army published a treatise on disintegration warfare. In a Joint Forces Quarterly article published in April 2014, Dr. Fumio Ota wrote: 'The idea of (Chinese) disintegration warfare includes politics, economy, culture, psychology, military threats, conspiracy, media propaganda, law, information, and intelligence.'"

Those are general categories. Let's express disintegration in concrete here-and-now U.S. domestic terms: Rampant crime. Lax local and state law enforcement. Bankrupt social safety nets in major cities. Deadly drugs. Impoverishing inflation. Criminal gangs taking control of apartment complexes and neighborhoods. Open borders, which permit human trafficking, to include losing contact with 350,000 illegal immigrant children.

Disintegration expressed in international terms: Proxy "non-state" armies interdicting commerce and conducting "pinprick" but deadly attacks. Think the Houthis in the Red Sea and pro-Iranian militias in Iraq.

Where does Venezuela fit in?

On the international level, Maduro's regime threatens to wage small but economically disruptive wars in the Americas. In December 2023, Maduro held a referendum asking Venezuelan citizens if they wanted to acquire a huge slice of neighboring Guyana -- the Essequibo region.

Maduro envisions a Putin-type annexation, seizing Guyana with military forces.

The Guyanese know Maduro and his Venezuela all too well. The so-called Bolivarian Revolution of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, has literally destroyed Venezuela economically and socially.

That's criminal, especially since Venezuela has an estimated 300 billion barrels of oil. The huge reserves position Venezuela to participate in an energy embargo -- far-fetched at the moment but can't be ruled out.

Venezuelan criminals and criminal gangs have become more active inside the U.S. The Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua operates a bit like El Salvador's MS-13. On Aug. 30, the Colorado Springs Gazette confirmed "the presence of Tren de Aragua, or TDA, in Colorado, and reported that the gang has given 'the green light' for gang members to attack or fire on law enforcement ..." Disintegrative warfare? Yes. The Gazette's source was "a U.S. Department of Homeland Security memo to the Albuquerque Police Department."

Back to the seized Falcon jet. Maduro and his gang violated numerous laws to buy the plane. But it wasn't the first time. The AP reported U.S. authorities have sanctioned 55 Venezuelan-registered planes. The U.S. has also seized a Boeing 747-300 cargo plane transferred from Iran to a Venezuelan state-owned airline.

If Iran sent Venezuela drones and ballistic missiles, Maduro could become a Western Hemisphere Houthi -- interdicting commerce in the Caribbean Sea instead of the Red Sea.

Far-fetched? But that's why proxies exist, to disrupt and distract in a crisis -- say a crisis involving the U.S. and China?

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To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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